[LAU] interfaces with electronic gain controls

Out of all the interfaces mentioned recently as working well under linux, all I have looked up seem to still use potentiometers to set gain. That is fine for recording mono instruments or vocals, but for stereo or surround acoustic recording I would really like an interface which allows for very close gain matching between channels, or at the very least very repeatable gain settings so that I can correct in post production if needed. Are there any interfaces which are commonly available and have either accurate electronic gain setting, or stepped/switched resistors for gain setting? The new MOTU devices which are class compliant seem to, starting at around US$ 1200-1500. Is that just the price range I have to move to before that feature is included? I thought Cymatic Audio was going to have a 4 mic amp/2 line out device for around US$ 500, but it was cancelled before release. That is closer to the style of device I am looking for. The MOTU devices without network audio (USB only) seem to have the feature set and lower price, but has anyone checked whether they can be used without a proprietary control application? The nice feature of the AVB interfaces for linux use is that they can be controlled from a web browser, so no proprietary application needed to set gain and routing from a linux machine. The webpage for one of the USB interfaces mentions a template for TouchOSC which can run on an iPad, but I don't know how iPad software sends OSC commands. If there is a standard for sending OSC control messages to USB audio interfaces perhaps it could be adapted to linux. Any of the OSC users familiar with whether that would be some kind of proprietary interface, or whether it should be possible to interface one of the linux OSC applications to the MOTU interface? -- Chris Caudle