What was your first interface?

2002 the"M-Box" then graduated to an Apogee ensemble silver face. And now just upgraded to thunderbolt and the Antelope Orion Studio.

Early 2000’s, my leap away from ADAT to ITB was using a MOTU 2408 MKII with an Alesis Masterlink recorder.

My ADAT recordings were sorely missed from that point onward. :-(

After a lot of frustration with noise with some Turtle Beach soundcard, my first "real" interface was the M-Audio Delta 44.

I blamed the damn thing for grainy sounding recordings, but the thing to blame were the terrible M-Audio Audio Buddy preamps. How awful.

All this was more than 20 years ago, when I was a teenager.

Now that I remember, information about recording was scant, and the most useful posts were on Usenet, on rec.audio.pro if my memory is correct. Pros hanged there.

I do remember that the consensus was that to get real pro recording you needed an 1176, an LA2A, a good preamp, a Neumann, and tape. The converters were a minor consideration, unless you were using an ADAT or the Digi 002. Most considered digital amateur time unless you recorded on tape first. There were only two types of gear: the pro stuff, and the terribly crappy consumer stuff. That was it. Low end and high end.

I do remember looking on eBay for an 1176 and thinking "I'll never afford that." But I don't remember the prices, but they weren't that high, right? About $1k? Does anybody remember what was the gear marketplace back then? How much did the vintage stuff cost?

After years with a beloved Tascam 424MKII, I got a Fostex VF80 (still have that little blue beauty, still fond of it). DIGITAL! No heads to clean! Had a Soundblaster card for bouncing down to WAV files. Thrilling making CDs! Finally made the big investment and got a MacBook Pro and Digi 003 Rack+ (the one with 8 preamps). World was my oyster. Spent a comical amount of money getting the Black Lion mod done to it. Then a couple years later compared it to the brand spankin’ new SF Apollo, and the BLA 003 was on Craigslist immediately after. I’ve been through a couple other Apollos and things, have been on a Symphony MKII now for years. Honestly, I love all of ‘em. I still just think it’s amazing to be able to record music at all.

Still in use at this moment the MAudio Delta 1010LT good old 32bit pci slot card 2x xlr and 6x rca inputs 8x rca out
I bought it new in 2005? for $225 it was super awesome at that point in time
never had any serious problems and now that I think about it hardly ever the slightest glitch out of this thing

I have a second unit and a lot of leftover rca cables from this rig
Migrated one over to the office workstation tower and listen to music on this system pretty much constantly

M-Audio Delta 1010.

Looking back now the converters were not great.

Woo - this is a tricky one for me, as I reviewed so many soundcards/interfaces for Sound On Sound magazine over the years.

I've just dug out my records, and in total I've installed around 90 !!!!

The first on my list was the Aztech Labs Sound Galaxy Basic 16, and a little later a Creative Labs AWE 64 Gold. However, I also tested out more high-end and exotic stuff, such as a complete Soundscape system, SADiE, Ensoniq Paris II, Creamware Pulsar, several superb-sounding Lynx models, oddballs like the Lexicon Core and Metalithic Systems Digital Wings (there's a name to conjure with!  )

HOwever, interfaces I actually bought for my own use were the Event Gina (the first 'soundcard' that I considered had a professional sound), then the Event Mia, followed by an Emu 1820M, which lasted me a good few years before it finally started becoming unreliable.

Nowadays I use an RME Fireface UC running into a Lavry DA10, which I'm extremely pleased with.

They definitely weren't great. But they weren't as garbage as the Digidesign stuff of the time. The only problem is that decent preamps cost an arm and a leg back then.

I mixed my first record on Deck. Haha. Not about to be nominated for any engineering awards but, hey, it got some radio play!

I used Peak back in the day and I remember they'd send out info on Deck, but I don't ever remember anyone talking about using it.  Was it any good?

Lets se... I went from analog to a Yamaha AW2816, then sold most of my gear when I got the apprenticeship at P.A.C. Recording Studios. When they closed, I decided to further my education for a better chance at landing another commercial studio job. Before school began, I tried my best using the mobo audio I/O on my old outdated Gateway PC and Sony Acid Pro.
When college started I realized I needed to run Pro-Tools for homework assignments and ended up swiping an MBox from one of the music rooms (that I planned to return and thought I had until I found it awhile back).

Then PreSonus let me beta-test the first AudioBox, then the AB22VSL, then the AB1818VSL. That was my main unit until I moved to the RME FireFace800 and from there Lynx Aurora16 connected via Lynx PCIe cards and then gradually grew until finally officially building Deadly Mix Studios on a Dante network.

So technically the answer, I suppose, is the MBox; but I prefer to start my story at the AB1818VSL lol.