jsquare

Hey, hey. I'm new here and figure this is the place to ask. Here goes: For a while I was stuck in the land of the PC at a studio I was working in and hated it. I'm now fortunate enough to purchase my own Mac system and need some advice. I have $5000 and need at least 8 analog ins and outs. I'm thinking about a dual processor G4 450 running Logic Audio Platinum 4.6. For an interface, I like the Motu 2408, but have read about

Also I read that the Emagic Unitor midi interface works better with Logic than the Motu stuff. I like Motu products, but don't care for their lack of tech support. I plan on doing mostly composition and midi, but need a system that can be expanded later to accomodate live 16 track recording.
I have a friend who wants to do long distance collaboration. He has a Protools Mix Plus rig. Doesn't Logic have the ability to save time stamped SDII files he can import into Protools? How about putting a 4 count at the top of each audio track? You would think it would be relatively easy to line up in Protools. I also need to work with others who are in PC land. Can't I format a Zip disk in the Mac for PC and save .wav files that their PC can deal with?

Any advice would be most welcome. I'm excited about my new system and want to make some good choices.Thanks in advance.