Harmony

You didn't mention what bit depth you're currently using. First don't confuse sample rate and bit depth. Sample rate (for example 44,100 Hz) is the number of times per second that your device records a "piece" of audio. Bit rate (for example 24 bits) tells you how accurately your computer or audio device can playback/record each of those thousands of pieces of audio. 44,100 is a LOT of pieces of audio per second, and without getting into details, that's about the limit of what the human ear can hear. Once you get into higher sample rates (for example 96,000 Hz) it's physically more than your brain can process. So the audio benefits of super high recording rates are questionable. One potential advantage is in downsampling or time stretching audio. If you record at a high sample rate, the programs that downsample (for instance if you want to record to a CD which is at 44,100 Hz) and the programs that timestretch audio will have a lot more info to work with and can produce better results (especially with time stretching). Bit depth is a little more subtle in how it affects your audio, but unlike going from 44,100 Hz to 96,000 Hz where it's physically questionable whether humans can hear the difference, there is certainly a difference between 16bit audio and 24bit audio. The most important benefit of 24bit audio imo is the increased recording headroom it gives you. More bits means you can record more subtle changes in the audio, and at 16bits you're gonna miss some stuff. "Missing stuff" here would result in digital clipping and that's bad. Also, the greater ability to record subtle changes in audio means that your device can better tell the difference between actual audio and random noise. Layman's terms: you get a lower noise floor and more headroom with higher bit depths. So bottom line, I usually record at 24bit/44,100Hz if it's a general project. If I'm feeling special I record at 24bit/48,000Hz to eek the last little bit of humanly perceptible audio out of my source.

No, in some (certainly not all) cases you won't be able to hear it in the final mix, and yeah you could (and I'd have to) sort of edit it out. But if I paid hundreds of dollars for samples to a huge company that makes samples all day long, I'd expect them to have put in a day of work listening to their samples to make sure that crap doesn't happen. I mean we're all worried about 24 bit 96kHz super-triangular-hyperbolic-dithered perfection and I've got a cough in my recordings!? I'm interested to hear if anyone else can reproduce it though.

As a paying customer, I would be pissed.

No, that's right. 8 preamps for 8 mic recording sources. Note though that preamps are only needed for sources (like mics) that are not line-level. Preamps are not required for electric guitars or for hardware synths, for example. So #inputs you need doesn't necessarily equal #preamps. Every interface I know of gives you at least two outs, and many give you more for flexibility. It comes down to personal choice at some point. imo, look at what you want and buy the absolute best that you can afford. If you want to get 5-8 mic inputs at a time into you software, go for something with at least 8 preamps. Settling for less would personally frustrate the hell out of me. So if you want 8 but can only afford the saffire, I say go for it. As I've said, I was in your position where I wanted 8 but had initially budgeted for the $500 firestudio project. I ended up pushing that budget up closer to $700 (even though I got lucky and found what I wanted for $600), but now I am totally confident that I have one of the best products in our class. That confidence, more than the actual features, is where I feel the additional money went. Example: When Win 7 came out, M-Audio was very open about the progress of their drivers. They released betas which worked great, as do the the final versions. The Sapphire interfaces still use Vista drivers and I'm not even sure they have one for 64bit. When I shell out $500 or more for something, I don't want headaches like hoping my drivers work, or worrying about shady tech support (M-Audio has the best tech support I've ever had to deal with), or worrying that my unit will die a few months down the road.

I recorded 2 simultaneous audio sources at 24/48 with 2.7-5.8ms latency routinely with my usb 1.1 interface (FastTrack Pro). I can't do better than that with my FW interface. What kind of latency are you seeing with the mobile-pre? understandable; I would want to use that as my primary either considering the upgrades you're talking about. Bus power has it's advantages in our price range though. The fw interface I have now is not bus powered and uses a power cord with a transformer. Those transformers are notorious for introducing interference with audio signals, and yeah I hear the interference from mine. You've gotta route your audio very carefully around it just to minimize that. Secondly, if you lose or damage yours, replacing it isn't always cheap or easy. More expensive units have internal power supplies that eliminate the need for the transformer. again, if you're planning to get some hardware synths with midi, sure. But for your controllers, especially anything with a usb port, don't waste your money - you won't gain any speed. For 8 pre amps, yeah that's budget. Consider it on a per-pre basis (one of the most expensive components). A great pre amp alone like Avalon or Greatriver will cost you $1000 or more per channel. A mid level pre like the p-solo will cost you $500 per channel. You're looking at paying less than $100 for each preamp and in real terms its even less because the audio interface includes other semi-expensive items like AD converters. eh, the only way I could see that being a problem is if you were connecting either more than 4 ribbon mics (lucky rich bastard) or more than 4 condensers and a ribbon mic. If not, then just keep the ribbons on 1-4 or 5-8 and you'll never risk damaging them because you thought you were only turning the power off on condensers or dynamics. If you don't have any ribbon mics, this is essentially irrelevant.

Upgrades are always fun. My 2 cents on some of your questions: I like to think of the "mobile" preface to be an added feature, not an indication that the device is somehow not optimized for desktop use. I know there's the whole idea of usb not being as "smart" about it's data transfer as fw, but I just don't see running into issues of overloading the usb bus. I piped stuff into my FastTrack Pro (a mobile usb 1.1 interface!) like a madman and didn't have significantly more problems with it than I've had with my ProFire 2626. Not exactly sure what you mean here. If you connect via midi cable to a usb interface, the data transfer is still "limited" by the usb of the interface. And there's really no perceptible limitation. While latency can come from a variety of sources, the latency introduced directly between your controller and the processor is completely insignificant when compared to the latency added by the time it takes your cpu to crunch the numbers and tell your daw to tell your audio card to tell your monitors to play a sound. Even going to fw isn't going to dramatically change your latency, all else equal. I get the basically the same latency on my fancy ProFire as I do with my usb 1.1 FastTrack pro. Bottom line: reduce latency by getting a faster cpu. No. Like you said, you can go usb, fw or pci and get the same functionality. The differences are primarily ease of connection, compatibility, potential latency, and cost. You've got options. The easiest and I'd say best way would be to hook your axiom up via usb. It'll be bus powered and you can easily transfer presets without having to plug it up each time (yeah I know, I don't do that often either, but w/e). Then you could use the interface's midi port for the other controller. The axiom can also function as a midi interface where you could plug it up via usb, plug another midi controller up to it's midi in port, and still have the midi in/out on your interface free for another device. If you're dead set on using midi cables, you could buy a midi patch bay or small dedicated 2x2 midi interface that would allow you to directly connect both to the interface and share the 16 channels of midi between the two devices. But this is just overkill for a couple of controllers. I was recently in the market, and Jimmy advised me against the firestudio project, having had a number of problems with a number of different units during his time at guitar center. The saffire pro I haven't heard much about, but it's in that same ultra budget price range as the firestudio project which would make me wary. For the same price, I'd probably go with the sexier usb 2.0 Lexicon Ionix U82S. If you can splurge though, I've been overjoyed with the ProFire 2626 which is at $672 on amazon right now. Wait for a sale and you can get it $100 bucks cheaper.

Another potential benefit to dsp: Lately I've been recording a vocalist who must have reverb and light compression in her headphones. That's easy to do within the sequencer when I'm tracking with a single guitar track, but when I bring her in on a project that's already got dozens of tracks, a bajillion FX, and she wants 7 part harmony...say goodbye to 2.7ms latency, or anything that a singer would be able to handle. When I bought my M-Audio Profire 2626 a little while ago, I knew this would be one of the bigger downsides to it over my other top choice (Lexicon FW810s) which had at least the dsp dynamic fx (not reverb.) While I think I made the right choice in the end for other reasons, the lack of dsp has really bothered me lately as I've had to go out and buy a an external multi-fx unit to get the fx in the monitoring chain with zero latency. If live tracking with FX, even low quality ones, sounds useful, might want to consider a card with dsp capabilities.

There seem to be a lot of things out there that can get the same things done as session drummer, so I really don't miss it (I have Sonar SE). But I would pay the extra for V-Vocal. Compared to the way I have to work with Antares AutoTune, V-Vocal looks so cleanly integrated. But I use AutoTune every day, so it's a big priority for me. If my biggest priority was drum samples/sequencing, one option would be to take what you would save on PE and put it towards Battery or something similar.

Very cool applications they've come up with.

Oh I get it, and it's funny....but not one of my favorites. On a scale of "meh" to "ROFLCOPTER", I give it a "haha". Just above "hehe", but non quite "LOL".

Yep, and based on your post you'll probably want the remixes subforum: http://ocremix.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=16

Happy Birthday Amy!

Tweakheadz Lab guide is a great resource for understanding the basics of many studio related concepts. If you haven't already run across it, this article in particular:http://www.tweakheadz.com/choosing_a_mixer_for_your_studio.html should help you get an even better understanding of mixers, audio interfaces, and if you really want or need one.

Nice everything room. If I wasn't afraid of pissing my neighbors off, I'd install some guitar wall mounts and hang mine too.

Oh man, this is the "make Harmony jealous" shot. Look at all of that space! Why have I not been to your house? Why am I not there right now?

Even if looking at only ticket sales, for a fair comparison we'd have to adjust for population, since the US has about half as many people as it did 70 years ago Avatar 2!But seriously, I had the same question. If I were the studio/staff/actors, knowing what huge names were behind this film, I'd expect it to do well and therefore would have asked for a percentage of profits, rather than a fixed upfront fee. Not sure at all if this is how it's done...but it should be.

The film is deserving of that honor imo, but I'd be more impressed with the box office dollar totals if people weren't paying 50% more than standard films to see it in 3D. What I'm trying to say is: $16 for a movie!? Painful.

Hmm, but it actually can be done like itsays in the manual? That's somewhat encouraging. I've got what I want working in Sonar by typing in NRPN events manually, but I just thought that with this uber-controller I'd be able send events in a much less noobish fashion. Guess not.

Well, my primary problem is similar. I've read the Axiom manual cover to cover, and the functions make sense, but that doesn't mean I know how to apply all of the things that it can do to my work. The most complicated thing I've ever done is setup multiple zones to control multiple instruments. I'm always thwarted when attempted anything trickier. For example, for the life of me, I can't figure out it's method of sending NRPN LSB/MSB. Ugh.

Nice setup Brad. I'm still on the learn-one-Axiom-feature-per-month plan

First of all, this is very compressed! If that's the sound you're going for, fine, but while you're mixing it and changing the EQ, I'd take the compression off. This much can severely change the relative volume of the instruments and you don't want to have to deal with that AND the stuff that's sharing the same frequencies. Secondly, it sounds like you still have a lot of lower frequencies to play with. I'd try increasing the low frequencies on the kick and lowering the volume of the bass. Also, since the bass is playing such high notes in it's range (starting around C3) I'd layer the bassline with a simple sine synth an octave below what you have here. Add only enough volume to punch up the sound without making it muddy.

Well, one general thought is to emphasize frequencies in each part that don't have to overlap. That way you can still clearly hear instruments without worrying about muddiness. For example, although the kick can have lots of low sub-bass frequency content, you might choose to cut some of that and punch up the upper bass (100-200Hz). Similarly with the guitars. Although they can have lots of lower frequencies, you might choose to emphasize the lower mids (around 500 Hz).

2 is better than one? Bragging rights?

You should be able to use the 5.1 speakers with either of those cards: http://forums.m-audio.com/showthread.php?2100-5-1-speakers-with-Audiophile-2496

TV in the last pic