Mic & Audio Interface

You surely need a mic if you are planning to record vocals and acoustic instruments. If you are purely an electronic composer, relying just on synthesizers, you won’t probably need it. I suggest to buy a condenser microphone, it’s a great choice for recording acoustic guitars and vocals. I am very pleased by the MXL990 Mic.

Please don’t go for more expensive models, it just doesn’t make any sense and it’s a total waste in a home environment.

AUDIO INTERFACE

You will need this to convert the analog signal of your electric guitar-bass-microphone into a digital signal. So you will record the guitar “direct”, and then apply any modeling effect through software (distortion, delay, etc.). 

The quality of amp simulators has become really excellent, and you can obtain an incredible array of very nice and natural sounds. Recording direct has many advantages: you won’t need a quiet environment (no external noise will be picked up), you can do everything through your headphones, late at night! Also, your signal will be recorded “clean”; so if you are not happy about any effects you have added, you can always change it back to the original sound, and apply another one.

I initially found myself really happy with the Apogee One. It’s absolutely perfect to record the electric guitar, it also has an XLR input for an external microphone (it takes Condenser mics too, thanks to phantom power), and it also features an internal condenser microphone which is surprisingly good.

If you don’t need to record multiple instruments at the same time, it’s a great choice. If you need more input active at the same time, you might want to think about the Apogee Duet.