If you've ever seriously tried to capture audio on your Mac, you've quickly noticed that it only has one real audio input channel - if you want more you'll need some hardware baby!

I'll start right off by saying that I'm not a pro musician, by any stretch (awesome progressive house DJ though :), but I recently ran into the one channel limitation when recording the PowerPage Podcasts. It's easy enough to plug in a USB headset (like the excellent Plantronics DSP-400, for example) and record yourself yammering on about this or that mobile technology - it's an entirely different story if you want to record an interview with another person, with two microphones. It's easy to do with one mic - if you like passing it back and forth like Dan Rather chasing some tobacco exec down the sidewalk, but who wants to do that?

A little birdie told us a while back about an Apple project to address this multi-input need for audio professionals, but when we published it His Steveness went bananas and decide to go ape shit on me with legal action. Since I'm off Steve's Christmas card list I don't mind sharing that Apple's Firewire interface for GarageBand, named after one of my all-time favorite video games, has been scrubbed for good.

Enter a cool vendor that has picked up the slack - Miglia. Their HarmonyAudio (US$269 from SmallDog) Firewire breakout box combines high quality audio conversion in a simple and good-looking design. It works like this: plug the HarmonyAudio interface into your Mac's Firewire port, fire up GarageBand (or other Core Audio aware application) and bam, it recognizes both inputs on the front the the Miglia box. From there you can plug in two mics, instruments or anything with a quarter-inch jack on the end of it and record away.

Core Audio compatibility means that you just plug it in and it works. Not having to load drivers is a huge advantage. Problems with audio drivers are common and usually pretty hard to fix. An experienced musician (or technical support guy) can tell you chapters about it. I'm not aware of another device on the market that works straight out of the box with Logic, GarageBand, Cubase, etc.

The HarmonyAudio interface provides two analog line ins and eight analog line outs so you can play your instrument straight through HarmonyAudio and out of your SRS 7.1 system. Another key feature is that it is FireWire bus powered (via 6-pin FW only), so no external power is required - perfect for mobile recording.

Miglia's SoftClip technology prevents digital clipping and retains the authenticity of the analog audio stream, a unique feature not found in similar products. Add to that a gorgeous aluminum case and two-year warranty and you've got an O'Grady's PowerPick!