"The RAM's Last Charge" or "Vista Lovers, Disband!"

[brynmyrddinemrys]

Greetings! Hi all, I just discovered this forum, and this is my first post. This looks like a great community to join!

I have been recording for a couple years now, and my goal has been to create the most versatile and professional sound studio I can for the least amount of cash possible. I sing and play guitar and keys (I also used to play trumpet back in high school). I am a self-taught composer and have been writing music of varying genres for about ten years now. I have three predominant musical interests at the moment - I have been writing a collection of baroque pop-folk songs, along with some electronic-jazz loops, and a few classical-new age pieces for piano. My main interest is in writing songs, but over time I have developed an interest in performing and recording as well.

My existing setup includes:

Dell Inspiron 530s w/ Windows Vista Home Premium (regrettably)
Reason 3.0
Line 6 Toneport UX1
Audacity
Samson C03U USB condenser mic
Behringer XM8500 dynamic mic

I have learned to do most of my mixing using Audacity and to do a lot of post-processing through Reason. Using this gear, I have found I can record from a variety of sources at different settings - though minimal, it is actually pretty flexible.

My latest issue has to do mostly with Windows Vista consuming over half of my available RAM (2gb). This causes the recordings in Audacity to skip, and it has forced me to reset program priorities and to strip down my running processes when recording. So far, it works, but I have become very dissatisfied with the Vista OS in the meantime.

Right now, I don't have any specific questions - I simply wanted to introduce myself. As many others here can attest to, I find that home recording is pretty addicting!