I respect and love Live too, but I never ended up going with it due to several limitations:
Just things like:
- Really powerful and detailed editing of automation
- Multi-take audio recording and comping
- Customizable keyboard shortcuts
.etc
Beware of the 8.1x release also, it's been a big fiasco in terms of bugs and crashes. Although, the company has acknowledged this and are working towards a proper release.
In comparison to Logic, it's also significantly less value for money.
On the other hand, Live offers some features that are simply not in other DAWs:
- Extremely well integrated sampler
- Max for Live
- This new Serato collaboration
- Session view
- Crossfader for DJing ability
- Re-pitch mode for changing tempo of a clip (very good for DJs)
and a few more things
At the end of the day, all 3 DAWs can lead to professional results, so it comes down to taste, workflow and platform requirements. e.g. Only Cubase and Live are multi-platform, perhaps you need to collab with someone?
Some people are saying that SONAR 8.5 is quite good, but assuming the workflow hasn't changed drastically, I personally wouldn't consider it at all.
