A sound card is the component of a computer system that enables it to produce and capture sound. They usually take the form of a PCI card that is installed in the chassis of a PC, or if you use laptop, a PCMCIA card which slots into the side.
Quality Music Production
Domestic sound cards can be picked up pretty cheap these days, but beware of some budget models available elsewhere - for computer music production that's even half-way serious, they simply won't cut the mustard. Even if you're on a tight budget, it's worth choosing something within our range that we've qualified for music production.
The main feature of a sound card, of course, is the sound quality, so we've made sure that we only stock products with high quality conversion (this is the bit that turns 1s and 0s that your computer understands into sound, so it's important that it's accurate), low noise, and low THD (Total Harmonic Distortion, which is a factor in how much the sound card colours the signal).
Versatile MIDI Devices
We also have models with onboard MIDI for connection to external synthesizers, modules and electronic drum kits - important factors if you plan on using any MIDI devices are the number of simultaneous voices the card supports (also known as Polyphony), and the number of overall MIDI channels.
Finally, if you use an Apple computer, don't forget to make sure it's compatible with your Mac!
Samplers
In the early 1980s Samplers revolutionised the music recording industry … a Sampler is an electronic musical device often (though not exclusively) linked to a sample trigger interface such as a keyboard or sample (drum) pad. Rather than generating then sound itself like a synthesizer does a Sampler holds multiple recordings (or Samples as they are known) of instrument types - both acoustic and electronic which are held in the RAM memory of the sampler.
When the sample trigger is activated (such as pressing down a key on a keyboard) the sampled recording of the instrument is played back and because a large proportion of the sounds are held in the RAM memory section they can be accessed quickly.
Each Sample is linked via software to variety of synthesis parameters so that the individual sample can be edited, amended or modified. Modern samplers are used frequently to create drum loops and can be hardware based - such as the Roland SP555 or software (plug-in) based like the EMU X2 & X3 software applications.