I have now (almost) finished my first song with DS2416 + AX44 (using Cubase VST/24 3.65, PII 350MHz, 128MB RAM, UDMA IDE). Eleven audio tracks seemed to cause very little load on the PC CPU.

I used the latest drivers from Yamaha web page and have had no problems (except that the card I got first had some problem with EFX processor, caused glitches on efx return even if there was no input signal at all).

VST supports the card very well. Check www.prorec.com for a test/review of DS2416 controller SW (including Cakewalk).

I have no complaints about the sound quality.

I already knew before I bought the card that it does not have inserts for external gear, so if you want to have an external leslie (or compressor or distortion) on your organ sound and on that use the internal reverb you need to either

1) rerecord the dry organ track through the leslie or

2) route the (mono) organ sound from HD through one mixer channel to aux/bus out and through the external effect back to two mixer channels. For this you need to use total 3 mixer channels which may or may not be a problem.

Automation works well but sometimes I feel I would like to have an external controller (I'm designing my own currently, just waiting for Cubase or C-Console to support external controllers).

Conclusion: I am very happy I bought DS2416 (I was thinking first of 01V with digital I/O option plus MOTU 2408 but it would have cost 2-3 times the price of DS2416 + AX44).

regards VP