Ok, I was sort of an old pro with my home studio back in the mid-90's using Master Tracks Pro as my midi sequencer with an old 8-Track ADAT, Mackie 24/8, and a bunch of outboard gear. I lost interest but now I currently wanna get back into recording now that I have the budget to do so. Thing is, I'm lost now with all the new stuff that has come out since the mid-late 90's and I'm hoping to get some input here.

From all the homework I've done so far it seems that the Digi002 is possibly the answer to my needs ... but what isnt explained regarding the Digi002 at the Digidesign website is if I am able to monitor what I record into ProTools LE via the Digi002 monitor outs (the whole mix thats recorded into ProTools <via the firewire i/o> ... as opposed to whats connected to the mixer via analog) basically, what I'm asking is if the audio signal from ProTools on my mac gets routed back to the Digi002 via the firewire port?!? It seems as though I can (from what I've read) BUT the fact that the Digi002 only has 8 sliders makes me wonder how I could control a mixdown that has 24+ channels?

Sorry for the dumbass questions here ... but I havent dealved into this new(er) world of computer based recording and can use all the help I can get.

You will be able to listen to the tracks already recorded while you tracks new parts. You can ultimately have all 32 tracks playing back PLUS 16 aux tracks PLUS a master fader if you like. This is course will be directly related to the plug-ins you use and the CPU power that you can throw at the LE system. Reverb plug-ins tend to be a bit more painful in usage than say a compressor. Just remember to think in terms of the analog world using aux sends to handle verbs and you should be fine.

As far as mixing all those tracks, if you get a 002 you will have eight faders in front of you. The cool thing is with a single button push you can do one of two things: 1) you can shift the faders to the left or the right by single increments meaning that if you start out looking at 2-9 you can change it to 1-8 or 3-10 with a single button press OR 2) you can shift the faders in banks of eight meaining if you are looking at 9-16 you can change it to 1-8 or 17-24.

Let me know if you have any more questions or if you would like suggestions regarding plug-ins.

Thanks so much for the clarification! I was weened on analog/Midi and its hard getting a grip on comp-based recording without having the equipment in front of my face.

As far as plug-ins go ... yes! I have tons of questions .... but I'll start off with just a few .... 1) Is the Orange Vocoder a worthy plug-in? I love the vocoder sound but never owned one in the past. 2) Can you tell me the difference (or lead me to a website) between all the plug-in acronyms? (RTAS, AS, VST, etc.) 3) What are the best (sound to price ratio) plug-ins for someone doing metal/industrial music.

Thanks so much!!

Oh yea, as of now my studio looks like it will be consisting of the following:
G5 2.0 Dual Proc Mac
Digi002 (w/ProTools LE ... obviously)
Korg Triton Studio 61 Keys
Reason 2.5
TC Halicon VoiceWorks
Alesis Ion
DynAudio BM6A Monitors
Rocktron Voodu Valve
Marshall JMP-1
Line 6 Bass POD XT Pro

Thanks, MaulRat