You will need some kind of a soundcard: something with a device in it called an AD converter (Analog to Digital). This converts your electrical audio signals in your mic cables (voltage fluctuations analogous to the air pressure fluctuations that your instrument creates) into discrete samples of instantaneous amplitudes (digital audio). Before this conversion can take place, you will need a preamplifier, a device that amplifies the signal strength of your microphone's output, which is very weak.

ok
Does the A/D converter have to be on the sound card?
Can you have a pre amplifier.. then take the signal into a seperate A/D converter then take the digital signal into the PC?

One the signal is in digital form... do you still need a sound card.
I just wonder whether i can miss out the sound card because the sound card is usually rather expensive whereas being able to use existing usb or firewire inputs would be much better.
May sound daft not using a sound card.. but i did once see a mixer which outputted to USB which "Claimed" do be "better" than a soundcard because sound cards produce nosie... I don't know much so correct me if im wrong. I'm just checking up on everything that i've heard from web sites... I have to say this forum is about the only place on the internet where you can actually get real reviews on equiptment and get honest answers ^_^

Thanks for help David French :D:D

You can use an external AD converter as you have described, but you will still need some kind of soundcard, this time with digital inputs, in order to get the audio into your computer. By the way, when I say 'soundcard', I mean any device that gets sound into a computer, with of without AD conversion, Firewire, USB, or PCI. USB and firewire cards can be lower noise sometimes because they are away from the electromagnetic noise sources in your computer's case, but there are PCI cards that do the conversion outside the box and get the same results. If you have a well designed system, noise shouldn't be a problem anyway. The advantage that PCI cards have over Firewire of USB cards is bandwidth; however, this only comes into play at high track counts or with realtime monitoring of effects. You ccan get good results with all three, but if you can, id' avoid USB because of the high CPU utilization.

Terabyte wrote: I have to say this forum is about the only place on the internet where you can actually get real reviews on equiptment and get honest answers

Yep! Our community is the best on the net! Tell your friends!