thanks for the advice. i have a 1.83GHz Core duo with 1.5 GB of RAM on loan right now..... when i monitor the CPU on system performance, i get very low readings in comparison to what i used to get. however when i have 6 tracks running i still get a coreaudio overload message.... even though from the CPU monitor it appears that all is well. maybe transferring over the RAM from my old powerbook and giving the new Macbook 2 GB of RAM would help ? i'm running 3 Ultrabeat tracks, 2 EVB3 tracks, and one ES2 track. is it possible to upgrade the processor on a macbook ? or i should just give up and finance a G5 desktop.....