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The hardware

If you want to record your voice, your guitar, your keyboards or your bagpipes into a PC, you will need a soundcard. This is a different beast from the one that currently makes noises in your PC, but it does not have to be bulky, complicated, expensive, or even require you to open your PC up. A soundcard will have inputs that will allow you to connect your keyboard, guitar or microphone to your PC, and outputs for you to hear the results. Usually, it will also have a MIDI input for you to record information to a sequencer software package. You can get USB, and Firewire soundcards that simply plug in and go. The more ins and outs, the more expensive. However, unless you are intent on recording all of your mates at once, a simple 2 in 2 out soundcard will do the job, and should not cost more than £150. The most important thing about your soundcard is that it is compatible with your PC recording software. A good sign is if your chosen soundcard is ASIO 2 compatible.

As with all PC stuff, soundcards have performance figures quoted. They are bits (usually 16 or 24), and sampling rate (generally 44.1, 48 or 96 KHz). The higher the figures the higher the fidelity of the recording, but also the greater the load on the computers CPU (central processing unit), and the larger the files recorded to your hard drive. To give you an idea of what these figures mean, a commercial CD presents a recording at 44.1 Khz in 16 bits. If your first soundcard can do that, it will be fine, and most soundcards do. You can get other bits of audio kit with a soundcard (or computer audio interface) built in, such as the Yamaha MW12. This is a very useful little mixer that will record audio via USB directly to your PC, and it even comes bundled with the software you need, in this case Cubase LE!

If you want to record keyboards onto your PC, there are a number with powerful sound sets and USB that will directly link with your PC: such as Yamaha’s MM6. If you do have a keyboard with a MIDI output, make sure that any soundcard you're looking at has MIDI – most of them do. If you are a guitarist, it is worth checking to see if your soundcard has a dedicated guitar input. Another useful feature to look for is a microphone input. Both guitars and microphones have different signal levels than keyboards, and you can save yourself much trouble by using a compatible input for listening to your recordings. You should be able to connect the output of your soundcard to your hi-fi; indeed, a lot of soundcards have a very useful headphone socket.

Next: The software

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