My time to shine, I mainly own cheap but serviceable crap! I've carved out a nice compromise between Ken's two options by having fewer, merely okay things.
I have the
Behringer U-Phoria UM2 audio interface, the cheapest one on that page, I bought it used for maybe $25 or $30. I generally only ever record one track at a time so this works fine for me. In theory it can record 2 lines at once but I've never gotten that working or put that much effort into solving it (seems like I'm
not the only one to have this problem). Prior to buying this (I think a couple of years ago?) I was either recording with a line straight out of my modeling amp or trying to mic everything, always ending in a big chaotic pile of stuff piled around me, and bad resulting sounds. Anyway, I'm happy with the Behringer, except now something is messed up with the output jack so I only get sound in one ear a lot of the time (this might actually be an issue with my headphone adapter, not sure), and sometimes the gain level adjustment seems really finicky, but generally it's fine.
For years, I recorded using only
this USB Samson GoMic, a cheap little condenser ($30 new). It's super easy to use, just one thing to plug in and you can go, I would just prop it up on something on a table or clip it to my laptop screen before I broke the clippy part. It doesn't seem to peak as easily as the mic I upgraded to, and honestly I find monitoring a bit easier with this too. I still use it all the time for recording song ideas/scratch tracks, or sometimes backing vocals if I don't want to dig out and set up my interface and mic and test out the levels and all that. I think it sounds great on vocals for the price, pretty warm and clear.
I upgraded this year to the
MXL V250 after someone here (Lunkhead?) posted it in the deals thread--it was $200 new but I got it for about $60 on sale. It's good, but does it sound 2-6 times better than the Samson? I don't really think so, personally...? If you want to compare, the Vowl Sounds tracks at the beginning of
this year's Nur Ein had my vocals recorded with the Samson, the ones at the end were done with the MXL. (I don't remember at exactly what point I switched over.) I know Vom changed some production stuff along the way as well, but it should give you a general idea at least.
In any case, either way, I prefer condensers over dynamic mics for recording (my) vocals, but I tend to be a quiet singer, and maybe a more aggressive vocalist would do better with a dynamic mic.
Nobody is heaping praises on my guitar sound, so for this bit, you should probably take advice from someone who knows what they're doing, but just for your reference, for electric guitar I generally run a line straight into the Behringer and use an ampsim (right now, Guitar Rig 5) and for acoustic I record with the MXL in the room a foot or two away, it does have a pickup but doing it direct sounds like shit. You can hear both of those setups on this week's song. If I had an actual nice amp that I was committed to capturing the sound of, I'd probably mic up the amp with an SM57 (or clone).
I have a keyboard I like but I generally just use VSTs for recordings, too, hauling it out and setting it up for recording is a pain.
Honestly, I think the stuff that has had the biggest bang for the buck for me, aside from the audio interface, has actually mainly been software... various instrument VSTs, Ozone for mastering, ampsim, drum plugins. Nothing I record sounds particularly great still, but I think now my issues are more with mixing or performance/arrangement than recording quality, so I know I'm leaps and bounds ahead of where I was a few years ago just on that front...
Oh and I've heard good things about monoprice.com for affordable gear but I don't have first-hand experience. I think they ship to Australia.
