ok things to look for in both sound cards and mixers: ok firstly with mixers, you need to know how many mic inputs you want, how many line inputs you, do you plan to use a condensor microphone if so you will need something that has phantom power which will allow you to use condensors and di's, you need to listen to the mic preamps of different desks to see which sound better because their are alot of shoddy products on the market waiting to be sold to people who aren't sure what they need or want. fader length... alot of the smaller footprint consoles have 60mm fader throws which sucks a bit, 100mm faders are better just for sheer control. how many auxilliary in/outs do you want for fx and monitoring etc? xlr3 outputs are preferable to 1/4 jack outputs. are the outputs balanced or unbalanced? are the line inputs balanced or unbalanced? is there metering on every channel, does the desk have direct outputs on each channel? do you need it for your purposes? if the desk doesn't have directouts then you won't be able to record mulitple channels at once because you will only be able to send out in stereo via your master faders, or you will have to set up a stereo aux send. how much eq is there on each channel? any questions about any of this just ask.... rather than the vlz i would probably go the onyx 1220 with the fireward card than you have you soundcard and some fairly good mixing capability on an alright sounding desk, however i would look at small format soundcraft consoles, allen and heath, even midas have a small fun console now however midas, soundcraft and allen and heath may be a little extra from the wallet but you are garunteed quality and long lasting joy
ok soundcards, i would stay away from the mboxes if you aren't going to use protools because they don't function well with other software, the preamps aren't that good and they are probably also out of the price range you are looking at. brands i know and trust and are reliable are motu, edirol, rme, presonus, metric halo, focusrite. i am not a fan of m-audio sound cards because they are structurally fairly weak and they also sound on the less than average side for my ears but they may suit exactly what you want to do. look for similar things in a soundcard as i have outlined for the console, phantom power, how many ins/outs do you need, is it fire wire or usb, what sort of monitoring options does it have, again you need to listen to the preamps....
http://www.soundcraft.com/product_sh...product_id=121
http://www.midasconsoles.com/venice.html have a look at the spec for the venice 160
http://www.allen-heath.com/uk/wz_series.asp