..and before i forget again..

if you cant yet afford even a good £60 'semi pro' PC audio card..
you may still be able to get reasonable results with music tech software if you have a good recent PC
with decent quality analog line in/out connections,
or digital input/output..

http://asio4all.com/

is a respected freeware asio driver that can improve performance
and lower latency for some stock manufacturer fitted generic soundcards
and motherboard soundchips..

definitely worth a try..