The Blue icicle is a decent enough A to D converter but, for me, it still has a couple of fatal flaws.
First off, like a
USB microphone, it's a one-way only device without any monitoring output. This forces you to use whatever inbuilt sound card you computer has to plug in headphones (to listen while recording) or monitor speakers for mixing.
Second, the "driverless operation" they brag about is a downside. "Driverless" doesn't mean no drivers; it means it uses the inbuilt MME drivers on your computer. MME drivers are more suitable for Skype phone calls and watching Youtube than for any form of serious recording--and will give you a lot more latency in your working. (ASIO is the magic phrase for low latency recording).
Something like
THIS may be more what you're after.
