hi, i'm a bit new to the music production side of things. i've been dj-ing for a long time and then stopped. now i'm getting back into it and want to also produce some tracks. i wanted some advice as what software to pick up. i've seen demos of both ableton and reason, both look awesome and can do a lot but both are fairly complicated. i'm willing to spend the time to learn ONE really well. i wanted to get a general feel of which one is better and why. my purpose is to create some basic tracks to learn the software then to be able to build on that as i learn the software to incorporate into my dj sets. i am looking to see which is more robust in the long run and has more production value.

i do have to say i dig that you can dj with albeton so that is a bit of a bonus.

thanks much in advance.

Re: Ableton / reason for newbs - advice

Ableton all the way. It gives you way more opportunities than Reason does. And can also do all the things that reason can do. There are tons of tutorial videos on youtube and many of them can be found here.

Re: Ableton / reason for newbs - advice

My vote is for ableton too. Reason is a little more user friendly straight out of the box but it really lacks a lot of the most practical features that I have fallen in love with in Ableton. & I absolutely hate the fact that you cannot operate Reason in full screen mode...HUGE turn off for me.

One feature that is quite unique about ableton is the 'session view'. Even when using ableton solely for production (opposed to performing live or djing with it) it gives you a great opportunity to improvise, be creative, and come up with new production ideas that you might not have discovered if you were using another DAW. I always start off my projects in session view and then slowly collaborate my creations into arrangement view.

There are so many possibilities with Ableton, I doubt many people use it the exact same way. That is what really sets it apart from traditional DAWs.

Re: Ableton / reason for newbs - advice

Tutorials & the manual for sure

I'm constantly learning how to do different things in Ableton and I've had it for a couple years

Re: Ableton / reason for newbs - advice

i'm thinking of when i finally upgrade to 8 i'm going to buy another ableton live 8 power book to check out. the live 4 one i bought really helped me with a lot...back when I was using 4.