I'll throw in my two cents -- n-track all the way! It takes a bit of fiddling to get MIDI to work the way you want, but otherwise I've had nothing but praise for it. I can get 12 tracks with effects no problem with a 400 MHz Celeron and 128 MB RAM running Win98 (I know Slack, I've been financially embarrased so I haven't switched to NT). I'm using a Soundblaster Live Value card, but wish I had the one with digital in/out...
MikeDog