what do i need to make music on PC?

[cmsdaker]

i am thinking about getting a laptop for the sole purpose of making music on. what kind of spec would i need to look for for optimum performance. what sort of hard ware and software will i need? what price would i be looking at, i'm on a tight budget really. appreciate any help. thanks

[sft42]

First question is what sort of music are you looking to produce? If it is mostly dance or "electronic" music then really the computer is all you need as a good software package of samples and breaks and beats will sort you out along with a digital edting suite (take your pick from Cool Edit Pro, Steinberg Cubase, and Cakewalk), If your going to include more traditional acoustic instruments then spend more of your budget on good mics and learn to use a mixing desk.

For more info try this website http://www.computermusic.co.uk/main.asp

[egneg]

Buy a couple of drumsticks and bang away!

[lisaj]

There are two ways to produce music on the PC, MIDI (which will require a great quality sound card usually unavailable on a laptop), or Sampling (which will just require a processor fast enough to process and bind together all your samples in real-time. I suspect you'll be after sampling, in which case fast processors, plenty of RAM and a nice fat hard disk should be fine.