Eddie,

You are in no way limited to eight channels in a control surface. You can have as many as you want--just as long as you are willing to pay the price. The great news is that a $90,000 control surface with a properly equipped and configured DAW can rival the performance of a million-dollar-plus studio--again given that you have the basics in hand, i.e., room, players, repertoire, etc., etc., etc. (Just wanted to see how far you'd go.)

A friend of mine has his basement equipped with the TASCAM DM-4800 48-channel digital mixer coupled to a homebrew DAW (mind you, he is in charge of networked PCs for a major power utility, so it's quite a machine) running Steinberg Nuendo 4, Cubase's really big brother. He's producing cuts good enough for broadcast and probably for CD. For less than $3500 plus DAW and software you, too, can be in the music bidness for real.

If you need fewer channels you can spend less. But once you learn the thing the automation and hands-on control of the software make recording a joy. Watching the motorized faders work is just cool. Remembering that it can remember settings for multiple recordings so that you don't have to write them down or remember them is plain awesome.

One suggestion as far as getting all the duckies in a row. I know (analog) recording. I know computers, mostly. And I know a little about music. But pulling it all together in a DAW-based studio about had me whupped. I recommend "PC Recording Studios for Dummies," which is far less condescending than it sounds. The hardware is a tad dated, but all the concepts are there. It really helped me put together my modest digital studio (which is about to become slightly less modest thanks to the wonks here).

I've probably said much that isn't related to what you're going after; I do that. But I hope I've helped shed some light on your quest for production excellence.

"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."