thanks much for the tips!

to answer about monitors and soundcards, i have a decent set of cambridge soundworks monitors with a subwoofer, so plan to do that upgrade last. i'm using a laptop, so my soundcard options are limited. but luckily for now i have an ASIO card. i was thinking about the maudio firewire 8 i/o external soundcard. do either of you (or anyone esle reading this) know anything about whether this is good or not?

one other question...i have serious lag issues when playing back sounds from my softsynths on my an1x. i figured this was probably because i'
m using a midi rather than usb controller keyboard. but now i'm doubting that idea, and wonder if the latency issue has more to do with cubase.

if it's not the midi keyboard, how do i fix the issue?