Sound card

Whether you need one of these is debatable and will depend how much recording you do. If you have a good location recorder you may prefer to record onto that. Most of what I do is transferred to a show computer for playback, or I can play out of the headphone output to hear things over a system.

A good pair of headphones

I use Beyer DT770 which sound great and are useful for recording as they cut out a lot of outside noise.

1. -Beyer DT770 headphones £129.99
   

A bendy USB light (Kensington)

Use with a USB hub to avoid putting too much stress on the ports of your computer. www.dabs.com

USB Storage Disk

Very handy way of transferring files between computers. 1Gb stick, £20 www.dabs.com

Hardware

There was a time when you had to have many thousands of pounds worth of equipment to make the simplest sound design. Fortunately now you can do 90% of the work for a show on a laptop computer with a few accessories.

Most of your design work is going to take place in the rehearsal room or theatre, and as often as not in a hotel room as many shows open outside of London. So you need a studio base, but your main rig needs to be portable.

A laptop will form the heart of your studio, but it is best to avoid cheap PC laptops like the plague as the build quality and audio performance is often severely compromised. An Apple MacBook Pro is a good option as they are sturdy and well-built, and are capable of running Windows at the same speed as an equivalent PC, giving you the best of both worlds.

- Apple MacBook Pro 4Gb RAM, 250Gb £929: