M-Audio recently released 3 affordable recording packages, each with an audio interface and a watered down version of protools. The protools is limited to 16 audio tracks and 3 effects per track, and comes with the 60 or so plugins the other version of protools come with [and from personal experience, they sound really good]. You also get a few soft-synths, a Sansamp plugin, and 3gb worth of loops.

This all goes for $100, unless you get the keyboard version which is $130.

I haven't used it yet [noone around here has them in stock yet] but I imagine the quality of the interface isn't terrible. I think this is the best deal yet for cheap interfaces. It's not giving you something like Ableton Live as your software - giving you something like protools [albeit a lite version] means you are learning on tools you can upgrade with - maybe as your needs grow you would step up to an M-Powered system for more inputs or an LE version (I don't believe Protools HD is going to be around much longer).

I'm picking one up so when I'm working on the road I can use it with my lappie and lay down ideas. The sessions will be compatible with my bigger protools system, so when I get it I'll let you know how I think it sounds.