If your style is sample based (like most hip- hop is), then you might wanna check out the Roland SP-808. You get lots of sample time w/ unlimited resampling and TONS of killer real-time effects all for around $1300 new. It reads and writes samples directly from Zip disks so it is quick.You can even couple it w/ a cheap controller keyboard to make it a pretty much complete workstation. I can't think of anything else in this price range that offers what this thing does.Check it out B MAN