You have to consider: input: audio cd? digital movie? downloaded digital audio? MIDI instruments? analog line in from tape/record? builtin microphone? processing: just split on sound gaps? equalization? effects? mixing? sound synthesis? output: iTunes? web streaming? web download? burn an audio cd? mix with a movie? You'll probably want a good audio card for digiting audio, and a good microphone. Non-lossy formats: aiff - common on mac. uses lots of space. wav - common on pc. uses lots of space. flac - Free Lossless Audio Code. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC pcm Lossy formats: mp3 - MPEG-1/2 Audio Layer 3. older encoding, generally not as good quality per size as more recent codecs (mpc, vorbis, wma, aac) however newer VBR tuning improves mp3 (as LAME does), . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3 vorbis - a free encoding in the Ogg container. no licensing issues. http://www.vorbis.com/ and http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis mpc - musepack or "mpeg+". a free encoding for mpeg2. http://corecodec.org/ wma - Windows Media Audio. has both a lossy and a lossless codec. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Audio aac - an audio code for mpeg4 used by iPod. supports DRM. http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/aac/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_audio_coding and http://jeff.binaryfeed.org/misc/iTunes-Music-Store-DRM.html and http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/09/playfair_dmca_takedown/ Disk formats: CDDA - audio cd format. 16-bit 44.1kHz pcm. lossless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDDA Music Politics: http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/ The iPod will play MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, and some models Real and Audible. Links: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/links.php Downloadable Music and Distribution: http://www.allofmp3.com/ CD Baby http://www.cdbaby.com/ Magnatune INgrooves www.ingrooves.com (discussion at http://www.selloutcentral.com/archives/2004/04/20/ingrooves/ ) Software Reviews: http://www.music-software-reviews.com/recording.html breaks down classes of recommendations for Windows Articles: articles by Jay Rose on dv.com and http://www.dplay.com/ "Music Software That Lets You Play With The PROs" http://www.music-software-reviews.com/recording.html "Better Vinyl to MP3 Conversion (Mac OS X)" http://urlgreyhot.com/drupal/node/849 favors Peak, but didn't try Amadeus or GarageBand "Lossy Audio" http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/5/30/05011/4293 "About audio compression" (find english help article from http://allofmp3.com) "Using iTunes and Amadeus to Create MP3s from Cassette Audio Tapes" http://www.mrs.umn.edu/ITI/2003/itunesMP3cassettes.html Businesses: http://lp2cd.com/plain_map.htm (lp to cd transfer, around $20/cd) Hardware: M-Audio Delta http://www.echoaudio.com/ Books: "Cutting Edge Web Audio" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130807532/studiohelp/103-4500166-1507041