MAKING CONNECTIONS 2 The focus of this chapter is to help you prepare for the sample recording phase of the sampling process. This preparation involves ensuring that you have the appropriate equipment and that it is hooked up correctly. 2.1 Signal chain The signal chain is critical to understand. It can be quite complex, and it's important to have a good grasp on what items you need and how to hook them all up. At any given moment, you should know where your audio data is. An example of the order of equipment for a microphone- based system is microphone--preamp--analog-to-digital converter--audio interface--computer--software--playback