I use Ableton as my main DAW, mostly in a linear/arrangement workflow. But now I’ve got to do some live looping and I was literally about to order an APC40 ..and I’m having second thoughts

I’ve been comparing Ableton Live and NI Maschine as loopers. while Ableton is technically a looping powerhouse, there’s something about Maschine default behavior that I find much better at least for my workflow (esp. MIDI)

E.g., with "auto-grow" ON (default), it starts looping at 1 bar, waits till you start playing and expands as you play. Then, when you stop playing, it automatically trims the pattern to the last bar that actually has MIDI info. Just feels way less 'stressful' than Ableton

here's a quick screencap of what I mean

Anyone have experience with both? Missing something here? Any thoughts or ideas appreciated!

*btw, I already have Maschine HW

 

Does MIDI Capture not work essentially like this? I rarely use it... mostly in happy accident 'oops' moments in arrangement view, but its always listening to any armed or monitored midi track and seems to function exactly what you're looking for. Works the same in arrangment or session I believe. Clips do not have a predetermined length with capture unless you're explicitly inside a preexisting one. Clip end is based off your playing. If transport is running it'll use song tempo, if it isnt running it'll adjust the project tempo to the captured clip. You can disarm/rearm to clear the buffer.