Sorry, forget about that: at the moment I'm on Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit, but soon I will be on Windows 7 64 Bit with a lot of boost ... :-)

Heiko

 OK, Cubase is probably the best choice then, both in terms of features and performance.

DG

Reaper can work well for audio, but is years behind when it comes to MIDI. This may or may not matter, depending in what features you need,

DG

Once you try programming MIDI performances in Cubase key editor using VST Expression maps, you'll realize how much easier it is than going through the task of setting key switches (sometimes a few of them  plus another controller on its own lane, all this for a single note) in other sequencers.

Regarding Reaper. I made an FR on Reaper's forum to make the lower area of the MIDI editor more accessible by splitting it with a separator (http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?p=621518).The  official FR is here: http://forum.cockos.com/project.php?issueid=3132

So far 32 people voted for this FR and it got the priority rating of 4.

Even if it's implemented, it will only allow for a fraction of features Cubase's VST Expression has.

For linear compositional workflow, Cubase is going to be hard to best. For one thing (and this is really highlighted as I read around here today per Logic use), we have all of the controller lanes in the same window as the piano roll. The resolution for timing is up to 4000 ppqn  (the tempo track resolves accordingly, so if you need to you can insert a tempo at every point, zoomed in all the way); you can cut/paste the whole timeline in Cubase (full version) 4 and above, warp the timeline to the music in time-based mode... the transform editor is really powerful... ultimate control of MIDI, and very intuitive handling

Thanks for all your help and comments! Now someone has to jump in very quickly to prevent me from choosing Cubase ... [:D]

Heiko

Good luck choosing your sequencer.