I used to use cubase but have now switched to ableton live 5. For creativity and insperation live is the way to go as it is very quick to try out some ideas, There is also the abilty to save your parts and use them in other tracks. One of the main draw backls of ableton was not being able to use the cubase vst's so I couldn,'t just import some of my old tracks, but that is a stiegburg limitation. on the whole i feel ableton to be a good choice. You also get a t shirt if that makes any diffrence, but no cake.