Digitizing Software

I am not very familiar with Pulse. I have played with it at a few shows, and on my sales resp's laptop. I do belive that you are right, you don't need Maestro as you don't do chenille. I have heard that Illustrator is extreme is great.

My comfot zone is Wilcom, mainly cause its what I learned on, so I am partial to it. I started out with DecoStudio. Then upgraded quickly to Embroidery Studio 1, because of better trim controls, and some nifty shortcuts. As I got better I did end up upgrading again to level 2. Its got some pretty cooll fill patterns lots of fonts, and an awesome feature is the vector interchange feature. You can jump between embroidery and graphic a lot easier. You can also if you have only a stitch file, you can export that, and it will "backwards create" the vector file. I know it doesn't sound like much, but we use it every day, especially if you offer embroidery as well as screen printing.

I also have one copy of Level 3, and the only reason we have it, is because we do chenille, and we also have one machine that does sequins.

In agreement with Earl here, Level 1 should do you just fine. Level 2 does have some nifty features, but its probably not worth the extra money if you're not doing big elaborate pieces. Ad far as Level 3, people typically only buy level 3 for a very specific purpose like chenille or sequins. It also has a plug-in if you have a laser bridge for applique.

Hope that answers at least the Wilcom half of your question :-)

ES level 1 will do the vector to embroidery and embroidery to vector interchange "trick". Increadably useful when you have to print using plotted vinyl and , as Eric said, screen printing.
A very useful thing that the program does is it allows you to do the design very accuratly as a vector in the graphics mode. Then you can convert this, piece by piece into embroidery. Advantage of this is that if , for example, you have a ring around a logo. You convert the ring as a turning stitch then come back into graphics mode and then convert the other parts of the design into satin or tatami stitch. Literally piece by piece if you want or have to.
All that is available in level one.

Level two has a lot more effects or stitch patterns you can apply to the designs and some more useful tools. But IMHO level one is more than enough to start with and then upgrade to level two when you really need it.

Earl.

I got into this business about 3 years ago. The salesman who sold me my machines advised me that the entry level for each digitising program was good enough for a beginner. I started with Wilcom Edit plus and last year upgraded to the new Embroidery studio level 1. Now, 3 years later, I do all my digitising in house. For me there is no need for a higher level of this program, it does everything I want. Applique included.
I dont know anything about Pulse but I have heard its just as good.
Long story short, buy level one , its will do everything you need.
Earl