i'm kind of newbie in all that technology....(pure data, launchpad)...But i'm good with ableton live 8  But i want light pattern with my launchpad(like sequencer lights,  button light up that follow the beats etc... )but how i do that ???

I'm going to be using it to control a sammichSID, so being able to send lots of midi CCs is something I'd like. I'm not sure how Piggy deals with that.
As I said, I have a copy of live now, so that's sorted.

You didn't say what you need MIDI for so this is a shot in the dark, but you could use Piggytracker. It has MIDI out.

i remember seeing an abletonesque thing once but all iremember about the name is that it had girl in it

*sexy dance*

LastKnight - That would be awesome actually, it looks like it would do everything I want it to.

iNFOTOXIN: It is made with max in mind, but I should be able to write up something to send the data from PureData into live.

I'm really surprised there haven't been any other attempts to fill the roll played by live

To everyone else: thanks.

Solution: got a copy of Live Lite 4 from LastKnight(which incidentally auto upgraded to 8 lite)

would you like a fully legal copy of ableton live lite 4?

Isn't the monome made with Max/Msp in mind? Ableton offers Max for Live... It's just too good.
I think the main selling point of Live is generally that there isn't anything much like it out there. Sorry.

Logic and reason both have live arrangement mode things as well... Ableton is the best though...

well Renoise will have some sort of grid like control. (though I don't recall the details)  There is also Fruity which I think has a sort of "live mode."

Both of which are not nearly as matured as what Live does for, live. Personally I wish there was a hardware MIDI sequencer with the same type of capabilities.

It's an arduinome, and it's not that I can't afford it, I'd just rather save myself some money and check out other options.

Wait a second... you have a Monome and can't afford Ableton? Sell the Monome, buy a launchpad or something, and buy ableton.

I've been looking lately for something to sequence and play back midi from, but I want something that I can use live.
The way I write songs isn't very linear, and i don't think I've ever written out a song from start to finish on LSDJ, i just make a bunch of chains and swap between them as i go. I want to be able to do this.
This is where Ableton Live comes in. It seems like the only software that can really let me do this easily, of course I could always try write it up in PureData, but I'd still have trouble getting everything sequenced nicely.
Right now, given that I'd like to keep it legal, Live "intro" seems like the best option, but I'm all for saving money, and looking for alternatives.

So is there any software out there, that would offer a similar "live mode" and would allow me to use a combination of monome and midicontrol to launch and control messages sent.
I should've mentioned I'm on OSX, so that would be an extra limitation.