Help Request for Home/Project Studio Setup

[Zillo]

Hey everyone,
Long time reader here, you guys can't imagine the amount of help and good advices you gave me over the last year, thank you so much for that! So I thought to ask some (very very noobish) questions about wiring up gear in my soon-to-be humble project studio.

Despite my age, I've been always working fully analog on live sound (it will be one of my first recording experience after college years and band works) so I don't really know where to start.

I was planning to buy a nice FireWire interface (FireFaces seem to be very appreciated over here) plus a number of hi-end preamps, but I don't seem to get all the digital I/O this interface offers (I'm really NOT familiar with ADAT or SPDIF, I never had a setup using that sort of connections, and I feel really dumb for some reason). Let's assume my maximum input requirement is limited to 16 channels and I'd want to use the Fireface on-board pres (4). I was thinking of getting a Neve 4081 and a 4-pre SSL Alpha VHD module, so I got 8 more, plus some home-built pres from kits. Considering that 4081 comes (or will come) with a digital I/O option, will I have enough ins for everything I've listed? If the FireFace is not enough, what would you recommend to satisfy my needs (enough line ins, maybe some on-board pres, good converters, FireWire)? Money is just a partial problem (I'll save and get there sometime!), due to the fact that I'm quite happy with my room's acoustics and I have a number of very good mics (Neumann, Telefunken, Shure, AKG, etc) available to me, but of course it would be a problem to buy some stellar converters!

I tried my best to find some answers on the forum, but over a week of day and night research returned no results! Hope you can listen to and address those audio noob problems, and sorry for my poor English!

Big hugs from Tuscany, Italy

G.

[Chas3]

AES, sPDIF and ADAT are digital formats. sPDIF is not going to help. I wouldn't place much hope in ADAT, either, as you'll be hard-pressed to find very high quality converters which output to ADAT. I'd suggest investing in a good quality sixteen channel ADDA converter (Mytek, Lynx, Apogee) with AES or firewire interface. (If AES you'll also need an AES card (Lynx or RME) for the computer. These converters do not include built-in pre-amps; most high-end converters do not. You'll need outboard pre-amps.

[Chas3]

Some Apogee converters do support ADAT.