It is the lifeline of your MIDI tasks for some self-explanatory reasons. It is commercially available everywhere, even online. So far, when I started doing MIDI, Soundblaster is a comfortable partner to answer all your needs.
The later version, the better. Well what can you expect of computer hardwares...? You buy today, the next day they are obsolete. Or, you are quite updated and you buy something terribly good and you find it incompatible to the motherboard =(
Anyway, to cut it short, just avail the latest peripheral you can get so that the patches are realistic, it also means upgrading your PC in general. Now, it doesn't go cheap at all. Ask someone expert on PC specs so you can get the most on hardwares.
Cakewalk ( I think any MIDI user is familiar with this), now Sonar.
Other third party softwares available for Windows desktop application. Actually there are so many out there, however they will just make you dizzy, so therefore, you may consider the above options as best.
A Keyboard with MIDI in/out is basically more expensive than any ordinary type...It is capable of getting played notes directly on a MIDI editor. If you know how to play the piano and planning to buy a keyboard, consider this as well. Currently, all expensive keyboards are MIDI compatible.
You should get one with pitch bender since this could add a lot of spice in simulating bends, unless otherwise you find a similar MIDI guitar with this capability. A pitch bender can move mountains!!! Anyway pitch bends can be simulated as "Wheel" in Editors. For further enhancement in terms of sustaining and modulating sound, you may choose to buy an optional pedal for the keyboard. Keyboards nowadays are attached to USB.
MIDI guitar comes in stringless "guitar instrument" with MIDI capacity, or you could buy an interface attached to an electric guitar then attached via USB. This did not come easy because the whole concept is friendly to digital keyboards. If you want to see how tough to simulate guitar sounds some 7 years ago, read my obsolete info below:
Obsolete Info: Sometime 1999 (?) I became interested in a gadget that can attach any kind of guitar (acoustic or electric) into the PC, so I bought G-vox Guitar. It is a hardware with a separate special pick-up that will detect each 6 strings and generate MIDI digitized notes! It helped in my MIDI sequencing and kept me from getting too "manual" in my approach.
The drawback... G-vox is connected to the COM port and not to the MIDI port. COM port is slow in transmitting sounds, therefore, I generated broken sound with this gadget. I have to slow down my TEMPO to 50 to 60 bpm at the MIDI editor. At first it is okay, but lately, I seem to lose my guitar dexterity in slow tempo. Anyway, I think it is a matter of practice. I tried doing the partial unplugged MIDI of "Nothing Else Matters" using GVOX, no pitch bends, just actual guitar recording and spice on bass and some instruments to simulate vocal parts.
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