Thank you very much for the post. That is a wonderful source of information and leads to information that I will definitely utilize.

Question about the software side of things. Let me give you an overview of my computer. It's a 'third' computer, meaning the one that is the least valuable. I have one $4K desktop computer, a $1.5K notebook, and then this one... 2.4 Ghz Pent 4, Dell Dimension 4500S. Has 768MB Ram, Echo MIA MIDI Digital Audio and MIDI Card (new, haven't used it yet, intended to be the inputs for recording with Cakewalk), 40GB HD. I figured this was a decent enough system to record on... I hope I am right. Worse case scenario I have to use the 'big daddy'.

The question really is, do you think I could run the programs you mention on my computer?

Looking forward to reading about all the stuff you told me to google. Thanks again!