softcore

In fact that was one of the “selling points” of the feature and it was featured in lots of promo videos – a guy whistling some notes to form a bassline or smthing.

Truth be told, most people would agree that Ableton Live seems to be easier than Logic. I wouldnt advise anyone though to base his choice on what looks – feels easier. While Ableton Live excells as a performance tool – software, and of course it is a full and capable DAW I wouldnt recommend it for production for two main reasons:
1. the built-in instruments in particular, although capable, do not offer the amount of flexibility usually found in other DAWs which most often than not, also contain 3rd party (developer) plug ins bundled, therefore offer slightly more variable content to begin with.
2. Its “linear” workflow (arrangement view) is somewhat lacking in intuitiveness and fast operations as opposed to other DAWs. Of course, that said, other DAWs do not feature at all the non-linearity of Live’s “Session view”.

The greatest advice I would give, especcially since the dillema involves only 2 DAWs and not 10 or so (lol) would be to work with the demo versions of both for a certain amount of time – in a serious way, reading the manual, trying to make a decent beat and all – and decide for yourself which software’s workflow fits you better. Sounds like an advice which will require more time than just picking one and working with it, but its an advice that will save you from the hassle of switching DAWs later down the line (if you stick to producing that is).

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Launchpad is a nice addition to using Ableton for DJing just for the purpose of triggering clips or playing a few notes here and there (user1 mode)…It also features a “mixer” mode but frankly? How are you going to mix with a parameter resolution of 8? (each button becomes a “stepped” value of whatever is controlled in the mixer, since we got 8 rows we got 8 posible “stepped” values for the volume faders for example)

It becomes a “must-have” if you also have MaxForLive and you are planning to inject some live performance in your DJing because its functionality is expanded to include creative device controling, step sequencers, and lots of other goodies.

(here’s a litle showcase vid – nothing big)

Yet still, to control mixer elements (knobs, fader, etc etc) you either have to invest in a fader-knob controller, or take the “mixing” out of the box (and Ableton) to a regular DJ mixer which sort of kills the purpose of using Ableton in the first place (multiple – in the box – channels, custom effect chains, etc etc) because you then become limited to the output channels your soundcard offers and the available ones the DJ mixer will have.

I didnt recommend it as the best mic in the world – in fact I rarely record “out of the box” sound sources so my knowledge in this field is close to non-existent. BUT the way I see it ,the OP asks for a mic that wont break, will be affordable, and willbe used for voice overs on a radio show – not to record a singer. Given the budget he described I think it fits the bill!

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I think it will do just fine! 😉

its a powerful program, make no mistake. The bundled effects and synths are also of high quality. Its workflow however is somewhat different than the rest of the established DAWs – as is Ableton Live’s however. My main “concern” with FL studio is that around halfway its “evolution” the added features made it a bit unintuitive and cumbersome to work around in it with all the windows, sub menus, choices, pattern vs song and whatnot. And I was always pissed off that the “tracks” are not directly related to the channel mixers like the rest of the DAW world.

My honest opinion would be to try the demos of both the programs – give around a month on each one and try to make a simple track in each one of them. This will definitely clear up some of your questions and hopefully help you decide which one is more suitable to your way of working.

As for “sound quality” – a question that usually pops up – rest assured all today’s DAWs are equally capable of producing quality sounds – my honest advice to any beginner would be to not take extremely seriously any advice coming from a person that states that DAW X “has better sound” than DAW Y. At best its biased, at worse its “fan-boy-ism”.

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BTW if you want my honest opinion, I would choose logic over Ableton Live for production any time of the day! 😉 But thats just me and imagine I dont even use any of them (for production) so its not a matter of “fanboy-ism”