WinXP Pro with my tweak guide and you're seriously rocking out man!
Sound card...oh boy! Here we go again! lol!
How many ins and outs do you need? What type of bit and sample resolution do you "need" vs "want" or both!
Opus

Oh...and cheers to your ANUS! I'll slug a Fosters for ya later on! :D
Opus

Hey Opus!
Yes i'm sure several beers would be slugged but not Fosters.
Ouch! Aussies don't touch it. Victoria Bitter is the fave here.
I don't mind Millers. Is that alright?
Anyways. Soundcards?
1/4 inch and XLR ins. and MIDI. 24/96 would be good.
Low latency. not alot of ins/outs needed actually.
I was looking at some of the M-Audio stuff?

What about the Echo Audio stuff? Mona looks real nice!
How many ins and outs total do you need?

Miller? Now that my friend is pisswater out here!
I like a Foster's every once in a while..I love Sam Adams, Pale Ale's, Guiness...

Opus :D

Okay. Australia and US both have domestic pisswater!

Checked out Echo site. Mona too overspec'ed for me.
For mainly track-at-once analog recording I think i need:

-2 x universal analog in so it can take guitar in and XLR as well
-MIDI in/out (for keyboard control of softsynth)
-SPDIF in/out
-selectable bit depth/frequency
-monitor outs
-low latency
-headphone out

As for analog outs i'm not sure. Do i need 'em if i mix in the computer environment?
I might need them for running hardware effects across a mix? I'm unsure. :-/

I might wait and see what USB2.0 brings. I have that on my Asus Peefourbee.
While i wait i could set about archiving all my old 4 trck demos onto hard disk.
Opus, i notice on your site that you offer that service. That would keep me occupied!

hey mc,
i've been using the m-audio omni studio and have been very satisfied. i haven't logged a lot of hours on it yet but what i've done i've been pleased with. m-audio has provided the wdm drivers for w2k( and XP i believe) and if you have enough machine, tweaked ala Opus, i believe you'll get the latency down pretty low. hence, this is why i am in the process of putting together my ANUS. you probably won't find many high dollar professional studios going this route but they have the budget (and the need for more i/o routing), i don't.

btw O,
what significant differences are you realizing with XP vs W2k? i am almost at that fork in the road stage and i'm looking for direction.

XP is a hell of a lot faster in response time when running applications and so forth..I switched to XP at work as well and it's night and day over 2K!!
I've also noticed that when in Nuendo and you are playing and you do the zooming thang it doesn't stutter or cause any waveforms to disappear!
I would highly reccomend XP now..it's one hell of an OS once you get it tweaked just right!

High end studios are using this type of setup actually ....UMPG is building an ANUS as we speak!
Opus

i was referring to the omni actually. the ANUS being used doesn't suprise me in the least. with everything i've read here i can't wait to get mine up and running. thanks for the XP info.