I'm sorry, but I fail to see the "Enya" connection.

Her engineer has an impeccable listening environment, coupled with dozens of different mics and pres. She layers dozens of vocal tracks to get her "sound", and no two tracks in the layering use the same mic or pre. Anyway, that's what I think of when "Enya-like studio" comes to mind: dozens of mics, dozens of pres, and a damn fine listening environment. (Oh, and a lexicon 960 too...)

I'm confused about your planned working methods. A keyboard controller only sends midi note and controller messages. So it appears to me that if you're not running Garageband there will be no sounds!. To compose without the computer you'll need some type of synth (synths can also act as controllers for Garageband). Your Alesis monitors will be connected to the line outputs of your M-audio interface. As far as suggestions for the myriad of keyboard controllers it really depends on your needs as far as how many keys and what type of other controllers you need. That would really be a personal decision.

"I'm sorry, but I fail to see the "Enya" connection."

You see...we're both irish... :) I appreciate your confusion, Chris...actually, I'm flailing about here as I know *incredibly* little about the world of digital music...I know what I'd like to be doing, but I don't know how to get there (up till now I've been doing everything with acoustic instruments and mics)...so...your explanation of how Enya composes her music was very helpful...I figured it was essentially all done on keyboards/synthesizers/in the computer...I didn't realize she used so many vocal tracks...

thanks, vividsonics!

"So it appears to me that if you're not running Garageband there will be no sounds!"

Ah ha...I remember someone suggesting Ableton Live as a way of using computer generated compositions through a controller...I'm not sure, though, that Ableton works with garageband...perhaps I'd have to buy Reason?
To clarify, though, in order to play using the synth sounds live through a controller I'd either need to figure out how to play the synth sounds through garageband or I'd need to buy a separate synthesizer?

Thanks again, folks!

What I'm saying is that you have to have the computer on and running the software if you're going to play software instruments. If you want something that is stand alone and not reliant on a computer you need a synth. But if you just want to trigger synth sounds and loops and such on your computer a midi controller is enough. You can't trigger the software synths without going through the computer regardles of "memory" in a midi controller. The memory patches in keyboard controllers are controller assignments (what the knobs/faders/buttons control). You can use Garageband or Abbleton Live or Reason or whatever with any midi keyboard controller. The thing to do is pick the software that works best for you. If you want to play synth sounds without a computer a hardware synthesizer is what you need. It has the sounds built in.