Your Home PC Music Entertainment System
24-30-2003
By: Parisch Browne
Until quite recently, the cost of home entertainment systems and commercial quality music recording equipment has been very high. With the falling cost of reasonably powerful home PC hardware and software, and with a little know how, a home entertainment system can be assembled at a fraction of its previous cost.
In this article I will discuss some of the options available if you wish to use your PC to create a home entertainment system or a home recording studio. This is not the only way to create such systems but it will give you a taste for the technology and a good basis to build upon. All examples assume at least an entry level PC (see any newspaper advertisement for a basic Dell or similar PC) with the windows (98/ME/2000/XP) operating system, a reasonable sound card and a good set of speakers.
The basic specifications for each of the two systems that I will describe are as follows:
Home entertainment system requirements:
* Entry level specification PC with on-board sound card
* Reasonable quality speakers
* Music recording, cataloging and playing software
Home recording studio requirements:
* Reasonably powerful PC with extra memory
* Good quality sound card
* Good quality speakers and amplifier (if speakers are separate from the PC)
* Sequencer packages
* Other music equipment (microphone and cable, guitar and cable etc....)
The simplest setup for a music PC is to use it as your 'jukebox'. For this you need some additional software to copy your CDs and organise and play them on your PC's hard-drive. I use musicmatchjukebox 8.1 (www.musicmatch.com), a free program, which you can use to organise and play your music. Once the CD has been stored on the hard drive you can put the physical media away forever, as you will now use the copy on your computer. No more scratched or jumpy CDs.
Most new PCs come with a good on-board sound card, and reasonable speakers. If you would like even better sounds, for just over 100 euro you can get the Sound Blaster surround speakers and sound card (ie.europe.creative.com/estore/).
You could use the larger more traditional stereo hi-fi speakers but you will also need a separate amplifier to power them.
To set up your PC as a home studio you will need more equipment, but this can still be done at a reasonable price considering the functionality you get. I would definitely recommend a good separate (not on board) sound card. Good speakers (e.g. Tannoy Reveal) and an amplifier (e.g. Samson Servo 170) to drive them should cost about 230 and 250 euro respectively. You will need a microphone if you wish to record your voice. 200 euro should get you a reasonable studio microphone stand and lead. You will also need some kind of sequencer to arrange your different tracks within each song.
This is where the PC comes in. If you are recording keyboard sounds, propellerhead reason 2.5 (www.propellerheads.se) is a great program and handy for (but certainly not limited to) creating drum loops also. It has an orchestra of sounds to pick from. It retails at about 450 euro, which might seem expensive but for that price you are getting a complete virtual studio rack of instruments, a complete orchestra of sounds, many sound effects, sequencers, samplers and a drum machine as well. To record other instruments (including voice) you will need a wave-based sequencer such as pro tools free (www.digidesign.com) or Gold wave (www.goldewave.com). The latter is also handy for tasks such as noise reduction.
With very little effort and practically no financial outlay it is possible to create a music jukebox from your idle PC. Similarly, with slightly more effort and admittedly more expense (1000 - 1500 euro), you can turn it into a home recording studio.
One final hint. Always read product reviews. Buy the computer and music magazines and read what other users and musicians have experienced with the product; magazines such as Sound On Sound (www.soundonsound.com) are an invaluable source of information. Many products also have online forums/user groups where you can read or post messages about a product. Also browse the online catelogues of e-shops selling this type of equipment (a good site is www.thomann.de). Also remember to look at the manufacturers own site for deals. Creative labs often sell for cheaper than the resellers and they don't charge for post and packaging.
Have fun listening and making music.
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