Hi Kafla,
New to the site so only just come across this. Stick with Ableton if you can, it's really not as nasty as it might appear. Once you get in to it you can get some good results. I'm running the lite version as well. although you're limited to tracks and plug ins, etc, with a bit of creativity you can get around this. Rode is a good mic - especially for vocals and acoustic stuff. I still use the Shure SM57 for electric work.
Digger