Well Phill,
Here is my 2 cents worth. And i'm a guitar player that's not really into techno but I like some parts like the drum loops but find it a little repetative. I've got a Terratec EWS64xl. In the past it got a bad rap coz of the old drivers and the sampler instrument editor wasn't finished. Now everthing works fine. I use it primarilly for instrument sounds, and as a sampler sound card I think it's the best. The s/n is good and there is allready made up sound banks by Bestservice, Groovepark, Groovestyle and VR sound. However if you want your own stuff the Ed!son instument editor is finished and very usefull. However if you ahve racks of synths and a dedicaded sampler and you want the card primarilly as an interface for a computer hard disk recording system then the Event series series of cards seem to be very good. There is three types .Darla,Gina and Layla. It basically depends on how many ins and outs you want. The terratec has fuckall ins and outs and it's ISA which is slow but stable and the Events are PCI which is fast for the power hungry HD recording. Dale