Not rambling at all. Welcome to the forums, and I'm sure that lots of other folks will have suggestions for interfaces.

I'm not up on PCIe sound cards, but I'm using motherboard audio myself right now, and it's doing fine. Creative has a bunch of PCIe cards that should do well for you.

As for an interface, I use M-Audio's Audio Buddy, which is about $70-80 from various sources including Amazon and Sweetwater. It's not USB, but goes directly to your mic/line-in input on the sound card or motherboard, which means there's no USB latency. (I tend to have problems with USB sound drivers. Other people don't, and I'm sure they can help you if you go that route.) It's also a phantom power supply for one or two standard XLR microphones.

Your computer will run BIAB like a dresm, although I think that "100 mg hard drive" has to be a typo -- they haven't made 'em that small since I had my first Amiga.


Best,
Tom Smith
Win10/64 • i7-8700K • 24 GB RAM
BIAB 2025 • Reaper 7 • Izotope MPS
AKG C1000S • IK iRig I/O Pro