Excellent! Thanks for all the info. I did make some breakthroughs, though I'm not all the way there yet. I have finally managed to get the ESB part of the equasion to work, thought I'm not sure if it's how it was intended. Please let me know if you think this makes sense. I disabled core audio. I did have Logic playing through my TDM hardware via Digi core audio, and I understand that I can go back to that if need be. I set up a new project that has 24 audio tracks using DAE as the playback engine, and I see that I can use the 888's inputs to bring audio into Logic. This is the part I want to make sure I'm doing right... I set up 24 instrument tracks, and 12 aux tracks, and I'm bringing the instrument tracks into 8 of the aux tracks with the ESB inputs. This way, I was able to use instruments other than just the EXS24 with TDM plugins, and if I want more instruments, I can use the EXS24 on aux tracks with TDM plugins following. Does this use of the system make sense to you guys? Another thing I haven't figured out yet, is how to record an instrument... or commit it to being an audio file. I may want to work in Logic, then import all my finished tracks into PT for mixing. I tried bussing aux and instrument tracks to audio tracks, and recording them that way, but had no luck. Am I missing something here? Ok, another question is about the TDM useage. Do the EXS24's inserted on aux tracks use the Digi cards for processing, or is that still being done natively? The TDM user guide is a bit unclear on this. I guess I'm trying to figure out if there are any advantages to this setup besides being able to use TDM plugins in Logic. I'm unclear as to what the Digi cards are bringing to the party, besides I/O for incoming/outgoing audio. I'm going to poke around some more, which will likely bring a bunch more questions... Thanks so much for taking the time to help me understand this. VERY cool of you all. Stephen