The big name brands are great, Steinberg, Digidesign etc... but Reaper is just as good and it's free to download (you are asked to buy the licence for small money if you like it but there is no obligation). It has all of the flexibility of Cubase including VST plug-ins and midi compatability (something ProTools does not have) plus it has the user friendliness and mixing abiltieis of ProTools. It's also a very small installer (only a few MB's). Get it here: http://www.cockos.com/reaper/download.php

I bought Cubase SX3 about a year or two ago and I was not very impressed when I discovered Reaper and found that it was just as good and free to download - the licence works out at about 15 times cheaper than Cubase SX3 ($50 compared to $750). Get it, it's an excellent program!