Mysterio wrote:

Fussbett wrote:

Mysterio wrote:

I need an external USB2 soundcard that has four separate line in jacks with as high a sampling rate as possible for under 200 dollars. My brief google search was not very successful.

Ideally, I need to be able to record the four channels concurrently and unmixed into four separate wav files. Am I correct in assuming that this is perfectly possible?

I've had this for years and it's awesome: http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta44-main.html. It's not USB, but I'm not sure why you need it to be USB. The quarter inch inputs may be a pain, but c'mon, it's time to turn pro. The downside is that there are no preamps, to you'll need powered mics or a separate preamp. I'm suddenly realizing this may be way too involved for you, but I'm unclear on a cheaper way to get 4 inputs at once, as the other budget hardware stops at 2. Look into things like this: http://m-audio.com/products/en_us/MobilePreUSB-main.html, because "two on-board microphone/instrument preamps and high-impedance instrument inputs ideal for connecting guitars and basses" may mean that you can use all four at once. But probably not. Hopefully FoK knows.

Will Adobe Audition do the job here?

Dunno, maybe, but the rest of the world uses Cubase.

I need it to be USB (or Firewire) because I need to hook this up to a laptop to do field recordings (unfunded research so I can go to a fancy grad school). That second link looks pretty good, but according to this picture:
http://www.m-audio.com/images/en/callouts/big/MobilePre_USB_callouts.jpg
there are 2 XLR inputs, one 1/8" input and one 1/4" input. It's pretty important that my four signals get uniform treatment and have identical (to the microsecond) delay and I'm not sure if this is even possible given that they're coming in through different type of jacks.

Thanks, though.