So far we have the mic going into the mixing board. The mixing board going into a compressor. One quick note: it often makes sense to add a tiny bit of eq before leaving the mixing board. On most boards, just a bit of boost to the high end will make it sound great, about a 2-3 db boost somewhere between 6 and 10k.
What about a sound card to capture the audio?
My favorite all around sound card is the USB Pre by Sound Devices. It’s $550 or so.
Expensive, and very high quality. It also has many inputs and outputs so you can connect it to many different setups. Analog and digital ins/outs. Very high quality mic preamp if you want to record on a laptop with no power. It also has phantom power. Want to go a little lower on the scale? The Presonus Firebox (firewire) at $250 or the M-Audio Midiman mobile pre at $130 would be great choices.
Now you have audio coming into your computer, what do you record it with? Adobe audition is my favorite for recording podcasts. It has some effective built in processing, and also edits quickly, and can import and export almost every known audio file type. Professionally I use it to cut up broadcast audio. Sony Vegas is the other multi-track editor I use on a daily basis, and it has the benefit of being ready if you ever get into video.