Image-Line FL Studio

FL studio (FruityLoops) is a DAW that has slowly become a more viable option for music production over the last few years. Although once considered amateur software, FL studio has come leaps and bounds and now rivals industry standards (pro tools, ableton) in terms of features and stability.

The advantages of FL studio are it's relative accessibility and low learning curve. Once you get started it's quite simple to get a good workflow going. There are many good plugins bundled with the package and it's pretty easy to import instruments, VSTs or your own samples. The interface is generally quite simple and clean, and you can get to grips with it pretty quickly.

One of the disadvantages of FL studio may be that it doesn't allow the user as much access to the nitty gritty of options that something like Pro Tools might offer, meaning you might have to rely on other programs (VSTs) coupled with FL studio to get the desired level of detail. In addition, the audio stack on windows isn't as stable as on Mac. The audio stack stability isn't an FL studio specific issue but nevertheless FL studio won't be as suitable for a live situation when compared to Ableton running on a Mac, for example.

In general FL studio is a solid DAW that is only getting better day by day. Definitely consider this if you're a novice or an intermediate producer.

Performance Mode
One criminally overlooked feature of the new versions of FL is its performance mode. With this mode, you can slice up audio/midi into clips that can be triggered as loops or one-shots through a midi controller, i.e. IT'S FUCKING ABLETON. That's right, FL Studio has quietly made itself into a great DAW for electronic performance, complete with templates laid out for popular midi controllers including the APC. Obviously it's not as detailed or polished as Ableton's session view, and its development & frequency of updates definitely take a backseat to the rest of the program, but hell it raises the program's overall worth by quite a bit.