It really is fantastic. It's especially amazing when compared to the other audio programs that try to mimic the hardware, literally, down to having a physics en

It really is fantastic. It's especially amazing when compared to the other audio programs that try to mimic the hardware, literally, down to having a physics engine drive the UI and making users drag cables around. Ableton's UI is a wonderful, straightforward, usable system. It reminds me a bit of the discreet logic software like combustion and inferno - doesn't look like a "native" UI, but once you start using it you realise holy shit, this is totally optimized for workflow and pixels aren't wasted on pointless chrome. Ableton's automation system is slick too, making it trivial to hookup any key/MIDI input to anything. I got coded up an Xbox360 controller to work with it and it took under 2 hours flat. I'm just a bit concerned for Ableton, because Live 8 seemed to be the big release (almost 6 years ago?), and Live 9 was not that huge of a leap and 9.1 was mainly bugfixes? From an outsiders view, it looks a tad bit worrying, like, what's going on? OTOH I guess it's good if they cede their massive headstart a bit as it'll drive more competition :). Ableton's hardware controller is cool, but without actual pixel screens it seems rather weak compared to the Maschine stuff. Seeing how cheap screens are, I find it odd they can't toss on some real screens instead of dot-matrix ones on a $500 device. I think it'd be pretty wicked to be able to drop full devices onto the hardware, containing their full or optimized UI, then work more on-device. But I'm not really an artist at all so perhaps I just don't get it.