Why Do I Need Specific Hardware and Software to Record to My Computer?
1) Whether midi or audio, you will be putting data into the pc. A single musical part would be a track, mono or stereo. A collection of these tracks would constitute a song. These chunks and fragments of data have to be controlled and manipulated so that the sound we create satisfies our musical goals. This requires editing in various ways, requires a control system and that is what the software provides, Software keeps songs from your imagination organized in your computer.
2) The hardware provides a way to convert the analog signals that your voice and instruments provide into digital information that the pc and software can utilize.