dannyd wrote:

The cheap part is not counting the Powerbook/Macbook.

Understood - you've already made that commitment.

Crummy - well I'm planning to record at 44.1/24. Not looking for Apogee
quality AtoD certainly.
I was looking at the Firepods until I realized that I couldn't give
them an external word clock

The Behringer ADA8000 is as cheap as they come - 8 mic preamps with
digital output in ADAT optical format. I'm not sure if there'a a laptop
interface that will let you connect three ADAT optical sources. Maybe
RME has something, but it won't be cheap. At least the Behringer has
word clock input.

I think that because you want to record 24 tracks, you're out of the
"cheap" range. If you can find a Mackie MDR24/96 cheap (or even a new
HD24) 24-track stand-alone hard disk recorder, you could combine that
with three of the Behringer preamps and leave the Mac at home. It would
be about as portable a package as a laptop computer and several pieces
of interface hardware.