In Stratchcylde they're turning living rooms into recording studios. Harriet Arnold listened in.

When asked to help interface a BBC to a music synthesiser, soldering iron toting members of a Glasgow-based club magnified the challenge. It's not too surprising that they designed from scratch as far as possible, as many have built home-brew systems.

"We made it a mind-bending hardware exercise," said Strathclyde Computer Club chairman John Barraclough. "We try to get other members interested in the nuts and bolts of computing."

The result turns a living room into a recording studio. The BBC is used to display and edit music before playing it through the synthesiser. There's also the facility for using a multi-track tape recorder to build up layers of music as the computer enables pin-point accuracy in matching the different layers with a timing track.

The means has been a "handful of components", plenty of electronic expertise and even more patience, says Mr. Baraclough.

The first stage involved building a D/A converter board and acquiring a circuit diagram to work out what the interfaces should be. That, along with making the software do the right thing at the right time, were the main hurdles.

The cost of such a project veers between the affordable - the D/A converter board cost about £25 - and the too expensive, An oscilloscope, for instance, had to be borrowed.

More details of club projects from John Baraclough (0360) 50951.