Soft Synth setup. Hardware?

[reco]

Ok, SO!
I have had acopy of Ableton Live 2.0 sitting around for a while and decided to see if I could upgrade to 3.0 for cheap.....
Well, Hows about FREE!!!!!!!!!
I have had Reason for a while(using 2.5 now) and Cakewalk Project5. And kinda like the whole softsynth world. But heres my question..... And remember this is for live use and some studio.

Whats a good way to go as far as hardware?
I have a Oxygen8 and thats it.

I dont own another synth at all........
I want to use the Oxygen8 for triggering things in Live, and Was thinking of getting a M-Audio Radium 49 controller for using with Reason and PJ5.
But Im not sure on the audio interface.
I have a Dell laptop with a P4 2.66ghz processor 256mb of DDR(i know i know get more!)ram, it has two USB2.0 ports a IEE1394(Mini 4-pin)firewire port and card buss.

I was thinking one of four interfaces for the audio.
M-Audio FireWire 410
M-Audio FireWire AudioPhile
M-audio Quatro or duo
Echo Indigo DJ or I/o

What about using both of the OXY and Radium on a usb hub?

Any tips are great.
Thanks
-Reco

 

[Politicker]

I have a similar situation and no one has replied to my thread either. What's the deal with that?

I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I think that a USB hub would be a good thing because you could use it for other hardware (scanner, printer, etc.), whereas an interface will only be usable with midi devices.

 

[MidiPunk]

The hub might introduce latency; I'm sure someone will confirm, deny, or call me goofy. Nothing more frustrating than hearing your sounds a split second after triggering.

I'm in the process of shopping for a MIDI Controller also. My criteria is simply 61+ keys, good feeling action, decent reviews. I'm getting the impression you can buy a nice used full-blown synth for about the same cost as a new high end controller with no internal sounds.

Can't be much help with the specific questions, I'm using a ten year old synth (JV-35) as a controller & PCI MIDI I/O (Aard24/96).