Best Audio Interface for Windows

Introduction

Most producers and audio engineers are glued into the Apple eco system, and the majority of them prefer mac OS over Windows. While Mac offers native support for most interfaces, all good manufacturers have stable drivers that work well with Windows. You may run into issues if you’re using an older release, but even then, there are interfaces that will do just fine.

When choosing an audio interface for Windows, regardless of the version, the main thing that matters is driver compatibility. Windows has a few different ways for apps to channel audio, but the use case is dedicated towards gaming or movies, where you do not have control over parameters that audio professionals want to manipulate e.g. audio formats, clocks, and latency.

Manufacturers provide ASIO drivers that skip the windows audio system and give you control over these parameters. While ASIO4ALL is designed for apps that do not have native ASIO drivers, such as your computer’s built in audio (NVIDIA HD, SoundBlaster, Realtek etc.). When you use ASIO4ALL, you bypass the manufacturer ASIO drivers that are dedicated towards particular hardware.

What you want is an interface that has dedicated ASIO drivers that work with your version of Windows, giving you full control over the output from your interface.

In addition to driver compatibility, other selection criteria include Input/Output configuration, solid preamps, AD/DA conversion, and USB/Thunderbolt port that aligns with your laptop/computer. Your use case will determine the type of interface you should go for. If you’re podcasting or just wanting to record guitars and vocals, then a 2 channel interface will do just fine. If your use case is more elaborate, then you may even need special features such as Bluetooth, ADAT, SPDIF or an onboard DSP.

Other than that, there really isn’t a difference whether you use Windows, Mac or even Linux for your productions. Unless there’s a specific DAW such as Logic Pro or Garageband, that works only on Mac, you have nothing else to worry about. With a little bit of pre work and planning, things will work equally as well on a Windows machine.