Gotta be dumb to buy a Phantom/Motif/Triton/MPC. Software>Hardware.

[phatpat]

This is 2007 and times have changed, you can spend about 300 dollars for a software sampler like Kontakt, Sampletank and Gigastudio - which have BETTER SOUNDS than the keyboards mentioned above.

Then use use these software samplers with a drum program like Native Instruments Battery, and a sequencer such as Cubase, Garageband, Logic, Acid, Pro-tools etc and you can bascially make any beat you want.

For anyone that disagrees, check this out: The Roland Fantom, the best keyboard at the moment for hip-hop has about 1 gig of sounds, whereas Kontakt has 14 gigs. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that software has finally taken over hardware.

P.S. All the top producers in hip-hop right now use software to a certain degree, and some producers such as Just Blaze have even abandoned the MPC and gone totally Pro-Tools and software: http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/LECTURES.95.0.html?act_session=313

[BJV]

People just need to use what their comfortable with. There's no need for all this anti hardware anti software shit that I see going on everywhere amongst musicians.