While I’ve always told my students that in the end, it doesn’t really matter what audio software you use, just make sure it works for YOU…a lot of the music folks we’ve been talking to are fans of Ableton LIVE. Though yes, Ableton is involved with our MMiX Festival later this fall, this ain’t no commercial. There’s a reason we mention LIVE. We’ve come across fellow musicians and producers who will use nothing else but Ableton to create their songs, DJ sets, or live arrangements. It’s like a religion or something. Since their first appearance at AES several years ago, when I think their demo booth was basically the size of a Ms. Pac Man arcade game, they’ve amassed a large number of users numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Having just released LIVE 8, they’re like the little-German-loop-based-audio-software-company-that-could.

The company’s been nimble about organizing and responding to their online community of users, quite similar to the hive mind of Linux folks who help keep programs on that platform constantly evolving in the spirit of tech geek fellowship. Although some of us aren’t quite so nimble on LIVE yet…(meaning me, because I’m still not done listening to all the Combinator patches in Reason 4.0) we always like seeing how artists use different tools in their particular music genres. Luckily, there’s a YouTube playlist where bands, producers and composers share their tips for harnessing the LIVE 8 mojo. We pick out some favorites after the tag…

And you thought the only cool guy on American Idol was Adam Lambert…

Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger, composers/sound artists who go by the name of O+A. I previously met them during their Blue Moon audio installation here in New York City.

I love this guy, Kid Beyond from San Francisco – what a motormouth huh?

Ableton offers a free 14 day software trial on their website, and we hear that Dubspot NYC offers pretty comprehensive training on LIVE 8 with producer and “hobotech” founder, Jon Margulies.

I just want to warn you that the super-sexy Apple Store is right across the street from Dubspot, so you know…control yourselves.

– Jocelyn