Nigel, wow, interesting to discover that Decca Buddy's been around (in its orginal form) since July 2002. . . nearly 3 years! quite a LONG time for computer software. I suspect current software advances may have outgrown Decca Buddy's further improvement possibilites, causing Akai to decide to discontinue it now. I wonder if Akai (or other software developer) is planning to come out soon with an even better sounding software 'vocal harmonizer' VST and/or DirectX plug-in soon. I do think the future is software based arrangers. How soon it will finally become OS stable enough & all operation parameters (calling up patches, regs, etc) easily & quickly accessible for live performance is the question. Frank, I'm really excited about the prospects, and especially appreciate your posts which keep us all here abreast on the latest developments on software arrangers. - Scott