Reason : Starting out advice

I use both. I love each for entirely different reasons though.
Ableton is probably your best bet for just remixing/mashing.
Reason is more for creating synths, beats, loops, etc.

Strangely enough, I think reason is easier to edit with. While ableton is easier to create sounds with. weird right? But given the choice between the two, I’d go with ableton.

eros, post: 10380 wrote: Thanks for all that info guys. Any recommendations on how to get started learning Ableton ?

Yes, the hard way like I did it.
By reading the manuals:

http://www.ableton.com/pages/downloads/manuals

Hello! My turn for saying sorry for late reply! 😉

Its true that Reason comes with its own set of effects and instruments (as all other programs discussed here, are) but the difference is that VST support ensures nearly unlimited expansion of your tools with a relatively low cost.
Another thing one should take under consideration is the fact that there are VST effects out there (equalizers, compressors, etc etc) that have the price of the whole Reason program alone – you can imagine the attention beeing given to the sound quality of said plug ins. Reason and all its instruments/audio effects, superb as they might be, are all made from the same team of programmers. With VSTs, you can have your favourite Synthesizer manufacturer, and a different favourite EQ manufacturer and so on and so on.
Before I get misunderstood, of course I do not mean that you cannot make absolutely brilliant music with Reason – in fact with ANY of today’s programs. It all comes to down to personal choices and what suits you best – on that scope, VST support is more ensuring that you will find those instruments/audio effects that suit YOU best – regardless of the program you add them to.

As already mentioned, Ableton Live is the one to look for, if you want to create mash-ups and remixes. This is because it allows easy manipulation of audio files. Apart from Ableton Live also FL Studio is a great program for production and favourite amongst beginners (a lot of guys swear by it).
If you want to have a glimpse of what the rest of the major “players” are these must be:
Pro Tools
Cubase
Logic
Sonar
Samplitude

If you google them and find their manufacturer websites you will notice from the screen pictures that they share a lot of common characteristics in their UI – which expands to their way of working, with Ableton Live and FL Studio being a bit different. This is the thing that makes then more appealing to beginners but also a thing to cosnider if you want to go pro: there must be a reason all the rest major DAWs use the timeline-based UI.

Strictly personally, Id advise anyone who wants to dabble with production to consider one of the following DAWs (in the order they appear):
Sonar
Cubase
Ableton Live

As far instructional videos go, especially for Ableton Live a search in Youtube will reveal to you a lot of videos.

PS: as for learning production, whatever the program, its absolutely true what has already been mentioned – there is no easy way. Read manuals and definitely search for basic terminology on the net for synthesizers and audio effects so that you will be able to comprehend what all those knobs, sliders and buttons do on these devices.