Ever wondered why your friend is always so popular with the opposite sex while you sit around twiddling your thumbs and wondering how to get lucky? Or been in a situation where everyone else seems to be totally clued up on the latest in the music world, while you feel politely pushed out of the conversation? Picking up an interest in music could be your answer.

Music software has undergone a rapid transformation over the past few years. A wide variety of software is available in music and hardware stores, as well as over the internet. Numerous websites allow you to download music, often giving away free music software to make themselves popular. To successfully make the best use of the facility, we need to familiarize ourselves with a few basic requirements. Let us examine these requirements for a successful music download.

Your PC or laptop is probably all you need to pursue your new hobby. What you need to check is that it should have a minimum of 128 MB RAM if you want good quality output. Latest systems come with much higher RAM, and it's a simple case of the more the merrier. Get a 1GB RAM and see that music really play!

Most Hard Disks today come with a minimum capacity of 80 GB or more. The Hard Disk Drive needs to have at least 2 MB of free space. If you have more, it is better as the more the free space, the better will be the performance of the system. An additional audio and/or a graphics card on your motherboard will add to the performance of the audio software. It does this by acting as an additional RAM, and hence giving the software more space to execute its job.

A high speed modem of min capacity 56 Kbps is a must, as is an internet connection to go with it. If you can manage to hook on to a high-speed broadband connection of 2Mbps or above, well; your job will be done in a fraction of the time. Most music files, even MP3, are fairly large for a dial-up connection to handle comfortably; hence a high speed connection will definitely be an asset as it will allow much faster downloads. If you are planning to download music videos, then a min internet speed of 512 Kbps is absolutely essential.

A pair of decent earphones or headphones are a prerequisite for that ultimate listening experience. For external speaker requirements, choose from good quality PC speakers like JBL, Sony, Yamaha, or the very boss of them all - Bose. Branded PCs, of course, come bundled with their own speakers.

Coming to the Software. Besides using the basic internet browser to connect to the internet, you will need a good Audio/Video player to enjoy the results of your efforts once you have downloaded your music. Windows Media Player comes bundled with the operating system and is a powerhouse in itself, offering a host of mind-boggling options. Interested in trying out something new? Try out Jet Audio, VLC Media player, Music Match to add interesting options to your basic music player. These are audio/video players with a lot of playing options for different music experiences like Jazz, Rock, Classical, Vocal etc, automatically setting the equalizers for the best output for each of these music forms. Further, they give several options of enjoying your music with the varied output effects of sitting in a hall, big or small room, theatre etc. A number of interesting visualizations are bound to add to the enchanting experience. You can even set your own equalizer settings, depending whether you like more bass or not.

Try some of the freely available software like N-Track studio, MIDI Maestro, Chord Composer, MusiGenesis and VF160EX Fostex digital recorder if you are planning something more advanced like studio recording. These are higher end music production software that have sound editing and audio ripping capabilities.

So don't think any longer how your colleague is a hit with the opposite sex, just because he always seems to be up-to-date with the latest music. Step out and become an expert yourself.



The author is passionate about everything musical. She is pursuing a course in digital music recording. She has a state of the art car audio system. She recommends this online music dictionary for getting familiar with all the terms related to music.