Logic 8 !

[catalyst]

Half price ($499) although I can't find a UK price yet, and they have dropped the XS Key ! WOOHOO

http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/

Looks like great value for money, with Soundtrack etc. also included.

Logic Express 8 has been announced too.

 

[catalyst]

I've not really used Logic except very briefly in passing. What is its audio editing like?

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]

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

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]

£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 .

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

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

 

[catalyst]

To bring this thread full cycle, I got the beast this morning !

YUM

 

[catalyst]

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.

 

[catalyst]

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!

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:

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

 

[catalyst]

With the higher eduation discount the price (for the full version of Logic Studio 8) is £118.68! Very impressive.

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