maybe somebody could bring me some lights about this:

I want to jam with some piezos and coil mics, I could get a cheap M-Audio Quattro or similar (no pre amp included) and all this into Pd for some processing.

What would be better:

1. to get or build some hardware preamps or 

2. to amplify  the signal inside Pd?

Another way to go could be, instead of buying a dedicated Audio Interface, build one on an Arduino board or on this new CUI32 USB board, using those (several) analog inputs. For me, in a way could be good also, because of learning how to do it.

I will appreciate any help or tip on this..

Roberto