I need help getting started with MIDI

[Falkner]

I'm getting myself a MIDI keyboard controller to play around with and I figure I'll be needing a real sound card instead of my integrated sound chip for a decent experience with it. I know next to nothing about sound cards, especially those with MIDI support. Soundfonts, wavetables, etc. is all new to me and I have no idea what I need to record MIDI decently. Can anyone help out here? I'm hoping I don't need to spent too much money, and it would be nice if I could find a card supported by Linux, but I'll most likely be dual booting to Windows for audio work anyhow.

I figured a place full of musicians might be a good place to ask for help with this sort of thing.

[hover]

MIDI has less to do with soundcards, and more to do with a good MIDI editor. You need a good DAW (digital audio workstation) with a built-in midi editor. Midi itself has no sounds. It is designed to interface with other midi devices and software based .vst instruments to tell these other devices "what to do".

Look up the WIKI on MIDI and it will help you alot.

edit: if you meant to get the midi info INTO the computer (I apologise for being mehtahded yesterday) there are many good cards, M-Audio makes a good one with midi support and a few other i/o capabilities.