[Cailyn]

Since Live opens in the session view (looks like a mixing console) most people tend to start operating with this view. I never use this view but instead use the arrangement view which is much more intuitive in setting up the timeline and visualizing the elements of your arrangement. The numbers at the top are the bar count so you use this to visualize the twelve bar theme. Right click on the mouse and add locators to help visualize your place in the music. To play your music, left click anywhere in the music that you want to start and hit the space bar.

Live 7 Suite comes with Session Drums, an incredible set of samples that can be used in single mic or multi-mic mode which are incredibly realistic. I play electronic drums to trigger the samples so I am not familiar with the native beats available with Live.

The learning curve is long and quite steep but well worth it in the end. I recently worked with a recording engineer who has used Pro-Tools for all his studio work but once he saw what I was able to do with Live, has decided to buy the program.