"ahh, sigh" I'm so bloody confused now! I still really want an mc-909, but it is very expensive (as is the electribes), and from what you guys are telling me it ain't all that good.....

I do own a copy of ableton live, as well as an old ensoniq groovebox and a clone 303 and a couple of other studio bits, but what I really want is a powerful groovebox which is the centre of my live set. I'd like to ****-oof the laptop and have all my midi kit sequenced direct from the groovebox (or sampled, and stored on the groovebox)...

I know that there are a thousand advantages to using a laptop, but I just don't like them. . . I don't like the way that my mind concentrates on the computer screen, when it should be concentrating on the music. I also don't like using a mouse/touchpad and I don't like having to piss about with latency and various audio drivers.... I'm sure that my computer will still be heavily used for cleaning up loops, recording and writing complicated sequences, however I do plan on going fully hardware. . . . Ambitious I know........but I much prefer the sound of real synthesisers as opposed to the sound of soft-synths..