Don, the soundcard that came with your laptop is fine for SMF playback...What you may want to do, is upgrade the wave table..If you are running XP, The Microsoft GS wavetable came with it, and it is useable...but there are a few more choices available..For example the Roland DX, Roland Hyper Canvas and M-Audio Key Rig..They will require a host program like Forte..
You can still select the songs from your explorer window using VanBasco as your player..

As far as recording goes, I have had good results even with the inexpensive cards that come with the computers...When I decided to try a high quality card for my laptop..I purchased the VX Pocket from Digigram...it worked excellent, spec wise by today's standards, the numbers seem low [48hz/24bit], but to the human ear..I don't hear it any better than this..

The convenience is it installs as a PCMCIA device..

[This message has been edited by Fran Carango (edited 11-24-2005).]