Ableton is what I do all if my composition stuff in. But I do mastering engineering as my main focus, and recording/mixing for music and post as well so I do a lot of work in ProTools. I really lived what they did with their older stuff on Alive, but Discovery was definitely their best IMO. I listen to pretty much everything, but I'm recording an acoustic/blues album right now so I've been listening I a bunch of acoustic stuff like Greg Laswell and Ingrid Michaelson recently. Walk the Moon has been on a lot of my playlists as well.
Cool. On all points. I've got several thousand dollars worth of plug-ins. Sonnox Oxford Elite stuff, and Izotope Ozone (5, I think) are two of the big ones I use for mastering. What are your favorites? Doesn't have to be just for mastering, but for composition work too. Used to be that I listened to indie pop with instruments, but now I'm a sucker for solo projects and duos, almost always electronic-based. I've got a guitar and bass, but I gave away my drum set a few years when I moved into an apartment. Mic'ing drums is a nightmare anyway. Someday I'll get a set of e-drums and add a more human touch to my mechanical, driving crap that I feel limited to, for now. I'm not into sampling so much, myself, but I like to steal a lot of production techniques from French House.
I don't use a whole lot of plugins on my mastering chain, but the oxford limiter finds it's way on a lot of tracks. My analog chain goes: Manley vari-mu > Manley massive passive > various limiters(I use a few) > pt > Massey l2007 or oxford limiter. The sonic stuff really is amazing for digital. I use Abletons stock eq and compressor/glue composition most of the time, but I'll occasionally go for softubes tube tech or fet emulation compressors. I also use a bad harmonic enhancer on kick drums a lot, it's called bv4 by a company that you can get their whole set for like $30....crysonic? I do a lot of electronic/rock stuff, I'm way into synths and play guitar as well. You have a soundcloud/website?
Yep, I throw the Oxford limiter last in the chain on my master track. Stock EQ and then glue compressor right before the limiter. Love the Izotope Ozone Maximizer for making drum samples punch my ears in the face. I need to get better at making synths. Massive isn't terribly intuitive, I'm still getting better at it, but TAL-U-NO-LX is a really good emulator. Hard to go wrong there.
I have a Roland JX-8, a DSI Mopho, and a few other little analog desktops I use a lot so I am a little spoiled. If you're looking for an ni synth that is insanely powerful when used the right way, and intuitive start to mess around with modular building in kontact or the expert editor in fm8. Fm8 is crazy when you use it the right way. I use the tal as well, i like the noise oscillator for mono bass stuff.
'bl00 has repeatedly recommended Kontact. I think it's harder to acquire or spoof a license than most other things. I'm pretty jealous of the analog gear. Someday, I'll get some nicer digs.
Kontact is amazing and powerful, I don't have the newest version though and I really want razor and the new updates. The thing about kontact is that it has a ton of synth engines in it, it isn't just one vst, it's more like 1,000 haha. You can also stack their instruments in their modular programming window, which is kind of amazing as far as variability and sound possibilities. I have some stuff in a folder on an xhd I can send you I think, pm me your email.