Tascam Or Quattro, Help Needed Options

[JoeS]

I am looking to set up a home studio, and am trying to understand all that's involved. I have started collecting elements slowly and have a Mackie 1202, condenser mic, and Cubase VST. I will using this on a 366 mHz iBook with 196 RAM and 10 gb drive. Yes, I realize I might need a Firewire hard drive at some point. And I'll probably be purchasing a desktop G4 fairly soon. I'll be recording instrumentals (solo, multi-tracking) on guitar, flute and keyboard. I'd like to have the option of including MIDI at some point.
I assume my next puchase needs to be a USB A/D/A converter. I'd like to keep costs around $250-300 (probably by buying used).
I've been checking out the Midiman Quattro and the Tascam 428. Am I on the right track regarding what I need to get started? Do these perform similar functions?
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Joe S.

[rickenbacker]

That's interesting - I've always found Edirol very helpful, even when they know full well I'd rather be found dead in a ditch than using a Windows PC for music. Certainly, some of the Edirol folk I've spoken to have obviously been using PCs at home, but their USB interface gear still works for me. This is Roland gear, effectively, so it's rock-solid in performance.

Also, as far as I know Edirol produced the very first USB audio drivers for the Mac platform, so respect to them for that. I don't think they ignore the Mac at all - and anyway, we Mac addicts do represent just 5% of the computing world. I think virtually every company develops for the PC market over the Mac. No wonder we get ignored sometimes - Windows has had Cubase SX for months now. Maybe that's positive karma for losing Logic.

Whatever, Edirol's OS X drivers are coming soon, no doubt to coincide with the major sequencers appearing for OS X. The next few months will be glorious for all of us looking to make the permanent switch to OS X, whatever products you prefer.