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RSS feedsYears ago the process of recording music was pretty straightforward, if prohibitively expensive, to most of us. All you had to do was pop down to your local recording studio and hand over a sum of money large enough to buy a fairly decent car.
Then a gaggle of audio technicians and producers who hadn't seen daylight in many years would step in and craft you a record that sounded great.
Of course, the large sums of money involved meant that most of us would never have a hope of hearing our own songs on the radio, while talentless people with bag loads of cash got free rein to pollute our airwaves.
They say that technology is a great leveller and now, thanks to the PC sitting in your home, you too can have access to a top recording studio, albeit a virtual one. Today all you need to make a music track of professional quality is a computer, some music software and a little bit of know-how.
You'll even be able to share the songs you create with friends by either burning them to CD or sharing them over the internet.
Sound foundations
One of the best things about making music with a computer is that you're unlikely to need to shell out any money on expensive new hardware to get started. Your existing computer should offer everything you need to get your foot on the audio ladder.
Practically every PC sold these days includes a sound card, and modern sound cards are remarkably versatile beasts. Not only can they be used to record and play different tracks of audio, but they can act as great sounding synthesisers and drum machines.
Any sound card will do when you're just starting out making your own music, but as you become more serious about putting songs together you'll want one that offers more dedicated music features.
However, even upgrading a sound card shouldn't cost a fortune. For example, the Creative Audigy 2 ZS range of cards offer plenty of features aimed at musicians and prices start at around £50. Terratec's DMX 6FIRE 24/96 is also a good option but is much more expensive at £130.
Investing in a sound card of this type will generally give much better audio recording and playback quality and many of these cards also include full-sized MIDI ports that you can use to connect a MIDI-compatible musical keyboard to your PC to create sounds with whatever music software you may be using.
You can hunt for the best deals on affordable sound cards using the price comparison tool on the Computeractive website here.
Tune in
MIDI acts as a digital messenger for musical instruments. Devices are connected using cables with five-pin connectors, and information is sent over these cables to tell a musical instrument, or your PC, what notes to play.
It's a widely supported standard, so even if you've got a cheap keyboard at home it may well have a MIDI socket on the back. If it does, it's relatively easy to connect it to your PC.
First of all you'll need to check whether your sound card has a gameport connector. This is usually a yellow port with two rows of pin holes situated at the back of the sound card. If it does have one, you can buy a cheap adapter cable that connects to the gameport and provides you with MIDI in and out sockets.
This type of cable costs around £15 and you can buy one from any good computer store. Don't worry if there's no gameport connector on the PC's sound card, as you can use a spare USB port to fit a MIDI adapter, such as the UM-1SX from Edirol (0870 350 1515), which is available for around £40.
If you don't already have a MIDI keyboard, you can always buy a dedicated controller keyboard for use with your PC. These keyboards don't produce any sounds themselves but are instead designed to act as controllers for the sounds that a sound card can make.
They are also much cheaper than full-blown synthesizers - the M-Audio eKeys49e, for example, costs £80 - and many of them have USB connectors as well as MIDI sockets so you can plug them straight into a PC without having to buy a MIDI adapter. Also look for controller keyboards from names such as Edirol and Evolution.
In the loop
If all this talk of MIDI keyboards has you panicking because you don't play an instrument, don't worry. The great thing about making music with your PC is that you don't need any musical training at all to get started.
A few years ago a company called eJay opened up the world of music creation to just about anyone with its range of software. It succeeded in making music creation accessible to all because eJay was ridiculously easy to use.
The software provides the user with an enormous number of pre-recorded music samples, or 'loops', that are all locked to the same tempo and played in the same key. All you have to do to create a song is drag and drop these loops onto eJay's arrange page, a process known as loop sequencing.
It works like musical Lego in that all the audio loops appear in the arrange page as small rectangular blocks. The latest copy of Dance eJay costs £30.
Critics may argue that it's too much like painting by numbers but, because there are so many loops on offer and so many different variations of how you can slot the loops together, it is possible to create original-sounding material.
The main problem with eJay, though, is that all the loops are tailored towards those who want to create dance music or hiphop. If these styles aren't your cup of tea you'll need to try another loop sequencer such as Screenblast Acid, which is published by Sony. You can download a trial version here. Type Screenblast into the search box and hit enter.
A copy of Screenblast Acid will set you back £79 and the software works in a similar way to eJay, although it's not quite as user friendly. This is because there are a lot more features on offer in Acid than there are in the eJay range.
The big benefit of Acid, though, is that there's a range of construction kit CDs available in a broad range of musical styles, each of which costs around £40. So no matter whether you want to create rock or country music, there's an Acid Construction Kit available to suit you.
Other good loop sequencers on the market you might want to check out include Cakewalk Plasma and Magix Music Maker Deluxe, both of which cost around £40.
The key to making good songs using these packages is to avoid making your music sound overly repetitive. Just because you're building songs from pre-recorded loops doesn't mean the final tracks have to sound like that to your listeners.
Try adding or changing an element every eight bars or so. To the listener this will make your song sound like it's constantly changing and evolving, and this in itself will add more excitement to the mix.
Also, don't forget to use effects, albeit sparingly. All loop-sequencing software features built-in audio effects, such as echo and distortion, and by applying these to existing loops you can pretty much change the whole sound and feel of a loop to the point where it sounds like a completely new sample.
Compose yourself
If you really want to personalise your songs, why not try your hand at creating your own loops? Most loop sequencers feature built-in tools that allow you to create your own drum beats or musical loops should you feel up to the task.
If the software you are using doesn't have these features built in, you can always put together your own drum loops using programs such as Hammerhead or Sequbeat. Sequbeat is free to try as a time-limited demo. (There's a $25 shareware fee if you decide you want to use it in the long term.) Hammerhead is free to use online.
You can also create your own synthesizer lines with free software such as SawCutter. And remember, the more you experiment with these programs, the more original your music will sound.
Of course, if you fancy yourself as a bit of a crooner, or if you already play an instrument such as the guitar, you can always record your own performances to use alongside or instead of the pre-recorded loops.
All you have to do is connect the microphone to the microphone-in socket on your sound card. Modern sound cards have colour-coded connectors and the microphone socket is usually coloured red. If you've got an older card then check your manual to correctly identify which socket to use.
Even simple packages such as eJay have built-in recording features that allow you to capture your own performances in this way. In eJay you simply click on the record button to enter the recording screen. The software will automatically go into pre-recording mode, allowing you to set recording levels.
You'll want the recording meters to be peaking at just over 75 per cent. If the audio peaks much higher than this, you may find that your recordings will be ruined by distortion. Once you're ready to start your performance, just click on the record button again and then the play button.
Mix it up
Many people find that making music with their computer is addictive and once you start, you may not want to stop. All too often, an audio addiction will lead you on to the harder stuff, namely MIDI and audio sequencing packages.
These applications have more bells and whistles than the Notting Hill Carnival and act pretty much as virtual recording studios. They allow you to record multi-track audio just as you would if you went into a real recording studio, but can also record MIDI tracks alongside the audio data.
On top of this they offer virtual synthesizers, drum machines, samplers and effects that are every bit as good as the ones the professionals use.
Popular sequencers include Cubase and Sonar but these cost hundreds of pounds. Luckily, the manufacturers offer cut-down versions that are much more affordable. Cubasis VST, for example, only costs £59 from Pinnacle Systems yet it offers most of the tools and features you'll find in the latest version of Cubase SX.
Similarly, Cakewalk offers the Home Studio budget sequencing software, which has many of the same features as its professional Sonar application.
The good news is that the features that have been cut out are often those you wouldn't use anyway, so by going cheap you're not sacrificing quality. Sometimes there are special versions of the budget packages bundled with sound cards, so look out for good deals.
There's no denying that MIDI and audio sequencers are more difficult to use than loop-based packages, but they are also much more versatile. They do take time to learn but, once you get the hang of it, you'll find that they open up the world of professional-level recording at a fraction of the price of booking a studio.
Sample sales
At some point or other when you're putting tracks together you'll find yourself in need of some extra audio samples. Whether you're looking for an up-tempo break beat or just some sound effects, the chances are that you'll be able to find the right sample on the internet.
A good place to start looking is Samplenet. Here you'll find thousands of free drum beats, synthesizer and orchestral samples and vocal snippets that are perfect for putting together your own songs. Other top sites include analoguesamples.com and Audio360.
If you're just looking for vocal samples from movies or general sound effects, then check out WavCentral.com or The Daily Wav. Both of these feature thousands of samples from famous TV shows and movies, as well as lots of special effects noises.
Those who own SoundBlaster Live! and Audigy cards that support SoundFont banks (check the manual if in doubt) can grab new samples at HammerSound and SoundFonts.
Music to your peers
If you've got a CD writer in your computer then it's incredibly easy to save your tunes on to an audio CD. All music creation programs allow you to save audio as a stereo, 16-bit, 44.1KHz wav file that you can then load into a CD burning package such as Ahead's Nero to create a standard audio CD.
Alternatively, if you want to upload your tracks to the internet or email them to friends then it's best to use a compression format such as MP3 or WMA. Most, but not all, audio applications now allow you to save your music in one or both of these compressed formats.
If your software doesn't support direct MP3 or WMA encoding you can always save the music as a .wav file and then encode it later using a package such as AudioGrabber or Windows Media Encoder.
Star maker
As you can see, you don't need to spend lots of money or even have a lot of technical expertise to start making music with your computer. In fact, most people start off by playing around with easy-to-use loop sequencers before finding the whole thing so addictive that they end up using complex MIDI and audio sequencers.
It's amazing how proficient you can become simply through trial and error. It's a very rewarding experience and you'll be stunned at the quality of the results you can achieve, even if you don't have traditional musical skills such as the ability to play an instrument. In fact, the software will become your instrument. All you really need are good ideas and lots of enthusiasm.
See also:
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Why pay over the odds for PC utility software when you can get it for free? We round up 50 essential utilities that can help keep your PC perfect 03 Sep 2004
To make the most of your home movie footage you'll need to get to grips with a video editing program. We provide some pointers to help you out 19 Aug 2004
Firmware updates are more than simple bug fixes: by installing new firmware you can get improved performance from many hardware products 13 Aug 2004Is your PC looking a bit long in the tooth? We show you plenty of ways to breathe new life into an old system 06 Aug 2004All Software Applications
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