Monitoring

A decent pair of pro monitor speakers will be one of the best things you buy, and the rule of thumb is the bigger the better but DO NOT BUY "DJ" SPEAKERS! A powerful consumer amp is just fine for listening at close range.

Dynaudio BM5's £341

Cambridge Amp £69 www.richersounds.co.uk

A sub-bass speaker

Open up a whole new world of sound design! Get a consumer model with a 10inch driver, but listen to it in the shop as some models have a permanent low-level buzz on them.

www.richersounds.co.uk

An iPod

Great for being able to carry your entire music collection around with you.

iPod classic 120Gb £175

MIDI keyboard

A 2 or 3-octave keyboard is useful for playing with sounds in the studio or in the rehearsal room.

M-audio Oxygen £78

Portable hard drive

Lacie Rugged Hard Drive - fanless and firewire bus powered

500Gb £119

Studio rig:

A small Mixing Desk. Get a Mackie if you can afford it, Soundcraft if you can't.

Mackie CFX12 £478

Soundcraft M8 £269

A backup Hard Drive

Get a 2Tb Hard Drive to backup your laptop hard-drive & portable hard drive & to archive your shows.

2Tb Drive £165