In This article we will discuss what you will need to record with your computer inexpensively.
From just under $200, depending on what you want to spend. (please not that any pricing on any of these pages may have changed since publication.)

Many people have asked this question. How to get sound from an exterior source be it Vocals, Tape, CD or Instruments into their computer. This is relatively an easy thing to do. My questions are how much do you want to spend? and how good do you want it to sound.

Every sound card whether it is a separate board or built into your motherboard has this capability.
If you look at the back of your computer where the I/O (input/output) interface for your sound card is you will see these common jacks. Mic, Line in, Speaker out, and Game port joystick connector, which is also the midi  interface (Musical Instrument Digital Interface).

The Mic jack is for a computer microphone. These microphones are sub-standard for recording vocals and sound quite terrible. The Line in jack is for plugging in another audio device that outputs a "Line Power" signal. These devises would be a tape deck, a CD player, or a mixer. The speaker jack is of course for your speakers and the Game Port or joystick port is where you would plug in a midi keyboard with a special cable.

Like I mentioned before the better the sound card the better the results. You can use what you have for now, but I would suggest to upgrade to a better card. And do note that pro audio cards do not have these connectors. We will cover those in much more detail in another segment called building a daw.

The SoundBlaster Live Value card in it's time was an good entry level card for recording vocals and exterior devices into your computer. Most motherboards today come with built in cards that would rival the older SBLive cards. Most of these devices are limited to only recording in 16bits and 44.1Khz. You'll have to be aware of distortion due to clipping (input signal too hot), also recording in 16bits also can record more noise (hiss) than recording in 24bits.

Here are the pin outs for the SBlive card...

The SBLive has two speaker outputs as it can do sort of a surround sound playback. The output we are interested in is the Front Speaker output. This is where you would plug-in a set of stereo speakers. The other jack we are interested in is the Line In jack. This is where we are going to plug in our mixer. If you have a midi keyboard you can get a special midi I/O to joystick cable from any online music store or even Radio Shack.

You can also check-out new products that are being developed for entry level recording applications from
companies such as M-Audio, Presonus etc...

Many of these hardware units come with OEM software from major pro level developers like Cubase & Sonar.
Plus not to mention the affordable solutions by these companies and others like Reaper.
You can also use freeware programs that are available on the net like Audacity.

The following cables you can get from any online music store or Radio Shack. If pro results are want you are going for then go to a pro shop for your cables or, make your own if you are handy with a soldering iron.