So, if you're planning to buy a mic — or already have one — the next thing you'll need is an audio interface. There are also card-shaped devices called sound cards or sound boards. As of 2020, "audio interface" is the mainstream term. They're really all the same type of product with the same role; only the name is different.
This is for anyone thinking "wait, I've never even heard of that!" — or who knows the name but isn't really sure what it means.
So What Exactly Is an Audio Interface?
An audio interface handles "getting sound into your PC" and "getting sound out of your PC." Even if you never plan to record anything, you'll always need one whenever sound comes out of your computer. If you're using a PC from a major manufacturer, you probably haven't bought anything extra, and as long as the settings aren't wrong, sound should come out just fine on its own. That's because a board for playing sound is already built into the motherboard or PCI bus from the factory. There's also usually a little jack marked with a tiny microphone icon — plug a mic in there and you can record too. So if sound already comes out, and you can already record, why would you need to go out and buy a whole new audio interface?
Simply put, there's an overwhelming difference in performance between the sound board that comes built in and a separately purchased audio interface.
Dramatically Less Noise
The most important point first: noise. Built-in sound boards are extremely vulnerable to it.
Inside your PC, all kinds of components are running at once, and they become sources of noise. So if you plug a mic into the built-in sound board and record, that noise gets picked up right along with your voice.
If you're currently recording your voice without an audio interface, you're probably plugging your mic into that little green jack, right? That's enough if all you want is to record something, but are you actually happy with the sound quality?
If you work with your voice, your voice is your weapon — and having noise creep into that precious voice is a real problem. It doesn't feel great to have other people listen to a noisy recording, and nobody wants to listen to one either.
And even if you think there's not much noise, don't relax just yet. If your recording level was low — meaning you recorded too quietly — you'll need to turn the volume up afterward so it's audible, and that raises the noise right along with your voice.
And what about the sound quality itself? When you listen back to the recorded file, doesn't it sound kind of muddy, or lacking clarity and a bit muffled — not exactly satisfying?
Better Playback Sound Too
Playback sound improves too. You really have to hear the difference for yourself to believe it, but it clearly changes for the better. It does scale with price to some extent, but even a model in the few-thousand-yen range makes a huge difference compared to having no audio interface at all.
For all the reasons above, if you don't have one yet, I really do recommend picking up a new audio interface.
The Benefits of Buying an Audio Interface!
Buying an audio interface gets you the following benefits.
- Reduced noise
- Digital recording
- Lower latency (depending on the interface)
- Recording at higher sampling rates and bit rates (depending on the interface)
- Better sound quality (depending on the interface)
- Various bundled software (depending on the interface)
- A variety of input/output options (depending on the interface)
Obviously enough, most of this depends on the specific product. If you're only using an audio interface to record your voice, item 7 — the variety of I/O options — doesn't matter much.
Now, item 6, the bundled software. These days a lot of affordable audio interfaces come bundled with a genuinely powerful DAW (digital audio workstation), and once you actually try using one, you'll find you can do all sorts of interesting things — EQ-based tone correction, voice processing, effects, and plenty more to play around with.
※I'll skip explaining terms like sampling rate, bit rate, and latency here, so if any of these words don't make sense to you, go ahead and search for them. It never hurts to know!
Main Ways to Connect an Audio Interface
There are mainly four ways to connect an audio interface to your PC:
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- PCI/PCI Express
- USB
- IEEE1394(FireWire)
- Thunderbolt 3
PCI Connection
A lot of people probably aren't too familiar with this one, but PCI connections are extremely stable. Creative's Sound Blaster line is a famous example. There are some great affordable products in this category, but you do have to open up your PC case and install the card into the PCI bus yourself, which raises the barrier to entry a bit. It's not actually difficult — you just need one driver to get it running — but I can't recommend it to PC beginners or anyone who's not mechanically inclined, since it can be hard to deal with if something goes wrong.
USB Connection
Everyone knows USB by now, and it's hard to imagine a desktop or laptop PC these days without a USB port, so for anyone reading this, USB is by far the option I'd recommend most. Not having to overthink it is nice, isn't it?
FireWire Connection
Next up is IEEE 1394, also known as FireWire. This assumes your PC actually has an IEEE 1394 port to begin with — if it doesn't, you'd have to buy one. Connecting is just as easy as USB, and you can expect better stability and transfer speed, but products in this category tend to be expensive, and I can't really find a compelling reason to choose it on purpose. Since this article's theme is "affordable and usable," I'll skip covering it here.
Thunderbolt 3 Connection
I'd guess a lot of people aren't familiar with this one either. As of 2020, it hasn't really caught on widely yet, but it might in the future. Thunderbolt-connected products tend to be high-quality and genuinely excellent, so if you've got the budget, moving to Thunderbolt is a perfectly reasonable choice. That said, products in this category tend to be expensive, so I can't recommend it to most people reading this. Just like with FireWire, since this article's theme is "affordable and usable," I'll skip covering it here.
So let's take a look at the benefits of the USB connection I'm recommending here.
Benefits of a USB Connection
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- Basically every PC has a USB port, so anyone can use it
- Just plug it into a USB port to connect — really simple
- Once connected, just install the driver following the manual, and you're ready to go
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In short, it's a beginner-friendly setup that even PC novices can connect safely and easily.
※One thing to watch out for: plug it directly into a USB port on the PC itself, not into a USB hub. Going through a hub can cause it not to work properly.
My One Audio Interface Recommendation
Honestly, if you don't have an audio interface yet, you can't go wrong buying this one. I own one myself and use it whenever I want to casually record my voice. It handles singing, narration, pretty much anything. It's compact, doesn't take up space, and feels solidly built — nothing cheap about it. It also comes bundled with the famous Steinberg DAW "Cubase AI," plus the multi-touch iPad DAW "Cubasis LE," so once you connect the USB, install the driver, and launch the software, you're ready to record right away. So yeah, my recommendation is just this one, lol.
If for whatever reason this one ends up not being enough for you, there are two options I'd recommend as your next step. They're a bit pricier, but let me introduce them too.
Looking at the price alone, it seems pretty expensive, but within the world of audio interfaces, it's not actually that pricey. I think it's worth the cost. This is an audio interface from the world-famous Universal Audio. It supports UAD-2, runs on bus power, and is extremely compact and portable. It features Unison technology, which fully recreates the tone, touch, and feel of tube/transformer-equipped mic preamps used all over the world. Especially recommended for Mac users.
By the way, the Universal Audio ARROW connects via Thunderbolt, not USB — Windows users, please take note. A Quad Core i7 or better processor is also recommended. If you're considering buying one, be sure to check all the details carefully beforehand.
This one is flat-out excellent, no complaints. I currently use it as my main unit both at home and at work. It's on the pricier side, but the sound quality is top-notch, it's rock-solid stable, and you can push latency down really low. Reviews everywhere seem to rate it highly, and I think it's worth more than what you pay for it. I bought it not long after it came out and have used it ever since — even after all this time, I have zero complaints and no desire to switch to anything else. That's how much I like it.
2020 Affordable, Usable Audio Interfaces: Wrapped Up
This ended up being a pretty one-sided rundown, but rather than awkwardly recommending a bunch of options, I figured having one clear "this is it!!" pick had its own value, so I went with the Steinberg UR22mkII. If you don't have an audio interface yet, please give it some consideration.