I have been a audio and mastering engineer for a very long time and these days, I have a lot of free time as I am permanently on disability. I mainly do mastering in with Magix Sequoia (thanks to AudioZ!) or Samplitude. Since I am have all this time I am wanting to do something more creative with my time. I have a very little experience with Cubase, but none with Abelton Live. I am wanting to find accapella tracks and work with those initially. Are the end results going to be worth my time to go thru all the time to learn something totally new like Ableton? For instance, Samplitude was a tough one because before that, I was mostly doing stuff with protools, but in the end, it is a lot easier for me to get what I am after sonically. Thoughts? Opinions? Samp and Seq don't seem very midi friendly to me, and it doesn't allow side-chaining, which is important in that kind of music.

What do the people doing those kind of tracks tend to use?

 

Having tried every single DAW that ever existed I can safely say you could narrow it down to two options
1) Ableton Live - an awesome DAW with everything you need right out of the box..it has endless capabilities when it comes to production, editing and doing cool and different stuff with your audio like chopping it up, remixing etc..it has decent quality plugins that cover all bases..it's pretty easy to use and workflow it great. everything is laid out logically and it's pretty straight forward. Also, there are TONS of tutorials online and on youtube showing you how to do a million different things with it, anything you can imagine. The midi editing is excellent, beat matching and time stretching is very good
Sidechaining? Ableton has the easiest sidechaining function in the world.

2)Mixcraft - the easiest and best DAW i have ever used for the price..it' only $74.95 for the basic version, which is still excellent, and 149.95 for the full studio version, which comes with Izotope plugins as well as other very nice plugins..it can do anything other DAW's can do for a fraction of the price. it doe not have the detailed featured of ableton but still does the job very well and is so easy to use as soon as u open the software. It doesn't have sidechaining but a simple and cheap plugin called Twisted Lemon will solve that easily.

Check them both out, they are both excellent. Hope this helps

 

Thank you for all the advice. I have been watching the Ableton live and Mixcraft tutorials, and I think that the Albeton just appears to fit the way I used to do things in the past (back then I was using an Ensoniq TS-10 which had a 12 track sequencer for all the different sections, then you could arrange them and have another 12 track sequencer that ran on top of everything, which I really liked.) Back in the early 90's i use to have a dx-7 as my main controller on a pole in between two A frame stands with an Akai AX60 and the AX80 and a Korg Poly 800 on one side, and a Roland Super JX10 and Casio CZ-1000, Korg/Mono Poly, and Roland TR505/ and YamahaQX21 sequencer on the other side. (which I upgraded when I got the Yamaha CX5M music computer.) I also had a KX-5 so I could get out in front of the stage (Like Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, except for the fact that I don't look cool at all!) I also acquired around the same time a Korg CX3, and a Roland SH101 which I bought for $50.00 - but without the hand-grip! This was when I worked in a music store and we could buy stuff at COST, so I would buy a lot of the things after they were brought in on trade. Unfortunately, I don' t have any of those any more. And when I sold my SH101, I didn't realize how they were so sought after and I thought I made a KILLING selling it for $75.00. DOH!!! Where was the internet when I needed it most!

 

Ableton Live & a Launch Pad , fun playing & creating on road .Also it's easy to use for live performance.

 

I've tried Cubase, Reaper, Ableton, FL Studio and Studio One. And my choice was S1 I like the work flow. But as far I know, everyone likes different things, so is up to you whit which DAW you want work.

Try DAW's you are interested with and make a choice

 

try samplitude pro x or Rmllabs SAWStudio 5

 

for electronic/dubstep music creation. I recommend flstudio. It's easy to use. (the piano roll specially.) and the upcoming bitwig studio is also great for this purpose.
but if you plan not just to create music but also to mix and master, i recommend:
1. cubase/nuendo
2. Sonar X1/x2
3. Studio one 2.5
4. Magix Sequoia

Cheers!