Midi : Live or Reason or... ?

[crispygoat]

Which one do you use ? Which one is more powerful in terms of options, instruments, sound quality and the such... ? Logic ?

[seamonkey]

What are you looking to do?

[relayer66]

I use Live and Sonar.
If you want to record both audio and MIDI, Live is the way to go. Reason is a "studio in a box" thing, completely self-contained, and is MIDI only. If you want to record audio, you can't do it within Reason. You can, however, rewire it into another host such as Sonar or Logic, and I believe you can rewire it into Live.
Live comes with some nice instruments, especially if you go for the suite. It's a good all-round program and allows a lot of creativity.

[lm183902]

Logic all the way. You get incredible MIDI capability and an all around awesome DAW. It's not much more than Reason, and about the same as Live. It also comes with Main Stage, which is super cool for live performance.

[Visirale]

Reason is the best if you're doing anything electronica based. Whether it be actual electronica or hip hop. The synths in there are amazing, and the mastering suite is nothing to brush off. Thor is worth the cost alone. The sounds it can crank out are mind blowing.

[fretlessrock]

may people find reason to be a better instrument, but if you are looking for a audio and midi solution, and looking to host a variety of instruments, and trigger midi and audio clips, etc... then Live is a great program, and if you rewire Reason into it then you have it all. They aren't the same kind of program, so it isn't an either or. Kore 2/Komplete is similar in that the folks who are integrating it with Live 7 seem to be thrilled.

Live is my primary DAW and production environment, so you can either call me biased or experienced. I'm a former Logic user, too. The new Logic Studio is really a major step forward for them, and Logic's workflow is very different, so I'd try the demo versions of both before making a decision.

You would be comparing Live Suite with Logic Studio, and my impression is that Logic is more polished sounding, and is more like a conventional DAW, where Live is more about getting under the hood and "playing" it.