Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

Giles comments are spot on  - only thing I would add about Cubase VST is that ISA Soundblaster cards are useless. You'll have problems with midi timing, and they are not 16 bit full duplex for the audio features. For best all round performance with VST you will need a PCI sound card, the Yamaha all in one PCI cards being especially good. However, I'm using a simple cheap Terratec 128i PCI sound card for midi (so I can fit a Yamaha DB50 synth to it) and its fine. I'm also using Steinbergs own USB dual midi interface which is fine too. For audio I'm using an Event Gina PCI multi channel audio card which works great too (not using the ASIO drivers though as latency not a problem - I'm using a mixing desk).

I was recording this weekend, with the DTXpress and playing back ok from VST, along side the DB50 and a Korg NS5R - all worked great.

Definitely, VST takes some driving - a steep learning curve, but in the end its worth it.

Finally, give VST loads of RAM and its very stable (min 128Mb). Its also worked much better since upgrading from a P200MMX to a PII 350MHz Intel CPU. Also, apparently AMD CPUs have less capable floating point processing (which VST needs) but never used one so I can't confirm.

Paul