As far as that soundard, it's a steal for most musicians. The ability to record 8 audio inputs at once (or 16 or 24 or 32 if you chain more cards together) is valuable.

I bought the card, and a 32 channel mixer that has 8 subgroup out and found I was in demand because I could record a performance. It had to be submixed usually to get down to 8 tracks, so I did things like put 6 mics on the drums, mix them as a stereo subgroup and record them to two tracks, but I got it done.
Then I got a second 1010lt and sync'd them, and by using the 8 AUX outs from the mixer I could now record 16 tracks in a live setting. The equipment paid for itself in a couple years. Now I usually just use one card and record bands in the studio (I hate moving the system around). I do have both cards installed and hooked up to a 48 slot patchbay. First sixteen slots are 1010lt inputs, from 48 on down are the 16 outputs. Makes things easy for connecting. The mixer is usually wired up for use with all the ins, but like I said; when I record in a studio setting I rarely need that many ins so I only enable one card.

If you needed even more in's you could connect the guitar players amp and keyboards digitally using the s/pdif inputs and thus having 10 in's per card. 8 audio and 2 digital. That's why they call it the 1010 instead of the 8/8

I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!