Hey Ricky,

Good on ya moving to Nashville, many great musicians and a good vibe there. I lived in Brentwood for a while, I enjoyed my time there very much, although I was working in the IT field and didn't have the time for Music related projects.

I wanted to point out one thing that I saw on your post that made my alarms go off.

Regarding needing a Firewire port>You should know that as of late, no new models are being made using the Texas Instrument Firewire chipset. This is a problem, as it is known that non TI chipsets will give you pops, clicks and other "Issues" with your audio tracks. One possible workaround would be to purchase a Belkan Firewire Express card adaptor, which would give you 3 FW inputs.
Which brings up another related point>

It's been shown that sharing the FW buss on your computer can cause "issues" with your Digital Audio stream. So, for example if you are using a FW Hard Drive, AND a FW interface, they should NOT be used in the same hub, or adaptor.

The other point I'd like to make is that the USB 3 devices are just now coming and perhaps if you are willing to wait a month or two, you could get a machine that has USB 3. There are adaptors coming that will convert from Firewire to USB 3 also.

Hope this helps,
Ed