Sometimes we get ahead of ourselves a bit. Sure if you got the money buy what you want, but in this situation our friend Sly is running into a mother board sound card from a small mixer. The problem is he is is getting the whole mix back into his recording, because the mixer has no easy solution for that, and neither does the sound card.

Sometimes when we give advice from our standpoint we can't see the whole big picture, and want others to have something we see as really helpful. but they may not be at that point yet.

My take on all this is that recording has a heart and soul, those two items are the input device or interface, be that a USB, or a simple sound card, and the DAW software. If one or both of these two items are lacking the rest really does not matter much. it will be a struggle. One needs to address first that these two items mesh properly or nothing much will happen.

For those that say you have to have Nectar, or ozone or whatever to get good results. That is simply bunk.

You can do a great job with the standard plugs in most any DAW software. Yes it will take more work and experimenting, but it is possible. Those aforementioned programs simply make it easier as they have done some of the hard lifting for you by creating GUI, and preset starting points that require less work.

No one is wrong here, and all opinions are valid. But lets remember when helping newer members here that just throwing software at it won't fix the biggest problem. That of not having a solid basic system in place. That system is those two components the interface, and the DAW software. If they do not mesh the rest will be a lesson in futility

HP Win 11 12 gig ram, Mac mini Sonoma with 16 gig of ram, BiaB/RB 2026, Reaper 7, Harrison Mixbus 11 , Presonus Audiobox USB96