I'm Hardware and currently in the exact same situation. I'm now falling back in to the trap of not switching my PC on when I'm playing or jamming. I have loads of synths now a drum machine and a drum sampler, with all of these things I can get a good song going but when I start up cubase (Even with my whole set up ready I loose all the groove) This is upsetting in so many ways it gets to the point of being impossible.
What I would love is to have a program that like cubase I can set up a template project that has all my instruments and and channels set up so that when I start I can still be jamming with my hardware but the midi is all recorded, but in addition to this I'd love to be able to trigger midi loops from some sort of controller preferably a keyboard, so that in octave 1 I can have 12 variations of drums, second up to 12 variations of a bass line, I want to record these and not program, I want to be in midi at this point as I only use audio as a last resort, this won't change I moved away from audio loop arranging over 10 years ago becuase I feel it limits my imagination imho.
Is this possible with any sort of software, I was in to the audio loop thing a big way before I got the hardware bug. I remember a program used to trigger audio loops from a midi keyboard so woould it be possible to say on c3 activate lead 1 on midi channel 1 but on d3 play lead 2 on midi channel 1.
I must add that this is mainly to help me arrange as that is where my work flow and songs fall flat. But if I'm jamming I simply play what part I want. I must stress that playing what I want is no problem but simply my work flow is hampered by the cubase way of things, I actually learnt on Emagic logic and like that but again got stuck with arranging my parts.
Can live trigger midi loops?
Not slagging any software of workflows just trying to find the right software for me in a hardware driven bedroom
Cheers
Kris