New guy here...seeking advice

[Simonize]

Hi Everyone,

I'm about to purchase a new PC that I would like to used for digital recording (as well as digital photo editing (Photoshop), office apps, digital video editing). I understand PTLE runs measureably better on PCs than on Macs. I have built a couple of PCs in the past and am pretty comfortable on the hardware side of things, what I would appreciate is some help on the software side.

I done a bit of shopping and research on the 'net. It seems to me that an MBox with PTLE 6.4 would be a great, cost-effective way for a hobbyist to get (back) into digital recording. What I would like is hardware/software that will let me record guitar and vocals and also let me create backing tracks by using/manipulating loops (for convenience) and by using midi instruments/midi sequencer. I also would like to do a little video scoring...I imagine this would primarily be electronic and/or loop-based music.

Do you think PTLE is a good choice for this? I hear complaints that PTLE's midi implementation is less than ideal comparted to, say Cubase but that PTLE is much better on the audio side. Fair comment?

Are there any other packages I should consider? (a Cubase variant? Cakewalk? Ableton, Reason - not even sure what these two do ?)

Thanks for any advice you can pass on...it would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Simon

[Bazzle]

Get the Mbox.You also get light versions of Reason.[MIDI synth based] and Ableton[loop based] with it, as well as Sampletank Le[soft sampler].For what you want to do it will be perfect.Protools MIDI is not to shabby either.

[jimbob]

i was a Cubase/logic user until about a month ago, using alot of midi, i went to protools, worrying a bit about midi. It is not that bad, you can us softsynths and samplers, easy enough, One thing is the midi is not in Blocks like in Cubase/logic, it is just one long score, but you can save regions of midi, it seems ok so far