It's common question among musicians. Do you prefer to play live or to record? I used to love recording. But the last few months have been so frustrating, I'm wishing we could play live more. I'm wishing for the easier and more fun of the two.

It doesn't help my computer has decided to suddenly be half as slow as it used to be. Not sure what's going on but stuff I used to be able to do in my recording software (run a bunch of tracks with effects on the fly, while recording a new track with live effects) without any effort, now nearly kills my computer. It has everything to do with the drivers of on audio card (MAudio Audiophile 2496) but I can't seem to fix it. I read on the official M-Audio site that the new drivers should fix my problem but no...

I'm starting to think it might be that XP update slow-down thing people have been talking about (one of the automatic Windows XP updates apparently slows down your computer hugely).

I'm pretty sure I'm going deaf in my right ear.