Oh cool! Music stuff,yay!
I went on a major hardware synth tack a while ago, but I still keep Cubase and misc. software toys around. Recently I've considered selling my hardware synths and some other lightly used gear for a Receptor.
Not close to that yet though, don't have time for one thing ..
One of the simplest to use loop arranger/composers is Tuareg (www.brambos.com). Version 1.5 is really, really basic, but the UI is so intuitive, if you have a bunch of audio loops around (trimmed to loop points), you can cook up wack beats with it in no time. The biggest drawback from me is that I love the loop slicer but it doesn't crossfade so you get pops/etc. I've actually arranged some sliced beats in Tuareg and then reproduced them in some other free loop slicer (that did do crossfading). I still have some unfinished stuff from Tu .. gar. The same guy also wrote a VST host/arranger. Tu2 is a refinement of Tuareg 1.x, a decent one, but the 1.5 UI was a wonderful creative leap, worth playing around with just to experience a really fun paradigm for arranging. If you can customize another software interface (like Cubase) with custom controls to do the "stack of dj crossfade mixers" arrangement that Tu2 and Tuareg have, it's worth a peek just for that.
Anyone here do "live looping", a la
www.loopers-delight.com?