EQ Magazine - January 2008 - (Page 66)

Soft Machines APPLE LOGIC STUDIO Are You Sure That’s the Price? by Craig Anderton Steve Jobs’ “to do” list for the last several years: 1. Save company on brink of destruction. 2. Invent new way to create movies, make several blockbusters. 3. Re-invent the Walkman and dominate portable music market. 4. Beat cancer. 5. Push new model of music distribution, become dominant player in same. 6. Re-do operating system and hardware from scratch. 7 Invent new type of cell phone, sell a gazil. lion of them. So perhaps it’s not surprising that “update Logic Pro” may have fallen a little further down the list. But apparently Apple doesn’t believe in “little” updates. The long-awaited (some would say overdue) Logic Studio package goes beyond “update” to “remake, as it’s a suite of programs ” wherein Logic Pro can keep its pro core audience but the suite itself is positioned to extend its reach into the more prosumer field—like those who want to move beyond GarageBand. THE BIG DIFFERENCES Logic Pro 8 drops the dongle (in favor of a serial number), drops the price, and drops new elements into the “studio” package. Of these, the one that surprised me the most is MainStage, which you can think of a different “shell” for Logic that optimizes its various elements (in particular, effects) for live performance. Think of it as a virtual stage rack setup, including the option to accept control surfaces. While this isn’t the first such program, Apple has done it right—especially when you look at it in the bigger context, namely, Apple wants to sell hardware. With a program of this caliber designed specifically for onstage, and given that you’ll likely dedicate a laptop to live use, a Windows user might give serious consideration to buying a Mac laptop just to run MainStage. And I also think Apple’s up to the same game with the Logic Studio package as a whole. They like the idea of people switching platforms, and Apple has certainly given several incentives to do so, including lower prices, Boot Camp, and a hardware base that’s easier for developing cross-platform applications. I The “dual strip inspector” is toward the lower left, and the ultra-cool Delay Designer takes up most of the screen toward the right. Toward the bottom, you can see the tabbed views, with the much improved Sample Editor shown; above that is the Arrange area. couldn’t really picture a Windows-oriented musician switching to the Mac just for Logic, but Logic Studio is another matter. For under $500, in addition to Logic and MainStage you get SoundTrack Pro 2, Waveburner, an encoder for mastering music in Dolby AC3, 39GB of additional content spread over 6 DVDs (18,000 Apple loops, 1,300 EXS instruments, 2,400 channel strip settings, 575 Space Design impulses, and surround goodies including surround channel strips, sound effects, and music beds), an Apple Loops Utility for creating your own Apple loops, and an Impulse Response Design utility for creating impulse responses in Space Designer. (However, note that the Jam Pack files are in CAF format—so don’t expect to use them with other programs until they’re updated to recognize this format.) But all this content does come with a price: If you’re doing a fresh install, you can take in Star Wars and a good part of The Empire Strikes Back before it’s all installed. Someday, you’ll be doing video—which is why including Soundtrack Pro 2 is big deal. Furthermore, hidden in there are features like spectrum view editing for cleaning up tracks and other restoration features, multi-take dialog options, and easy transportability with Final Cut Pro. USING LOGIC PRO 8 When I opened up Logic Pro 8, I was immediately struck by the streamlined, single-window interface with tabs for Mixer, Sample Editor, Piano Roll, Score, and Hyper Editor. Another surprise: The inspector has grown a second channel strip whose display varies based on what you’ve selected in the standard one. For example, click on Send, and it shows the send (or you can make a manual selection). Being able to access mixer functions from the Inspector, without accessing the mixer itself, is a major time-saver. And speaking of the mixer, it has three separate views (Single, Arrange—shows only active tracks, and All). Single view is like a “super inspector” that shows everything related to a specific track and its signal flow, and is fantastic when you’re zeroing in on working with a single track. I never found Logic intuitive, but the new workflow made total sense to me, and I was 66 EQ JANUARY 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - January 2008

EQ Magazine - January 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Robbers On High Street Rafter RTX Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings Toolbox Rahim Dimmu Borgir Wu-Tang Clan Special Feature! Mastering for Musicians Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drumheads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Sonar 7 IK Multimedia Virtual Instruments Yamaha MSP7 Shure KSM137/SL K+H O 300 & O 800 Sonica Livetracker Apple Logic Studio Novation XioSynth 25, Audio-Technica ATH-M50, Samson G-Track

EQ Magazine - January 2008

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