DirectSound is a software component of the DirectX library, supplied by Microsoft, that resides on a computer with the Windows operating system. It provides a direct interface between applications and the sound card drivers on Windows XP and earlier operating systems, enabling applications to produce sounds and music. Besides providing the essential service of passing audio data to the sound card, it provides many needed capabilities such as recording and mixing sound; adding effects to sound e.g. reverb, echo, flange; using hardware controlled buffers for extra speed; positioning sounds in 3D space (3D audio spatialization), capturing sounds from a microphone or other input and controlling capture effects during audio capture.