Wouldn't it be nice if you could create your own pieces of music on your PC quickly and easily? Not only some simple songs but full fledged pop, rap or techno sound - including cool beats and bass lines? Making your own beats and music on used to require very expensive studio equipment such as synthesizers and sequencers that you could easily end up with spending several thousand bucks for.
Yes of course there has always been music software on PCs and all types of home computers but usually this software was pretty amateurish.
The rule of thumb was that if you could produce a sound on your home computer quickly and easily then it also sounded like that: quick, easy and home-made.
This only changed recently when PCs and notebooks got more and more powerful that they could handle music software that used full quality 16bit wave table sounds with 44kHz.
This is basically the quality the professional music producers use.
Now even professional music producers start using their PCs for makings beats and baselines.
Usually the pros still use their keyboards to play the actual songs but they will use the music software on the PC as a sequencer.
Needless to say that if you want to use your computer not only to store the sequences but to actually synthesize the sounds or to play the actual sounds stored as samples you will need a high quality sound card.
Also this sound card should be free from interferences.
Recently another alternative has emerged: Internet based music studios.
You basically go online from any computer and compose your music in a web application.
Everything is done on the server, arranging and storing the sounds and the rendering of the final piece of music.
This means you no longer depend on your own system resources.
Of course this is an option primarily for beginners - but a clever and comfortable one.
You don't need to install anything or worry about installing sounds and samples.
Everything is done online.
You just need to export the songs as MP3 or WAV-file.
When you look for a home music software and you plan to work with professional musicians or studios please make sure the software you choose is able to export songs in WAV-format (wave file) - not only as MP3.
While MP3 is the standard in music for consumers it has severe limitations and is not accepted among pros.
Whatever piece of software you choose make sure you read the reviews first and check how many samples the software gives you without having to invest in expensive sound libraries.