If you go with Focusrite (which has nice convertors) be aware the 2i2 is pretty limited. It doesn't have the mixer/routing options like the rest of the Focusrite line. It does include a few nice plugins though.

Wish I had known that before purchasing, I'd have went up another step.

Depending on your motherboard, there are also decent internal sound cards available still. External doesn't necessarily make it better (and theoretically would actually be slower though in practice not noticeably so), but external interfaces are more common and are easily moved between systems. So they do have their plus sides.

Focusrite, Audiobox, and M-Audio (including FastTrack, Delta1010 and 1010lt) have all been used here successfully, though the 1010's require a PCI slot. The others are external.
Others I've seen mentioned and recommended include Roland, Behringer and Tascam.


I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!