How to Make Music on Your Computer – Starting Out Equipment.

The starting out equipment you need to make music on your computer depends a lot on your unique requirements and background.

Our ebook on Home Recording 101 goes covers the beasic studio equipment you need to started.  

You may just want to make some beats, remix other people's samples, record your own voice and/or instrumental playing. You might even have a band with several members ready to record a demo.

That being said you can get your feet wet and start learning the technology by just downloading some software and messing around with other people's samples. Whether this is your direction or not it is by far the best starting point when it comes to learning about virtual recording studios, different tracks, MIDI, effects and mixing.

Make Music on Your Computer – With Just Your Computer

Most programs map your computer keyboard keys to piano keyboard keys and also allow you to select the notes and beats you want to use using your mouse. For a musician this doesn't compare to having a proper instrument but it does allow for the creation of your own ideas.

Another option is to literally paint the notes onto a MIDI track (MIDI is covered in the next tutorial) where you can drag and drop the notes or beats, delete them, move them around, make them longer, apply effects and more. No need for real instruments.

But I'm a Musician and Want to Record Myself?

If you don't see yourself recording voice or instruments then you can skip this section. If however, like me you want to make music on your computer that involves recording your own voice or instruments you need an interface for your microphone, instrument and or keyboard.

Depending your budget and requirements there are a few options. In the past you'd need a hefty mixing desk with several knobs and complicated features. Nowadays you can get a MIDI keyboard that plugs straight into a USB port, or an instrument/microphone/MIDI interface that plugs into a USB port.

The one I use from M-Audio (left) is enough for my set up of a computer, 3 guitars (1 bass) and a MIDI keyboard. It has 2 analogue ports for guitar/microphone leads and 2 midi ports (in and out). This means I can physically play and record 3 tracks at a time, 2 analogue (guitar/microphone ports) and 1 MIDI.

This is more than enough for my needs however you may want to record your band all playing at the same time which will need more than 2 analogue (non-MIDI) tracks available – especially if you have a drum kit that requires several microphones (and a dedicated track for each drum mic).

Is My Computer Up to It? – What About My Soundcard?

To make music on your computer it does help to have a fairly powerful machine. Again this is subject to your requirements though. Recording external instruments is more resource intensive than creating MIDI music and mixing your own and other people's samples.

Like many other resource intensive computing activities such as gaming or graphic design or video editing, it helps to follow simple guidelines. Like not having other programs running at the same time and turning off un-needed services and processes.

I tend to shut my email program, web browser, instant messenger and anything else when I'm making music.

There are many ways to speed up, optimise and tweak your computer's operating system to get rid of un-needed resource hogs and devote more power to what you actually want to do.

Music Programs, like other resource hungry programs like lots of memory and use a fair amount of hard disk space. Keep in mind also that you'll want to download plenty of samples, loops, virtual instruments (VSTi's) and other cool stuff which will need space as well. Needless to say a decent processor helps somewhat also!

Do you have to get a Mac?

I don't use one and there are no performance problems here so no, unless you want to of course...

Sound Card & Speakers

When you make music on your computer you'll want to hear it back in as high a quality as you possibly can. A bog standard soundcard and small tinny speakers are not going to get you very far.

If you're on a tight budget then a decent pair of headphones will bridge the gap between what you're doing on the computer and how it will sound on a domestic sound system. That being said it is commonly not recommended to rely on how your music sounds through headphones in the long run.

Obviously there will be times when headphones are a must (Some of my best ideas come to me at 4 am in the morning) but being able to hear what you're doing as it's intended to be heard by others is vital.

A set of computer speakers with a sub woofer can achieve this very well to start with.

Hook it Up to Your Stereo

When you get more serious you'll want to get your music coming out of an amp and some proper speakers. The external USB MIDI/analogue interface I use comes complete with stereo outputs (2 red and 2 white ports) I plug into an old HiFi amp and speakers.

How to Make Music on Your Computer – Conclusion

So there you have a very basic overview of how you can start to make music on your computer. Whether you're just curious and want to download a piece of software and listen to your work through your ipod headphones, or you're a musician ready to record your ideas and try them against some sampled beats, sounds, other parts and your own accompaniments.

In the next lesson we're going to look a bit further into some basic concepts of MIDI, virtual instruments, some of the visual concepts of all recording programs, tracks and more.

If you have any feedback please let us know, and when you're ready to look at some of the options that we recommend to get you up and running click the link below:

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