I've just kitted out my studio with a PC, and I'm planning to use Vista on it (I know, but I've gotten used to it now and it's got good x64 support).

Basically, I'm looking for a sound card that ISN'T manufactured by Creative because their Vista driver support is crap to say the least (and as the market dominator they're using increasingly shady tactics, like purposely crippling drivers of older models). The E-MU range of cards is an offshoot of Creative, so I want to avoid them if I can too.

I have a presonus fp-10 which will handle all the input, so I don't need a card with loads of jack inputs or whatever, but a choice of different output formats wouldn't hurt. That said, all I really need is a studio-worthy card that has stable Vista x64 drivers and a MIDI interface. Trouble is, I don't really know of any studio-quality sound card manufacturers apart from M-audio, and their cards are are a bit steep considering I don't require much - just good quality sound, not a dozen inputs. Can someone recommend a good make/manufacturer besides M-audio, or anybody have any ideas what'd be good for my setup..?

may as well ask something else while I'm here - any recommendations on a usb/firewire controller I could use as a simple mixer? nothing too fancy, just something cheap and simple that could remotely control the volume / pan of tracks in a sequencer.