Hey Beep,
 
The free version of Presonus Studio One might fit the bill.  I use it with my crappy built-in audio card, and it works fine for for fiddling around with loops and building ideas with midi.  And it fits your budget...
 
-John

There's a free version of StudioOne? Like not a demo that times out or is horrendously crippled in some way? I will DEFINITELY be looking into that. I hear many good things about S1... not that I'd bail on my beloved X3... but I am a curious dude and do need something lightweight for the lappy, as I said. Might as well be something good.
 
Thanks muchly, Fuddy.

markyzno...This is hardly representational of Pro Use...

That's it in a nutshell.  There should be no surprise that the "industry standard" Pro Tools did poorly in this survey.  Reaper is #1 in this KVR thing - And, um, I'll put good $ down right here that exactly Zero pros use Reaper.  That program is popular because it's almost free (I remember when it Was free) and has the same basic features as any DAW - It's The People's DAW of choice, but certainly not the pro DAW of choice.
 
Randy

rbowser

markyzno...This is hardly representational of Pro Use...

That's it in a nutshell.  There should be no surprise that the "industry standard" Pro Tools did poorly in this survey.  Reaper is #1 in this KVR thing - And, um, I'll put good $ down right here that exactly Zero pros use Reaper.  That program is popular because it's almost free (I remember when it Was free) and has the same basic features as any DAW - It's The People's DAW of choice, but certainly not the pro DAW of choice.
 
Randy

 
I think there's a paradigm around a Pro being defined by the tools they use versus their measure of talent/success. I've seen some software / hardware getting heavy use in successful pro studios that surprised me more than once. 

yeah, it's just a poll of kvr users' favourite daws...
 
@beepster, you can get the free version here http://www.presonus.com/products/studio-one/download but yes it is quite crippled, though you may be able to do what you need with it

musicroom
 
 
I think there's a paradigm around a Pro being defined by the tools they use versus their measure of talent/success. I've seen some software / hardware getting heavy use in successful pro studios that surprised me more than once. 

Overall I agree; I've heard canned Reason loops in car commercials. But with Pro Tools, I think the main "pro" issue is project transfers. My understanding is that there's basically a community of LA audio/video pros who need to have a common project format, and they use Pro Tools because it became really entrenched really early, can work well with video, and they can swap projects easily. The pros who use Sonar often fall into the "music creation" category, which doesn't require this kind of project transfer. This is particularly true with people who have to track in a Pro Tools studio for one reason or another, but then take out the wav files and bring them into Sonar for editing and mixing. They don't need to ever put the project back into Pro Tools again.

is the "pro" short for "professional" or "producer"? i suspect people mix these up

lawp
yeah, it's just a poll of kvr users' favourite daws...
 
@beepster, you can get the free version here http://www.presonus.com/products/studio-one/download but yes it is quite crippled, though you may be able to do what you need with it

I was looking at the website earlier as well as some promo/tut vids but it was unclear as to whether there was a basic drum synth or a synth with percussion capabilities included. There was also a little blurb saying the free version did not allow you to use third party VSTs. Although melodies can be done with any old thing and I'm sure I could do it with what comes with the free version my main interest is being able to flesh out my drum parts which is the most tedious part of what I do really. Lots of weird patterns and elaborate fills that I'd like to be able to poke away at as I sit with my morning tea and peruse news stories on the net as opposed to being chained to the DAW.
 
I will probably download it anyway because I am curious about S1 and perhaps there is a workaround even if it is crippled in this capacity and I still have that Ableton Lite thing that'll probably work. Just nice to know what the other guys are doing and having options.
 
The one funny thing I found when watching one of the S1 vids from NAMM was some fellow trying to showcase the programs comping abilities. It was kind of similar to X3 but not nearly as cool. Like the guy was having to swipe through takes instead of having defined segment lines and just cycling through with the arrow keys. Looked like a pain but might have been a case of the guy not really knowing how to use the program. There were a lot of points where he didn't seem to actually know a lot of basic stuff and the audience and host kept having to give him tips. lol

In the search for more credibility on sales, seeing as Craig says the actual 'hard sales-figures' are undisclosed to the majority, the following may be the closest we'll get to the truth... looks like Pro Tools is doing better than i originally surmised.
According to Digital Music Doctor, which has been tracking Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) popularity since 2004. The latest results are pretty surprising: instead of Pro Tools, Imageline’s FL Studio now takes the cake, both on a quarterly and yearly average basis as of early 2013.
 

 
One thing to keep in mind is that this is not based on actual unit sales, rather popularity across search engines (Google, Yahoo+Bing), social networks (Facebook, Twitter) and YouTube. But still, this is quite telling i would think. I'm still not a fan of pro tools, never will be. Ableton live made no sense to me, the interface was ghastly to say the least. Also, according to some other official figure... in 2010 Propellerhead Reason outsold every other DAW in the US besides Avid Pro Tools. 
 
 

All the professional and classically-trained composers I know read and write music.  To compare a DAW without a notation editor to one that has one is not going to give a good sense as to what pros use. 
 
Sonar
Digital Performer
Pro Tools
Cubase
Logic
 
The above 5 DAWS are the only ones trained composers use.  I am not referring to what recording engineers, sound effects people or others use, only composers.
 
Jerry
www.jerrygerber.com