I'd recommend buying second hand with these pricey headphones until you find a pair you like. That way you can just sell them on with little loss or even a profit.

I settled with a pair of second hand hd600s and would highly recommend them.

I dunno if its still the case but I bought the mk1 version second hand then sent it back to the seller because NI were not transfering licences - so worth checking out if your going down the second handy road. Never purchased another, still get tempted! Theres so many cool controllers and techno toy...

aye, go for a walk and pic mushrooms

microtonic for drums
thats my best buy vst

if it was created on live 9 you could always download the 30 day trial. fully functional... i think!

thought this was good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtZysI-Dfhs

Is iac an apple thing? I did try midi bomes and another similar patch software once but I seem to remember you had to actually map stuff you wanted oto automate to a midi controler.

and finally session view automation