A few questions (mostly interface related) regarding home studio setup
 

I'll try and keep this brief, as you recording crowd don't seem to be fond of teal deer ;)

The setup:
A friend and myself are starting a home studio with a budget of ~$1,000 for an interface, mics and some drum triggers. I know we'll need at least 8 i/o with at least one of those ins having phantom power, compatibility with Logic Pro, and ideally firewire connection.
I've been looking around and doing a bit of research, and with my sub-$600 interface budget, I've found a couple options that look good:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-a...ding-interface

This would be my first choice, given the extremely attractive price and abundance of needed features. I hear a lot of presonus bashing on other gear forums though, so I've also been looking into some other brands.

The punchline: My question for you is, am I at least barking up the right tree? Any suggestions of where else I should be looking and other things to consider would be greatly appreciated, I just need a jumping off point. I don't want to get this unit if its a pile of junk, and for $100 more I could have gotten something infinitely better.
ALSO: If I am to use drum triggers, do I need an extra module to plug them in to, or can they go straight to the interface?

tl;dr I have $400-600 on an interface with which I can mic a full kit (8ins and outs), and do I need any additional hardware for drum triggers? Thank you thank you thank you in advance, unless I get no replies :P

Here are some of the other options I have been looking at:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-a...wire-interface

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-a...udio-interface

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-a...14106000000000

I haven't done as much research on these as the presonus however, so maybe some of you have had some experience with one of these.

drum triggers need a drum brain or something like the alesis trigger ion
Call sweetwater, they'll guide you through what works.

The Presonus you listed in the first post is a pretty decent unit. All the others you listed are also good, but in your price range I'd go with the Presonus because it is the cheapest.

As Seamonkey Mention you need a Trigger Brain. Search on ebay for the Alesis DM5. It's got 12 trigger inputs, Midi IO and can be found under 200 and it is a very good quality module.

I can't do that with logic software? What if I close miced every drum and converted those signals to the drum sounds I want, would I still need a module or could I do that with the software?

You can use audio to midi. The good thing about a drum module is that everything gets converted to a midi note and assigned to the correspondent note on the piano roll. With audio to midi, you'll have to convert the audio, then merge the midi and then assign each microphone to a particular note/drum.

http://www.drumagog.com/

And search on redrum, drum replacer,
You're better off with Midi - but there are these options if you need them.

I've done a bit more reading on the subject today and if I'm not mistaken I can send the triggers through the pre amps on the interface, then with logic convert those to midi and apply whatever sounds I want using whatever plugin, or use that drumagog or aptrigga and the like. So are you saying that while recording the drums, I would have to convert everything to midi and apply the drum sounds I want after recording, and only with the module would it do all of that simultaneously as the track is being recorded? Sorry if these are extremely dumb questions, I just have about zero experience with any recording software or equipment and want to learn as much as I can before dropping all that dosh on gear.

http://www.alesis.com/triggerio

$160 give you 10 trs trigger inputs - triggers are cheap also.

Getting 10 inputs on an audio interface is expensive.
You can do the same with mics - it's just expensive and since you're replacing sounds anyhow you don't need that good of a mic sound.

I need at least 8 inputs on the interface anyways so that I can mic a full kit when a good drummer and nice kit come through. I figure the triggers I would use for the crappy local bands and their subpar drums, and just mic a couple of overheads and maybe a kick and snare as well so I can get the cymbal sounds and blend the trigger and mic'd kit. That would also save me buying 8 microphones and instead get 2-4 and only have to spend $100 on some triggers.

The Presonus unit is excellent, IMHO. And I tossed Pro Tools for Studio One software.

Also- for mic'ing 8 drums, wouldnt you need a mixer too? I dont think you can just plug 8 mics into that interface.

I'm thinking 8 mics, 8 XLR cables, all into a mixer, and then 8 1/4" into the sound card.

Doesn't Logic replace my need for an analog mixer?

Ok- I'm not 100% sure, but say you have 8 1/4" inputs, how are you planning on routing 8 mics? Logic is software; it just "sees" what your sound card sends to it (either audio or MIDI).

The interface has 8 instrument/mic inputs, each of which has their own pre, and 8 outputs so I will have 8 separate tracks for the whole drum mix. For the 5 drum triggers I have read that as long as I run them into a preamp (which the interface provides) I can convert those signals to midi, and in turn replace them with whatever sounds I want, all using plug-ins in Logic.

Oh- turns out I'm an idiot. I didn't see that you ended up getting that Presonus card. That should work just fine. I was assuming the card configured where inputs 1 and 2 were xlr/trs and 3-8 were trs only, because that's what I'm used to dealing with. (And now I want that sound card...)

Never mind! That's why my advice normally comes with the disclaimer.

You can do it all with software. In Reaper I'd use the Stillwell jsTrigger to generate a MIDI note, not sure if Logic includes something similar or if you'd need to find an external plugin (Slate has a good one, apparently).

Oops, read whole thread, THEN reply...

Sounds like your on track. Though the external brain approach has it's merits too...