I’m thinking of buying a shure 57a, since it seems to go well with vocals and instruments, and it’s not too expensive. But now I’m wondering how my soundcards unbalanced inputs will handle the signal, will there be any unwanted things in the sound? And how am I supposed to connect the xlr-output device to 3,5mm (mono?)plug?
I don’t think there’s much sense in buying a microphone of that quality if your soundcard has
3,5mm plugs (since that shows it’s probably not a very musician-oriented card).
Anyway, in addition to possibly needing a better card (you don’t say which card it is),
you will definitely need a mic preamp. That doesn’t have to be very expensive.
Tip: Try recording “silence” from your soundcards input, and see how high noise
level there is when there’s no signal.
Maybe your right. I also have a s/pdif input in my soundcard (SB audigy 2), but I would still need some equipment with a/d converter, maybe there are some mic preamps with s/pdif available? Or perhaps it is better to buy a soundcard with balanced inputs?
Maybe this soundcard could be the thing.
It has mic preamps and most other connectors you need.
It also has onboard fx that you can load as vst or route via ASIO without using any cpu.
The 1820M model has the same A/D converters as ProTools.
But it is brand-new and has not been reviewed yet.
But this could be the thing.
cheers
Remember: you’ll never get better results than the weakest link can offer.
And that might not be something you can easily buy:
Do you have a quiet place to record? With the PC in another room?
If not, there’s definitely no point in buying the most expensive…
Your audigy might do just fine, I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure you
will need a mic preamp.
this “card” is my dream … great! … but 500€ … 
hahahaha, that will still suck, i have better one onboard 