the motu/Ber does give some good option for the future and variation

a basic multi track record at 44.1 24 bit for the live stuff now
just check that it can do 44.1 on the internals while the ADATs are linked etc
hard to know what might not work ... just by reading a web site

16 ADAT
8 x 192k recording
S/MUX optical I/O at 96 kHz
control room monitoring
cue sends
Headphone
TalkBack
effects

" daisy-chained with additional MOTU FireWire audio interfaces or other devices. "

on paper it seems to do much of you want to do NOW and what you may want to do in the future

The zed r16 does look cool and seems to have good support

You probably need to have these things demonstrated in the configuration as you want to use them right now
NOT a quicky
a real demonstration with a mic or two plugged in and some heaphones so you can imitate what you may need to do during the live record
Have it recording silence from ALL the available inputs and make sure it responds the way you expect

I'd personally stay away from the Behringer. The price was appealing to me, so I picked one up. It lasted for quite awhile (I sold it about a year ago and it was still working just fine), but I quickly found that the sound was a bit harsh and only used it as a last resort.

If you can afford a slightly better 8 channel ADAT, I would recommend checking others out.

The 15" MacBook Pro only has one FW 400 port. You'll either have to daisy chain your interface and hard drive, or use a USB hard drive. If you can afford it, go for the 17" and pick up a FW card for the ExpressCard Slot. I got the 15" in June and am starting to wish I held out for the 17".

Afaik SonAr is Windows only, unless something has changed recently.

hueseph wrote: Afaik SonAr is Windows only, unless something has changed recently.

Yes of course it is and what was meant to go in there was "logic" not sonar embarrassingly. Told you I'm a newbie :oops:

Thanks for the time.