I'm an indie-folkpop musician. I'll start by saying that I love nice outboard mic preamps. I've tried many over the years----Warm Audio, Golden Age Pre 73, Tube preamps, etc. But I gave up recording for about 3 years and came back to it about a year ago. I bought an Audient ID14 for a hundred bucks off ebay and recorded a full album over the span of 6 months. I think for me, the outboard preamps were too much of a distraction. Something about a simple interface and condenser that gets the job done. The simple combo made me focus on the song arrangements and performances. My combo for the whole album is a 3U Audio Black CM-1 going directly into an Audient ID14. I used that combo on literally every instrument and vocal in my album and couldn't be happier! I think my point to my ranting is that performances, arrangements and production is what matters most. Curious if anyone else here is using the Audient? I think it's a really detailed and smooth sounding interface.

I have the iD22. The Preamps are excellent. If you can't make a good recording with these preamps and 3U Audio mics, then you can't make a good recording.

However, I'm not giving up my Great River and Sebatron preamps.

I have the CM-1 (black) and the CM-1 (teal). Love the teal on acoustics. Haven't used the black much. I'll have to pull it out and give it a run.

Nothing wrong with Audient pre amps, possibly quite underrated.

I compare to Neve, SSL, Focusrite, Grace, Dav, et al. and fine. In fact I quite like their neutrality.

I don't blame you. Those are fantastic preamps! I just can't afford them. LOL

I used to have the Teal. Both are great mics. I think I remember the Teal being more airy, maybe better on female vovals?

A 3U CM1 into an Audient sounds like a fantastic budget-friendly setup to me. No reason you can't make great-sounding recordings with that combo, as long as what's in front of it sounds good!

I have an Audient ID22.

But one day I plugged it in and it appeared to be working but now sound was coming out.

So I ran to Guitar Center and all they had the Focusrite Scarlett thing and I used that for a while.

I'm now using a Black Lion Audio Revolution 2x2.

I tried to get the ID22 working a couple times but have never again been able to get any noise out of it.

But there's no reason to put more time into figuring out what's wrong with it since the Black Lion works perfectly fine and is also a very nice interface.

People get far too het up about trifling hardware / software details, honestly.

A half decent interface these days is, generally speaking, absolutely capable of providing what is needed - on that front - to record great sounding tracks. Same goes for half decent microphones, indeed, and guitars, synths, etc.

Not to mention, freeware programs and plugins can easily get you there. Alternatively, very affordable ones.