OldMuso, Thank you for sharing your ideas with me!

I was forced to upgrade recently when my old desktop system bit the dust. I pondered buying a laptop to use but felt the desktop would work best for my situation as I don't take the DAW on the road. The added slots and ports are definitely a bonus in my opinion also for future expansion. I don't have it isolated from the network but I do most of my web surfing on a different machine.

Your idea of using a refurbished gaming PC would seem to have merit as those babies are usually well supplied with RAM, expansion ports, and powerful processors. Especially if you can get it with a warranty. I have to say that even my middle of the road HP desktop that I purchased does a good job for me. I only use BB and Realband for my song creations and both of those programs don't seem to require much for a CPU so it has a pretty light load.

My studio is pretty basic, I use a mixer with a USB output to the DAW as my audio interface and it works well for what I need. I like the mixer as I can have all my guitars and microphones connected and just have to push up the appropriate faders to start recording. That way I keep it simple so I don't get confused!

Del