Hi,
My advice is to start slow and spend little.

If your PC has good specs and a pair of okay speakers hooked up to it then get a copy of FL Studio 8 along with some soft synths it comes bundled with. Citrus, Wasp XT etc. It's all fun stuff and is great for beginners.

Once you give that a try and like it get an inexpensive MIDI controller. Like the CME or M-Audio ones. I'd recommend CME UF series since they are probably as good as it gets for the money. M-Audio stuff can be pretty terrible.

So that way you'll get a relatively powerful sequencer/ host app and a controller. From there (and only if you dig what you're doing) a good audio card will be a good idea. ALthough something tells me it's a long way before you'll start looking for audio cards and such. Just give things a try for now without spending money on junk you might not have any use for.

cheers,

[This message has been edited by 3351 (edited 03-28-2008).]