ok, i use an awesome program called jeskola buzz.
www.buzzmachines.com
it's a tracker. a lot of people are shit-scared of trackers cos they require something called knowledge (ain't that right, ben? p.s. i may be in bedford for your gig, but then again i may not. haven't decided yet.)
trackers go down the page, whereas sequencers and other such programs go across the page.
you program the synths and drum machines using 1s and 0s. also you can add loops and samples that don't come from machines using samplers and loopers.
you connect them up to effects, which you also program using 1s and 0s.
good things to do with effects: compress the fuck out of the drums, delay the shit out of the synths, eq the bass so it sounds like jah wobble doing a fart, and compress royally any 303s you might have gurgling around in the mix.
you then connect them up to the master, and record into acid pro 5.0, where you will then edit out your fuck-ups and add any additional shizzle.
then you eq it properly and master it using hardware/software/whatever.
it's taken me roughly 5 years of hardcore experimentation to work out how to use trackers properly, but they're much better for producing live by entering lines of code while you're playing and fucking around with the effects.