The most important part of your PC is the soundcard as it defines the ultimate quality of the music you produce. It performs three distinct functions. Firstly, it can provide a basic MIDI interface (see p41). It also enables audio playback of any live sounds you record and, finally, it does the obvious: supplies sound.

If you're not planning to use any external synthesizer at all it is a good idea to get a card which enables you to add a piggy-back wavetable upgrade card. A soundcard usually has three ways of generating sound: an FM synthesizer for low-quality gaming soundtracks; a wavetable synthesizer which produces realistic PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) sounds and some sort of digital-to-analogue converter to produce speech, effects and other 'real' sounds. The sounds can be triggered by a sequencer or any other program. You don't need to worry about internal cabling or settings as the operating system detects the soundcard and tells the software that it's there. Well, usually anyway. Soundcards can also be used to record sound from external sources using a microphone and line-in socket. Sounds are recorded and stored inside the PC as WAV (wave) files which can be played back at any time. Two or more WAV files playing back mean your PC is acting like a virtual multitrack tape recorder.

SPEAKERS 

If you don't have a power amp or HI-FI you can replace your PC's tiny speakers with powered systems including a subwoofer for added bass. 

STORAGE   

Hard drives

Hard discs are where the musical information is stored. Think of them as tape, if you like. You can record anything from short clips to full-blown albums on a hard drive. 

Jaz or Zip drives

Just one hard drive disaster could wipe out months of hard work. That song you've been tweaking for days... gone in a flash. Zip and other removable mass-storage media mean one project can be kept on the boil while others are safely backed up. One draw back with these drives is the price of the disks.

CD-ROM drive and CD burners

Play sample CDs and install software from your CD-ROM drive. Adding a  CD-R recordable CD burner for creating CDs is a very cheap and effecttive way to store your music. Recordable CD media is now less than £2 a shot, so recording a 44.1kHz CD demo is now almost as cheap as using magnetic tape. It also saves mastering costs and enables direct to digital output as well as giving you a CD to impress your mates with.

THE SOFTWARE 

The heart of your music system, enabling you to recreate most typical music applications. In every issue, we'll look at the latest developments in software and, of course, we'll also be testing all the packages so you can make an informed choice when buying or upgrading. Here's what music software can enable you to do...

Recording

Whatever musical ideas you have may be recorded by your computer. Programs called sequencers record the sounds you play from the soundcard or externally to produce complete songs. No need for musical skill!

Effects

Effects boxes in studios are costly ways of adding a professional edge to your music but, guess what, you can now do it on your computer. The newest wave of software also includes DSP (Digital Signal Processing) to produce reverb, echo and other effects to add zing and punch to your sounds.

Check out our links to software sites