Jazz and classical composer here. Trying to see into the crystal ball. Soft sampling seems to be coming on strong.

For someone who just wants to compose with a good music keyboard MIDI connected to a PC and then burn to CD, mostly with pure acoustic instrument sounds (the endless effects that drive the synth market are of little use to me and they just generate huge hardware manuals and synths with buttons and knobs that I dont need) whats the best way to go ?

I'm good at MIDI and sick of the cheezy acoustic sounds - especially violins and woodwinds! Synths are great for rock and roll and performing - but forget classical and acoustic sounds. I'm looking at dropping the synth approach altogether and going to a "silent" controller with weighted keys (like a Fatar - I need that piano feel) and then a BIG FAST PC with two hard drives - running maybe Gigasampler.

But then here comes Halion and VST instruments. And then there's emagic with EXPS24. Any comments on an under $4,000 soft sample set up for someone like me (including the computer and some basic acoustic sound samples?) Thanks for any thoughts, LFE