It`s that time again... Money on the account and its time to upgrade some gear.

My current setup:

API 3124
2 x Great River ME-1NV
TL Audio 5001 (4chn valve preamp)

UA 2-1176
Eventide Eclipse
TC Electronic Powercore firewire
Lynx Aurora 16

I have downloaded some midi cover songs from limewire on cakewalk format. I can open the tracks o.k. But when I try to reasign the sounds to my e-mu proteus sound module. It will not retain the changes. I am using cakewalk pro audio 9. Can anyone offer any help on this subject :(

i need a few suggestions for equipment for my home studio needed to do the following jobs

1 voice overs, vocal recordings for songs,jingles etc
2 instruments like sitar,flute,acoustic and electric guitar recordings through Micing cabs, and maybe live drums too.

What pieces of gear would be the best investment?

Has anybody had any experience with this dual channel pre? It's only $250 and i was thinking of using with a pair of rode's NT5s for overheads on the drums? Any suggestions?

http://www.atcsd.com/tl_hss.html

Has anyone experienced one of these technologies? How does it sound. ?

I'm going to upgrade soon and purchase a new machine. The last one I bought was a P III with a lot of RAM and Win XP from HP. I'm wondering is there anywhere you can get Laptops built specifically with Music Production in mind? Any web links are appreciated, bearing in my I'm in Ireland so US stores mightn't be much help to me.

Is there a book/website that meticulously covers vintage pro audio equipment (analogous to a history of marshall amplifiers book, or ampwares - the fender amp website - specifications, materials, transformers, etc.) BUT for mic preamps, compressors, eq's, consoles, analog tape machines, etc.

In looking at the following processors:

LAKE Contour Pro 26
Ashley Protea 2.24C
BSS Audio FDS 366
XTA DP226

I'm currently running PTLE with an 002 on a dual 1.25 Mac g4. I've been looking into getting Nuendo or Cubase and would like to run it off a PC.