I was confronted with a similar decision recently (no real producing experience but wanted to get into it), and went for the Maschine MKII. Only have had it for a week or so, so I can not really weigh in on it too much other than that it is highly accessible and great fun. And that was important for me.
Because thing is: There is no “best” software, or hardware at that. There’s different people with different ideas about music and workflow and different products suit their needs.
Maschine is comparably expensive maybe, but you have to consider the tightly integrated hardware + software route NI is taking here, which makes it beginner friendly. Also you get a nice library of sounds to start out with, the massive synth fro free etc.
And even though some say (and probably rightfully so) that you can’t produce full songs on it (because of Software limitations), it’s definitely a professional piece of kit that is found in MANY pro studios (see recent DJTT posts for example).
When it comes to DAW software, the cheapest “heavyweight contender” right now is Apple Logic Pro (well, maybe Reaper should be considered too, even cheaper)). But the savings won’t help you, if you hate how the software works. All major DAWs have some kind of free trial available, which you should take your time to check out, to make an informed decision.
In the end the decisions come down to personal preference and YOU have to make em for yourself. You might wanna find out (or give us more detail about) what exactly you are trying to accomplish. You might not even need any hardware controller, Skrillex for example went quite far with “mouse producing” only, using nothing but Ableton, some software synths etc. No controller or software out there will be a shortcut around the many years it takes to make halfway decent music, even if manufacturers (or whoever) might tell you otherwise.
Good luck with your choice!
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