Choosing the Best Audio Interface for Your Needs

Whether you’re into pop, rap or metal, the vocal takes centre stage in the song. Every vocalist wants to be sure that their vocals sound amazing and choosing the right audio interface is key to ensuring a great recording.

Capturing your guitar perfectly can be a daunting task — and choosing the right audio interface for the job can be just as hard. You’ll want to sound like you, but you’ll want a quality recording without artifacts as well — and the simpler it is to achieve this, the easier it is to stay in the creative flow.

Setting up drums can be fiddly and time consuming, so it’s important to have an audio interface that works right out of the box, leaving you time to get your setup just right.

Synths and keys are powerful tools for both live and studio production and are flexible in the sounds they can create. They are also highly collectible — but even with one, you still need a good audio interface to keep everything connected.

String instruments are, without doubt, an extension of the musician playing them. Your relationship with your instrument is very personal so you’ll want to be sure that any audio interface you use to record it reproduces what you are playing accurately.

A good brass section can elevate all types of music, from funk to jazz and beyond. Capturing the sound of brass isn’t hard, but there are some special considerations when choosing an audio interface.

Every day around the world, millions of people listen to books, podcasts, and radio shows. If you produce Spoken Word, you’ll want to really connect with those listeners — and the best way to do that is to make sure that your words are heard clearly.

There are many ways to record audio on a Mac but choosing the best way for your workflow means taking some features into consideration.

Historically, Windows computers have often been considered complicated machines to use for recording. However, at Focusrite, we've worked hard to offer Windows users a seamless audio experience with our audio interfaces.

Pop music is so named because it’s popular – both in terms of its fans and how much of it is made. Creating a piece of pop music that stands out from the plethora of songs available is more than just creating the right catchy melody. You need to sound good.

Rock is all about the energy of the performance and the best way to capture that is to record as much of the band as you can in one take. When choosing your audio interface, you’ll need to make sure you have enough inputs for all your instruments and vocalists.

When you’re recording acoustic instruments, the purity of the recording is vitally important, as is your choice of audio interface. Not only do you want to capture a clean, accurate copy of what is being played, but you’ll also want to be able to hear the space in which you’re recording.

If you want to ensure you have the best chance of a hit when making hip hop, you’re going to need clear vocals and an inventive, catchy rhythm. Choosing the right audio interface to match these needs can be difficult, especially as you’ll want to make sure you are getting superb clarity and a great mix.

Choosing the right audio interface for electronic music can be problematic. Synths and drum machines can become very addictive and it’s easy to continue to expand your collection of hardware without considering how you’ll connect it all. It really helps if you can have all your gear connected and leave it that way. You’ll also want to ensure you get the best sound, especially if you’ve spent hours on that one patch. The last thing you need is for all that work to be ruined by a poor-quality recording.