Some people work with 100% s/w synths, sampler & drums; and some work with a mix of outboard & s/w... Both might want to also record with a mic... So here's some thought's about the various scenarios.... There are quite a few all-in-one designed pc-audio solutions, featuring external stand alone or rack-able unit's with multi In's and Out's and Microphone input's too even with phantom powering.

Well, i'd advise to forget a soundcard mic amp, even tho my Hoontech rack has one, and it works & sounds ok, i'd say it's preferable get a Joe Meek Mic-Pre/Compressor, (or the cheap Hootersound made by Joe Meek) or similar models by other manufacturers, and run a line out from that to a line level soundcard input.

In that example of buying say an Ardvark or M-Audio, yes, they do have multiple in's... so first ask yourself... do you really need multiple in's on your PC audio card/device?... If you are ONLY recording from the one mic, (or mebbe also a guitar-head line-out etc) & layering your record-takes of different parts over the pc-audio/s/w-synth backing, then you don't need a multi i/o card at all... because you only need a stereo monitor out in that case & stereo In to acceopt the pre-amp Output... But, if you've got outboard - mebbe a synth, sampler & drumbox say - & you want to route that into your s/w mix in realtime then yes mebbe get a multi-input device you might think, it can in certain combinations with s/w allow input monitoring so you can belnd your outboard into the pc s/w mix and hear it all together via the PC output... but is it the best way?

Perhaps a mixer is a better way?.... soundcard L/R out to the mixer where it blends in with the outboard midi gear mix... Then mixer L/R Out to monitors... That's your most basic setup... From there, you get options for how or 'if' you can grab recorded parts of the outboard, either seperate channels, or the whole stereo mix, cos at some point you want to mixdown the whole lot right?.. if there is no outboard DAT etc to mix to, then you must record the mixed outboard backing to the pc in order to mixdown with the audio & s/w synth parts etc to get a final mix.... You can do it either: by recording the whole outboard mix as a whole stereo file, then re-balance & eq it in s/w so the stereo backing is right with all other recorded parts, s/w synths & drums etc, & then mix in s/w to your final file... or you record the midi outboard parts seperated out, each instrument to it's own stereo track and then mix it all in s/w to a final file - - whatever, the thing is in either case, you want to be able to monitor AND grab a take of either the whole mix in stereo or a stereo channel of just one part of the outboard mix.

To do either of those options easily & comfortably, you need a mixer with at least a secondary stereo bus/subgroup to comfortably pick-out parts of the outboard mix to record to pc... there are various mixers on the market with 4 fader outs (stereo master & sub-bus), or xx-4-2 config with a stereo master fader and 2 stereo buss faders.... in that case with at least ONE stereo bus free to route channels to, you can route any single channel or combination of channels in the mixer to the sub-group/sub-bus and have that bus OUT hardwired to your PC L/R line IN.

Ok so that would be...

Mixer/outboard Master L/R monitor out to monitors...

Sub-Group/Sub-bus L/R OUT to PC L/R IN...

PC OUT L/R to mixer - 2 channels - blending the PC mix with outboard...

You sequence outboard & s/w generators together.. mix it all on the mixer, listen via the mixer OUT and punch any channel or combination of channels on the mixer IN to the secondary BUS to grab a take !! - and that includes vocals & mic based stuff....

A typical flow for an outboard & pc audio mix....


If you get a mixer then you get decent mic pre-amp's (as good as on a pc card at least for sure)... as you can see your choice is then all the stereo asio2 or whatever cards on the market.. if you work 100% in s/w and want to overlay mic recording from a single mic, then i'd get a stereo i/o card & a joe-meek or Hootersound or other similar outboard mic pre/comp' as mentioned, and use that for a quality mic sound, and No stress on the PC trying to do realtime compression.

If you get a mixer & a small compressor then there's no need for a dedicated mic pre-amp of course, but a compressor is definately worth having. You can get a cheap one such as the Alesis Nano-compressor to 'Insert' into the mic' channel on your mixer - spending that little on a small compressor will reap dividends... you'll save on the card cos you can use stereo i/o comfortably with the mixer, and you can run higher latency and still add realtime reverb & delay to mic input and it sounds fine at 12ms or even higher...

So two ways of working... One's a pc-based multi-in device with mic amp - V - a mixer, comp & stereo card. you see the prices are similar i think... even cheaper if you don't need a mixer and can use just the mic-pre/comp. The pc multi-in with mic amp option CAN work with external midi kit... for example.. the hoontech has 8 IN's.. I can use one pair for the mic - that leaves me 6 inputs into which I can run the OUTput's of my outboard... they then appear in my s/w mixer..

In VST I can set the channels to 'Input monitor' and mix the inputs on the VST s/w mixer at low latency & single out vst channels to record regardless of their setting of 'monitor'.

In Logic less luck, you can't seem to specify input monitor unless the track is armed, and then when recording any midi, the audio tracks allocated to monitor the incoming outboard of course then go into record also cos they are primed.. dang!!... so that's not an option for all s/w... personaly i'd say in most cases with outboard, go for the mixer to accomadate that, AND add the small compressor and then use a straight stereo i/o soundcard option cos you get so much choice of product and can get a really fast card.... or if you want only to mic' over pc & s/w audio onboard mixes only then a simple pre-amp/comp' and stereo i/o card is the best way imo.... in that case you monitor off your soundcard L/R out and all is easy peasy.

Well there is some thought's... if you want to ask more for newbies feel free to asl stuff on the forums... you'll get some replies.