glad to be of help. Re my own setup, i do everything in cubase sx3 - recording and mixing etc. If i hadn't forked out 700 quid for sx3 i would be using reaper for everything. I advise you download a copy for free and if you can say for the licence. It, does everything cubase and protools does only a hell of a lot cheaper. I use a lot of vst plug ins including a uad-1 card to take the load of my pc's cpu. Took a while to get all the gear. I would advise you start with reaper and follow the manual and help on the reaper forum. Steep learning curve but well worth it.