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i'd particularly like to know whether PreSonus, Focusrite, and/or Steinberg are good because i can get them at an employee discount from work.

I have one of these and it sounds fine to me going into GarageBand:



Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but I don't have a lot of other experience. Hopefully people who know more will chime in.

Focusrite scarlett 2i2 is great for home stuff. USB powered, 2 input, phantom power, easy to use and transport. I got mine used for like 40 bucks.
I use a scarlett into a 2010 MacBook pro with ableton.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UMC404HD
I have one of these and a presonus, this behringer sounds really good. I've been using a program called Reaper that is very nice and pretty cheap.

I have always heard great things about Focusrite. Do you have any discounts with Native Instruments? I can personally recommend their Komplete Audio 6. No qualms with audio quality, and the led indicator info as well as the main volume knob are on the top of the interface, easy to view and unblocked by cables/jacks. Tons of free software comes with it as well. My old coworkers were all pitching me one of the three you mentioned, and I couldn't decide. Saw the Komplete 6, read reviews, and pulled the trigger. For what its worth I use Ableton and run Windows 10, but I briefly looked and it is compatible with Macs.

Muff_Diver wrote:Focusrite scarlett 2i2 is great for home stuff. USB powered, 2 input, phantom power, easy to use and transport. I got mine used for like 40 bucks.
I use a scarlett into a 2010 MacBook pro with ableton.

More or less this. I use a repurposed 2008 MacBook. I also use the Scarlett on some old think pads with Ubuntu on it. I like it a lot.

Focusrite are good in general and work well with Macs. I have had several that I've used with iMacs. There's plenty of firewire or Thunderbolt based options. I'd highly suggest the Thunderbolt based ones (Clarett line, I think), if there's one that's in your budget and has the features you want.

$harkToootth wrote:

Muff_Diver wrote:Focusrite scarlett 2i2 is great for home stuff. USB powered, 2 input, phantom power, easy to use and transport. I got mine used for like 40 bucks.
I use a scarlett into a 2010 MacBook pro with ableton.

More or less this. I use a repurposed 2008 MacBook. I also use the Scarlett on some old think pads with Ubuntu on it. I like it a lot.

Another vote from me - works like a champ on my MBP.

Been using a 2i2 for 4-5 years, it has noisy preamps and doesn't like dynamic mics I never bothered to try anything else because I wasn't doing anything really "serious" but I'm definitely trying something else pretty soon.

For DI stuff and Condensers works very good.

My alternate (probably unwanted) recommendation is to take advantage of the thunderbolt ports and go with a resident audio interface.

tremolo3 wrote:Been using a 2i2 for 4-5 years, it has noisy preamps and doesn't like dynamic mics I never bothered to try anything else because I wasn't doing anything really "serious" but I'm definitely trying something else pretty soon.

For DI stuff and Condensers works very good.

I can't speak to the 2i2, never used it, but I have had the Liquid Saffire 56, OctoPre MkII and Clarett 8pre. All good, excellent preamps, quiet with any mic, all used in professional recording situations. Granted, those are all on the higher end for their lines and I don't know if they share the same preamps as the Scarlett series . I think my buddy might have the 2i2 or something similar and he hasn't had complaints with dynamics, but he pretty much only records very high gain stuff at home. So noise is a given and I'm sure he's always gating everything anyway.

For the Saffire and now the Clarett series, the quality of the preamps are one of the reasons I went with them. The rig in my old studio, I used boutique external mic preamps and a board. Though I will say my tastes changed dramatically, away from character preamps are towards more hi-fi style.

The focusrite stuff is good.

Focusrite is the way to go. PreSonus has a colored sound – it's great sometimes, but annoying to be stuck with. The Focusrite Scarletts just gives you a great, clean reproduction of your sound. The 2i2 is basically the perfect starter interface, or the 2i4 if you need MIDI. Aside from Focusrite and Presonus, I wouldn't recommend any other cheap interfaces.

However, if you have Thunderbolt and you're willing to expand your budget a bit, I'd REALLY recommend the Focusrite Clarett interfaces. They're clean sounding like the Scarletts, but have an extra bit of detail and clarity that's hard to give up once you hear it. They're also super low latency (which is great if you use Max for sound processing like I do), they aren't as noisy, and they distort in a really pleasant way.

so i went ahead and ordered the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2...with my employee discount i got the bundle which includes a big ol' condenser mic, cable, and a set of cans for $169. thanks for the input, everybody!

Awesome, now spend every spare minute recording everything every way you can think of.