Thanks for the feedback! Re my home setup I do everything on a high spec pc with 4GB ram and an outboard M-Audio Delta 1010 rack mounted soundcard. My DAW consists of Cubase SX3 but if I was starting out again I would go with Reaper - I really like Cubase because of the easy to use interface and the midi capabilities (very flexible for VST's). I also have a Mackie HUI DAW controller for manipulating Cubase becuase trying to fiddle with knobs and faders using a mouse kills me! A budget option for a controller is also the Tascam US428 - I had one before upgrading to the HUI, makes life so much easier. I use EZ-drummer now too, used to use DFHS but found it too difficult to mix the drums to get a nice sound. I play everything now through a Rocktron Prophesy II fx/tube preamp - I love the tones out of this thing, fits my playing style perfectly plus it has an excellent speaker simulator for recording direct - I go straight to the Delta, I only use the HUI as a controller. I'm not the best at mixing but am getting slowly better - I do everything in Cubase SX3 including VST inserts and effects/compression from a UAD-1 card. I'm not much use at EQ but when I do use it I go with the CUbase generic parametric EQ.