Hi! In terms of software: Sampler/sample-player: linuxsampler (gigasamples) qsampler as graphical frontend fluidsynth soundfont (qsynth as GUI frontend) ardour for recording (say cubase comparable roughly) audacity also recording but smaller AMS (alsa modular synth) for modular synth (very neat analogue oscs and filters!) ZynAddSubFX a great synthesizer with analogue, additive and a the pad-synthesis) muse midi/audio sequencing (I hear they've a nice GUI, loads of features and good results) ladspa effects - ladspa is a standard effect-plugin system, which can be used with every nowerdays app. We can also use a couple of vst-plugins (I think with ardour directly and with jack_fst oder vst-host, I don't know the exact name) You can connect all those applications vai the jack-audio low-latency server. About hardware, you have high limits. You could get one fo the delta 1010 card by maudio, an older RME, but there you better ask. But I think this will get you a really nice audio-box. If you didn't install linux already, you should also pay attention to which distribution to choose. SuSe is still quite ok, I believe. Planet CCRMA is made for audio, and so probably your first choice. I think debian also has some good features for that. HTH. Kindest regards Julien -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net - the Linux TextBased Studio guide