Best Language And O/S For A PC Pro Music App?

[zenwarlord]

I have a question for the experienced veteran programmers. What platforms and software do you recommend to start a pro music app? The requirement is that the threads need to be prioritized so that only a couple of milliseconds lapse. From what I can tell (which isn't much) the Steinberg (VST) solution, and ASIO, works pretty well, whereas microsoft's solutions (like sound API's and drivers?) and totally suck. I don't really see a great music program out there for Linux, and I'm not sure why, since I would think that its much more open and friendly for that. And does one develop in C, or is it okay to use something like java? Having worked with a programmer on a music app in the past, I gleaned that the Microsoft OS's have been a major headache, but I'm unaware of anything after windows 98 to be honest.

SO could you give me your feedback on a good platform, software, driver types, and langauges that a small programming project would want to try for this purpose, of processing music, and spitting it out to a common soundcard? Is it possible to use one of the Linux versions, and are there pro soundcard/MIDI solutions you've tried that work well for this? Also, where would one look for programmers with this type of background?