A friend sent me a DeMuDi install CD, so am going to set that up on its own partition and delve into the world of linux. I think it should be able do absolutely everything I want, it's just a question of whether I can be bothered re-learning after over a decade with the same sequencer.
DeMuDi is part of this crazy project called
AGNULA, which is making completely free music making setups that will basically give you a beautiful sequencer, soft synths, a sampler and some really powerful apps for constructing shiznit from scratch. Oh, and every app talks to every other app.
It's basically just bundling together a linux distribution with all the above music gear so you don't have to be toooooooo much of a nerd to get it all up and running. The friend who posted the CD said he just bunged it in the drive, ran the install, booted up, had to get a driver to make his sound card work and then it was all on.
As for now, I use Master Tracks Pro 4 for sequencing. It's from Windows 3.1 days, so not working so well under W2k, but it does what I want and goddamn do I know it inside out. I know I'm taking the piss by sitting on this old piece of poo, but I seriously reckon people can be way too driven by the tools that come out rather than finding a good tool for what they want to write... Anyway, this is hooked up to an old E-Mu sampler, where I dump sounds from my PC.
As far as manipulating sounds, etc. I've been using
AudioMulch as well and loving it. Great with a bunch of free VSTs, particularly if you want to do more ambient or gurgly stuff... or rather than using it for making sound sources, mangle things you've sequenced elsewhere for a final mix.
Phenomenally fun live as well - I definitely can't justify shelling out all the money for Ableton Live when this software is free to download and costs bugger all to register.