www.ableton.com ableton live 4
www.steinberg.net cubase sx3
and i guess you know apple make logic
im planning on using my ibook with ableton live, my 1k, akai mfc filter, korg es1, alesis mod fx, possibly the novation supernova/micro korg and some vintage sh101 and octave kitten together with my decks thru a 16 ch analogue desk with lots of sends. im going to experiment playing the tunes as live as i can and then finishing them off in either ableton or cubase sx. ive been formaly trained with cubase and as good as it is you can get bored moving, cutting, pasting fiddleing around with boxes of sound sat on your arse playing the same tune all day. i think when your recording other ppl fine use cubase or logic as you are recording 'there' live performance if you dealing with bands/singers etc. but when it comes to your own music being a computer based musician you miss out on some of the 'moments' that you can get playing your music off the fly and this is where ableton gives you the chance to do this. i only have a delta version of ableton but i have found for my own music it lets me get involved with the performance of my tunes in a way cubase never could. try dling a demo of each to see which may suit you best.