I just upgraded to Ableton Live 4 I was using Live 3 before hand, it's very flexible, easy to use and endless potential for making music compositions. Also a note on the sound quality, those people that complain about the sound quality of Live should check the quality of the music/audio samples/etc, their putting into it. It definetly doesn't blemish the audio unless it's already blemished. Forget about whether it looks good though get it for the practical use that it will have in your lab: does it have the features you need, does it work well, does the software have good tech support, etc.