Hello to all the MIDI Maniacs out there...this is my first post on this quite interesting forum. I'm very excited to finally take the plunge and "get my hands dirty" with some real sythesizers. Basically my question is "Which kit should I start with?" But I'm sure some background info and maybe a quick personal bio would be helpful. I'm a 25 year old living in Connecticut, USA with little experience playing music but have always been fascinated with the unique synth sounds found in all types of music. The last couple of years I've been making short youtube music videos of various things (check them out on ajmjd.com). The vids are not very good and neither is my music...but I gotta start somewhere. This being my main hobby, I want to get better but I feel as though I should take a detour into the world of synthesizers and hopefully my skills making electronic music increases as I learn. Right now all I have is Reason 3.0 and an M-Audio 49e keyboard (MIDI/USB out and a pitch & mod wheel)...I also use the Rockband drumkit and guitar thru Reason but they are USB only. I have had a blast playing around for over a year now, but I get the feeling as though I'm cheating myself by completely skipping over real analog synthesis. I am great with a computer but I need that hands on feel! So what I'm looking to start with is a fairly cheap & easy kit for $100 or less that I can plug my keyboard into (accepts MIDI in). Being able to connect it to my PC/Reason would be sweet too but not necessary (I'm guessing it would need some kind of MIDI out but a simple audio jack would at least let me record). I am already drooling over the xoxb0x and others but that would be major overkill as my first kit. I already have some soldering experience, not an expert, but probably enough to get me going. So far I came up with the following kits: Malfunctionator - Looks like CV/Gate only Voice of Saturn - Looks like CV/Gate only Voice of Saturn Sequencer - Same as above Fatman - A little too pricey for my first kit (but looks sweet!) And of course the Midibox64 and others I saw on the ucapps.de website...but it seems I have to source the parts myself which is something I was trying to avoid on my first kit but that's not gonna stop me if it ends up being the best and cheapest route to go. I understand CV/Gate is like a pre-MIDI setup to send information...am I also correct in thinking there's no easy way to convert a MIDI signal to CV/Gate so that I could use the Voice of Saturn mentioned above with my keyboard? Probably just wishful thinking...but I'm guessing it'd require another module in between or something. In the distant future I hope to create a way to convert MIDI signals to control specific LED's and other things in some kind of cool music visualization setup. I'm all about visualizing music in new ways...sort of like a Winamp visualization but without a computer monitor. PS: Probably the "best" song I've made in Reason is Like, Do It.mp3 using Rockband drumkit...also check out my New England Panorama website if interested... I'm so glad I found this place ;D