Hey, how do you like Abelton (in comparison to other DAWs if you have the experience)?
Well, to start off. All DAW's are great. There are some I like more than others, but every DAW has it's Good's and Bad's. Even Ableton has some bad points.
I started off with Pro Tools, had LE and worked a lot on HD as well (Before it got native) I was really frustrated by the lack of features you got with Pro Tools and I realised how much money I spent, it wasn't even cross platform friendly. I then tried Cubase but I really didn't like the user interface and it got that stupid dongle thing. I tried Logic too, great features, but mac only. Since a lot of my friends used mac and win, I needed something that was cross platform friendly and could be used live on stage.
A fellow musician I know told me to try Ableton Live. At that time it was version 6. I couldn't really get use to that interface, but I knew there was something about it. It's midi features are just plain amazing!
After some time I stopped using pro tools completely and went Ableton all the way and have never looked back!
The thing I love about ableton is the workflow and how fast I work on it. Everything is on one window, I wanted a seperate mix and arrangement window, but I realized I don't need it. Especially in version 9 the features are amazing! I use the features of ableton all the time. I've used it in studio sessions, used it on stage and it has never failed me once! It's a DAW that just works for me. I also tried Reaper, great DAW for cheap money, don't understand why people don't use it more.
in version 9 the reworked the EQ, Compressor, Gate and added a SSL mix bus compressor clone. They also made some tweaks to the user interface
But as I stated before all DAW's are great, just depends what you are looking for.