Has 'Live' Truly Come of Age as the 'All-in-One' DAW Solution? 
by MTM from Houston, TX USA, August 2008
Music Background:  Session Drummer, Producer, Recording Engineer, Pro Musician

As a longtime pro user of Ableton Live--alongside Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Cubase, Reason, not to mention older hardware-based recording devices from the likes of Alesis, Roland, Korg, & yes, even 2-inch reel-to-reel tape machines--I must answer with a resounding YES! Live truly has come of age as an unparalleled audio creation station and super-powerful DAW, combined.

Ableton are so far ahead of the digital music creation curve that it seems to be taking some people a while to truly catch on to what Live even does. I talk to people all the time who see Live as some kind of specialty software, geared more towards producers of electronica or dance music. I'll only say it once: This is in no way a niche product for certain types of musicians, recording artists, and/or producers—Period. Just because it works well for electronica production doesn't mean it won't work equally well for those out there producing Folk-based music. I use it to fix the timing of acoustic instruments all the time. And if you record drums (real drums or a machine), Live can make your sessions sound flawless. Go to their website and watch some demonstrations to see what I mean.
Live does it all, and it does it all, quite well. I would venture to say anyone should be fully capable of crafting an entire production with Live alone. And if they say otherwise, then it's them—It's not the software. They simply haven't taken the time to learn it properly.

Yet, I'm in no way implying that Live forces you to 'switch' to Live as your new DAW. They're not asking to be your only DAW of choice. This becomes quite evident when Live is paired with other systems—I'll just say it plays very well with others. If you use Pro Tools, you can still enjoy ALL the benefits Ableton Live AND Pro Tools combined.

Something else to consider is the cost of some specialty plugins used for accomplishing very particular tasks in a program like Pro Tools. Live inherently performs many of these tasks and very well. For instance, Live offers unparalleled capability of warping complex audio without any audible damage. It offers incredibly flexible drum machines, samplers, and various software-based instruments (all available with Suite!). And it offers its own load of audio processing/effect plugins! Yet, certain plugins (no names =) which perform merely ONE of Live's tasks often cost twice as much. When you wrap your mind around what you gain when you combine the power of Live with your current setup, you'll never look back.

And I would be quite remiss not to mention Ableton's nonpareil customer service. They are not some big corporate entity in Berlin as some might think, due to their ubiquity and worldwide success. Back during the Holidays—when Ableton were swamped with orders for their newly released version 7—I learned they're actually quite a small company of pleasant individuals who genuinely care just as much about service as the quality of their products. I've never witnessed another software company bend so far backwards simply to make certain their customers are 100% satisfied. I even received emails from the president of the company himself. They weren't mass-mail-outs because he was directly answering a very particular issue I had been having. The problem had mostly been with my OS upgrade and not Live, by the way.
Nevertheless, it was indeed a pleasant shock to witness that level of commitment to a product these days. So, obviously: Ableton Live = Highly recommended. To not own Live is to be missing out on more than you can imagine.

  Ableton is the DAW for me 
by Kevin B. from New Orleans, LA USA, June 2008
Music Background:  Electronic Musician

Nothing it doesn't do. THE best all-around DAW I've every used.

If you want soft synths, this is the bundle to get. However, its effects, MIDI mapping, audio routing, and live perform-ability are just as attractive when considering other DAWs. It works very well with Reason (& other Rewire apps), Waves plug-ins, and the VJ software, Arkaos.

This is the center of my live show- it RARELY crashes, plays well with other software, and is almost like a toy (because it's so fun & simple to use, not because it's unsophisticated).

Time-warping is part of the clips, so you don't have to buy separate loop software (like Recycle). Great for mash-ups (even with video clips!). It comes with many old drum machine samples, and is just overall, the most powerful sound software I own (and I own a lot!).

If you can swing it, this is one purchase I'll never regret.

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