thanks to a 10% discount coupon, and some generous gift cards and cash I was able to finally get my dream studio controller keyboard, the M-Audio Keystation Pro88..... I've just dabbled a bit tonight but am very excited. No more paging up/down for octaves/range, and all the buttons and knobs I needed to crank out jam sessions on the fly. And thank goodness for save-able presets!...
this week or the next I'll be rebuilding the studio from the ground up and am looking forward to having all the set up working at once. Now only to get a dedicated audio only music PC and I'm set :)