Logic 8 !

Very interesting. So far I've not been terribly thrilled by the music applications I've used on the Mac, which is pretty odd given I cut my music technology teeth on an LC III. Performer was just brilliant :)

I've not really used Logic except very briefly in passing. What is its audio editing like? If it's as good as something like Audition on the PC I might be interested in Logic 8 for that alone. A demo would be nice, as well as any opinions if you are a regular Logic user. For the record, I'm a fairly experienced Cubaser.

arty
 
arty said:
I've not really used Logic except very briefly in passing. What is its audio editing like?
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For the record my background is originally Cubase/Wavelab too.. on Windows, from version 4 to SX 3, after which I jumped ship to Logic/Ableton Live on OS X when Apple went Intel.

It's hard to talk about this new Logic 'Studio' 8 as it is not just Logic any more, it's a bundle of separate applications with Logic as the centrepiece. There is a huge amount of DAW here for your money, since for half the price of Logic 7 alone you are also getting Soundtrack Pro 2 which offers non-destructive multi track audio editing, Main Stage, which appears to be a completely new live performance oriented application, and loads more - including an extensive sound library.

The audio editing in Logic is excellent. It will be even more flexible now with Soundtrack included in the bundle. The MIDI editing is even better, unsurpassed by any other sequencer IMHO. Where Logic unarguably shines above all it's competitors though is the quality and range of the included plug-ins. It is night and day compared to Cubase, really. The flagship instruments like the EXS sampler, Ultrabeat and Sculpture are fully-fledged, extensively featured, pro quality instruments you would pay a fortune for and the effects such as the Space Designer reverb are excellent too. I really can't do it justice in a forum reply without spending hours ! I would advise checking out the videos on the Apple web site for more info. With any luck they will release a demo of Logic Express 8, as they did with 7, to give you a taste.

PS I have also heard the UK price will be £319, though have not had this confirmed by another source.

cheers :)
 
Catalyst, Cubase 4 has a *huge* library of sounds now included across 4 new soft synths. That was the big weakness with v3, and they've addressed that now. It's a whole new kettle of fish :)
 
Lowe said:
Catalyst, Cubase 4 has a *huge* library of sounds now included across 4 new soft synths. That was the big weakness with v3, and they've addressed that now. It's a whole new kettle of fish :)
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I agree it's better than it was, but imho there really still is no comparison in terms of value for money or sheer quality. To scratch the surface look at some of the bread and butter plugins - Cubase still has no bundled sampler (Halion One is just a sound module) or quality reverb, etc.. and it's RRP (£599) is now almost double that of Logic Studio, which has all the other applications thrown in too.. it's like Steinberg throwing in Wavelab and other stuff for free and halving the price. I wouldn't be surprised to see Steinberg adjusting their pricing after this announcement.
 
catalyst said:
<lots of helpful detail>

PS I have also heard the UK price will be £319, though have not had this confirmed by another source.
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For £320 this whole package seems to be really quite good value, though £250 would be even nicer. Thank you very much for the detailed reply - I appreciate it :)

I've just been reading up on MainStage, and I'm pretty gob-smacked. It looks like an absolutely exceptional piece of software worth the cost of the whole package on its own. I think I have to have it :eek: :o

/thinks of live performances using that Bosendorfer Piano Club EXS sample set...

EDIT - Here is the press release. It does indeed say £319 :D

EDIT 2 - Here is Logic Studio on the UK Store (if that works).

arty
 
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JDMAN said:
£319?!? Seems like quite a bargin to me for what you get! Anyone know if apple plan on relesing a demo? Wouldn't mind a little play before I buy :D.
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It is a HUGE bargain imho.. I've been into making music with Macs/PCs for 10-15 years and don't recall anything of this quality for this sort of price before.. it's amazing :D

I was in the Apple store in Glasgow this evening and they have the Logic Pro 7 -> Logic Studio 8 boxed upgrades on the shelves.. those are some seriously HEAVY boxes.. lots of software toys within !!

I'm not sure if they will release a demo of Logic Pro - it's certainly not really feasible to release a demo of the whole suite of applications anyway.. maybe they will do a demo of Logic Pro on it's own, or Logic Express as they did in the past with version 7. Incidentally Logic Express is now in itself a serious bargain too, unless they have crippled it in some serious way. It includes the full EXS24, Ultrabeat, Guitar Amp Pro and ES2 which were all previously Pro-only plugins. £129 :cool:
 
To bring this thread full cycle, I got the beast this morning !

logic.jpg


YUM :D
 
catalyst said:
To bring this thread full cycle, I got the beast this morning !

<big image>

YUM :D
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Yowsa :D

Can you do me a favour? I'm really interested to know if there's an EXS instrument in one of the jam packs which they used as the piano sound on the 'Bosendorfer Piano Club' sample on the website. If it's not too much of a drag, would you mind having a look? I'd really appreciate it if you do - cheers :)

arty
 
catalyst said:
Yes, it's there mate. The Bosendorfer Piano Club instrument is a channel strip consisting of the 'Classical Piano' EXS preset, with a Space Designer reverb and a Channel EQ.
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Thank you so much for looking - I do appreciate it :) The reason I was asking was because I'm quite interested in having a really top-notch piano sample, as I'll explain.

I'm moving towards using MainStage as my live sound generator running from my MBP sitting on a shelf above my digital piano. My only concerns are latency (though I have an M-Audio FW410 which would probably make quite a good live card), reliability (don't want it crashing mid-song :eek: ) and whether I could change sounds on it quickly enough.

Ideally I'd be able to set it up to respond to MIDI program changes so that when I press the 'Electric Piano' button it sends PC# 26 (say) which gets MainStage to switch to my Rhodes preset. Oh for a demo!

Of course, protecting my lovely MBP would also be a priority :p

arty
 
A couple of questions I have:

1. Can it's notation take two periods of notes at the same time?
When finger picking with guitar you can have a bass note that's plucked at the same time as a higher pitched note but the base not may be twice as long.
Neither Guitar Pro 5 or Sibelius 5 can do this as they assume all notes entered at the same moment in time are the same length.. instead you have to result to having a second track for the base picking - annoying..

2. From my understanding it's more a sequencing of events (MIDI/Samples) rather than providing things like MIDI software synths with layers of effects built on. Is that your experience using it?
 
arty said:
Ideally I'd be able to set it up to respond to MIDI program changes so that when I press the 'Electric Piano' button it sends PC# 26 (say) which gets MainStage to switch to my Rhodes preset. Oh for a demo!
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I was just messing around with MainStage and you can do exactly that !

You choose the presets you want to use for that 'Concert' and just program change between them. It really is ideal for any performing musician who is brave enough to use soft synths, which many are doing these days. Using my Novation RemoteSL its just a matter of using a pot to scroll through the presets present, but you can also assign ANY program change number to select any of the presets. It's really easy to do:

mainstage.jpg


Awesome !

For what it's worth, with my laptop I use the little brother of the FW 410, the FW Solo, and I've never had a crash.. I have seen the M-Audio interfaces berated badly on some forums (the Ableton forum springs to mind immediately) but I've never had a problem *touch wood* so I think it will do what you are looking for ! As ever, just make sure you have a backup hardware keyboard like your electric piano ready to switch to, to 'fill in the blanks' if you are so unfortunate as to experience a crash.

Go for it mate :D
 
catalyst said:
I was just messing around with MainStage and you can do exactly that !

You choose the presets you want to use for that 'Concert' and just program change between them. It really is ideal for any performing musician who is brave enough to use soft synths, which many are doing these days. Using my Novation RemoteSL its just a matter of using a pot to scroll through the presets present, but you can also assign ANY program change number to select any of the presets. It's really easy to do:

<pic>

Awesome !
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That is seriously nice :cool:

For what it's worth, with my laptop I use the little brother of the FW 410, the FW Solo, and I've never had a crash.. I have seen the M-Audio interfaces berated badly on some forums (the Ableton forum springs to mind immediately) but I've never had a problem *touch wood* so I think it will do what you are looking for ! As ever, just make sure you have a backup hardware keyboard like your electric piano ready to switch to, to 'fill in the blanks' if you are so unfortunate as to experience a crash.
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Yeah, my digital piano is what I currently use for sound generation so I could probably just whack the volume up on that and get something passable even in the middle of a song if necessary. I suppose the other negative would be that I'd have a more complicated rig than I do at the moment; currently, it's literally just my digital piano. If I add a laptop and soundcard to that then suddenly I've got a USB or MIDI cable to worry about as well as more stuff to lug around (though, admittedly, not a lot) and potentially more stuff to damage.

I'd be particularly interested to know whether it'll respond to graduated expression pedals, but that's probably a bit too obscure to find out unless a) you have one and b) you know what I'm talking about :p

Go for it mate :D
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I can hear my house deposit shrinking already :p Thanks for all the info :)

arty
 
PinkPig said:
With the higher eduation discount the price (for the full version of Logic Studio 8) is £118.68! Very impressive.
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Just be wary that with previous 'education' versions of Logic i'm sure there was some sort of caveat that they could not be upgraded when a new major release came out.. but hey it's still worth it at that price even if you can't upgrade. A HUGE bargain !! Join me, you know you want to :D
 
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