Has anyone used the Mackie Onyx mixers for home recording to computer? I currently use a Mackie 1402, which generally works well for what I'm doing - but the sound is all mixed before it hits the computer, so if the voice is a little too soft compared to an instrument in one spot, there's not a lot I can do (well, there is - but it's a pain).

I suspect that the Onyx 1220 would let me record up to 4 mics to up to 4 separate tracks, and do some additional balancing after the fact. The major downsides I see are the price of the board and firewire card, and the fact that anything I record will now take up 2 to 4 times as much space on my poor hard drive. I'm looking at the Onyx primarily because I'm expecting it to act similarly to the Mackie boards I have now.

I don't often use more than 4 mics at a time - I upgraded from the 1202 to the 1402 partly for some live sound situations and partly so I can leave various channels set for various instruments. I generally use CoolEditPro for editing, and have Adobe Audition (its current incarnation) which I'll probably switch to as part of the upgrade. I know there are a bunch of other great programs, but it's the one I know.

I did do a search for Onyx here without any luck, and have checked some of the techie boards, but a lot of what they're doing is so far ahead of what I do that just reading the posts makes my head spin.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Thanks!
JudyB