Anyone recommend an entry level package for a noob that they have experience with? I have a couple of synths (Moog Little Phatty Stage II and Korg MicroX) that I have connected to my PC to make music with, and this is fine as far as it goes, but there is a host of soft synths out there that I could use if I had the right bit of kit. I'm told that I need DAW software, but as with all these things, a level of knowledge is assumed on the specialist blogs...
I'm running Windows (7, 32bit)

ta everso!

Ableton
Cubase
Sonar
Fruity Loops

Depends on how far you want to go.

Ableton is nice fun and easy to get to grips with

I recently switched from Cubase 4 to Sonar 8.5 - does the job just as well and I don't need the damn dongle anymore. You could also look at Propellerhead Reason (now in version 5) - it comes with synths, samplers, effects units, mixed, drum machine and loop players, all combined in one virtual rack - an excellent bit of software I use a lot (plus it's a lot less taxing on the CPU that some of my VSTs - Massive is a real hog).