I beg to differ.
Hey lkoz91,
I am in the same position you are:debating on what "begginer" interface to get that will serve me well for at least a year until I can afford to make a major upgrade that will translate into a noticable improvement in my mixes. I say "noticable improvement" because from the research I have done, upgrading from a $500 interface to an $800 one hardly qualifies as an upgrade (of course there are other factors involved too that would prove this point wrong or right). Now that said, I am assuming you know that an audio interface is a box that houses two key components of your signal path from the mic to the DAW; the pre-amp(s) and converter(s). The pros get these components seperately and for a good reason; they are dedicated to their respective jobs and hence generally "better" than those you would find bundled in interfaces and mixers, which sometimes try to incorporate a million other features you might never need. But for those of us starting out, the real good dedicated pres and converters are not within the reach of our wallets so we have to settle for less (cheap interfaces).
Now this is where things get thick; which "cheap" interface should you get? Well for starters, it depends on what you intend to use it for. You mentioned recording a guitar and vocals. I'm not sure if you are recording both the guitar and the vocal at the same time (you would need two in-puts for this). If you are recording them seperately, you would only need one in-put (not sure there exists an interface with one in-put though). Either way, if two in-puts is all you need for now, I would strongly suggest you get an interface with just that, two in-puts. The reason I say this is because if you compare some of the multi-in-put interfaces people have suggested here that you get, with a "good" two-in-put interface of the SAME PRICE, chances are very high that the pre's and converters on the two in-put interface are way superior to the 8+ in-put ones. IF every input has it's own pre, then an 8+ input interface will have 8+ pre's and a 2-in-put interface will have 2 pre's. Now if both these units are the same price, which one do you think has the superior pre's? Basically, you get what you pay for and if a company bundles a million components and features in a "cheap" interface, be sure that those a million components are cheap and highly-likely of low quality.
Now that said, you mentioned you will be using logic which means you are on a mac. Same here. May I suggest you look at the apogee duet
(
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Duet/ ) which is exclusively for the mac. I have not used it myself but I am strongly leaning towards it as I have heard/read very good things about it. It has all I need and nothing I don't.
Good Luck.
*addition*
ammmm...I'm not sure where I got that "logic" part (maybe from a difeerent post...damn, I need a drink). But either way...you get the point...it applies to both Mac and PC so whichever platform you are on, find something suitable for you.
BTW, the Zoom records at 24bits, not 16. Duh...and I own one.
