Advice for Coming to DP from Logic

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 2:22 am

Frodo wrote:
Shooshie wrote:But I am guilty of putting printers out of business with my laserwriter, accountants out of business with my spreadsheets and tax software, and photographers out of business with Photoshop. Heck, I've even put Kodak out of business with my digital camera! Kodak! My favorite film company. Makers of Kodachrome!

Shooshie
"Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away"
~ Paul Simon

Yes, and we DAW users have taken a slice out of the recording studio market as well as the CD repro market. There was a day when we had no choice but to find a cheap studio and then send our mixes out to some company for duplication.

Enter the personal computer and home production studio. Give me a beat-- thwack. A touch of guitar and piano-- twang. "I'm gonna add some bottom so that dancers just won't hide"-- oomph. A touch of reverb and compression-- thwonk.

Er... uh... yeah. Then there IS that, too.

Sometimes I forget about the years of debate about whether MIDI was stealing jobs from "real" musicians. (remember the longest running thread on the PAN network? It was about that very subject. I always argued that I'm a real musician, and any real musician can pick this stuff up and learn it. I sold a bari sax to finance my entry into the MIDI world in the early 1980s.)

It's interesting to me, but I saw this coming over 20 years ago, and at the peak of my concert career, I started doing MIDI music. I gave all that up for this. I believed that music would become somewhat like sculpture, and that we musicians who learned this wonderful craft would be able to make amazing things with it. This was the future of music, I thought. So, I jumped into it. I was a little ahead of my time. Only now, 22 years later, are we actually able to make realistic sounding music that rivals the "real thing." But in the process, I've learned so much, and it's taken me so many places. I think my concert career would have ended up largely in academia. I think I made the right choice. What I'm saying is that I did what the smart printers, accountants, photographers, illustrators, and many others did: rather than resist the new technology, I embraced it and tried to make it mine. Doing that as kept me current and active in the professional music world.

I think that the kind of music that Logic's website demos encourage is not necessarily what I set out to do, but I think it is unavoidable to embrace it, too. I don't know where it leads, nor did I know where Performer/Digital Performer would lead. But I'm glad I set out on this path, and now I think it's important to come to an understanding of Logic and loop composition. It's not how I trained, but it's an efficient and fast way to create something of commercial value. I know I'm preaching to the choir. Most of you have already done that, and probably do it very well. I'm the one who simply has avoided loops and mechanized composition.

Don't worry; I'm not about to give up what I've got in DP. I'm just going to add to it. Maybe not right away--I've got too much on my plate at the moment, and I've got to go to Las Vegas for a few weeks to do some work. (in DP, of course) But I'm very interested in giving Logic a try.

Can someone tell me if the limited version (which is much cheaper) is too limited for comfort?

Shooshie

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:18 am

Shooshie:

First, a DETAILED comparison chart between Pro and Express:
http://www.apple.com/logicexpress/comparison.html

Second, there is a free 30-day trial of Express:
http://www.apple.com/logicexpress/trial/

It's not like you don't have anything else to do!

philbrown · Post by **philbrown** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:25 am

Thanks to the folks who responded to my MIDI controllers-in-Logic question. The answers were very informative. I am outgrowing DP in that regard almost by the day. Logic's environment sounds like it would be perfect for me, although I will probably try MIDIPipe and/or Plogue Bidule first with DP before I make the big $999 leap of faith. My real wish is that MOTU would take some interest in this area but there's no reason to believe they will at this point. After reading these posts I am taking the GUI into account too. Sometimes I work, compose, and later jam with friends (i.e. spend all day) staring at DP's GUI and obviously something easy to take for granted. DP is good in that regard IMO.

Another strike against Apple/Logic for me is I'm still mad at Apple for crippling Waveburner in OSX and keeping me tied to OS9 for the foreseeable years to come. Personal grudge, but hey.

Thanks to all for a remarkably sane and informative discussion.

And Shooshie - you must be infinitely faster at typing than I am!!

Phil

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:38 am

Hey Phil:

Thanks for inspiring the chat. It was truly food for thought and has inspired me to give Logic a tug from a different angle.

It is said that "man cannot serve two masters-- he will either love the one and hate the other, or he will cling to one and despise the other."

But perhaps it's okay for two DAW's to serve one person more effectively than many people would imagine.

Good luck on your quest-- and maybe the free trial of Logic Express will come in handy for you.

philbrown · Post by **philbrown** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:55 am

Is Logic's Environment fully implemented in Express? If so I just might jump in and try it. Most of Express's limitations I could live with for a while, at least to see if it does what I need MIDI-wise. Especially with a 30 day demo available (which I wasn't aware of - Thanks).

One last stapled-on question:
Does Logic have the ability to jump ahead to something like a marker or another musical section on the fly? I'm still on Live 4 but I understand Live 5 has something like this where you can jump to another section of music in time and quantized to the beat or bar. I realize this isn't a traditional DAW function but I would help me do what I want musically. DP kind of implies that functionality with Chunks but it doesn't work in practice to smoothly jump to sections in real time, to my knowledge.

I do agree with the right tool for the job and having an array of tools available. Right now for instance I use DP, Live, Numerology and Reason in various combinations, not to mention Stylus which is a whole deal unto itself. I create a little differently in each one. Take Live, DP and Numerology - there's 3 completely different approaches. Numerology I instantly got and was off and running with it - I love it. Live I'm still making nice with but coming along OK. It's very cool but has its limitations as well. Anyway, I'm reluctant to add yet another DAW, learning curve, $$$, etc but it just might be inevitable...

Phil

nickysnd · Post by **nickysnd** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:50 am

philbrown wrote: One last stapled-on question:
Does Logic have the ability to jump ahead to something like a marker or another musical section on the fly?
Phil

There are functions like "Goto Next/Previous Marker" or "Goto Marker Number X", but you have to first assign a key to make these functions available. (Shift+Control+M is the equivalent shortcut in DP)

As someone pointed out, assigning keys is essential for using Logic, cuz many functions are hidden. At one point I have printed out the "Logic Key Commands", and I'd send you the PDF if I knew how to do it. It is a quite long list that can be regarded as a nice overview of Logic functions. It is something very similar to the Commands (Shift+L) list in DP's Setup menu. I have printed out this one too and I keep it handy, I find this lists quite useful, as my memory is not as good as I'd wish, and I am not really a mouse lover.

Nicky

nickysnd · Post by **nickysnd** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:32 am

philbrown wrote: One last stapled-on question:
Does Logic have the ability to jump ahead to something like a marker or another musical section on the fly?
Phil

There you go:

http://www.geocities.com/nickysnd/Logic ... mmands.pdf

... on the top of page 2.

Nicky

philbrown · Post by **philbrown** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 12:18 pm

Thanks Nicky, quadrupolesmurf, Frodo and all y'all's. Thanks dougieb (in the other thread) for the take on the interface - turns out it matters! And I bet I will agree with you. I think most old time DP users might take the interface for granted and this has been a good time to appreciate what we have there. I like it anyway. This has been a fruitful discussion for me I tell-ya-whut. My next tasks are to check out Logic Express when I have time between jobs (with emphasis on the Environment in my case), MidiPipe and Plogue Bidule, the latter 2 would be used with DP- my comfort zone of choice I freely admit.

They are both a bit half-baked it would appear on net research (and messing with intimate fuzzy parts of your system- yow) but who knows til you try? One is documentation by rumor I guess (MIDIPipe) but that's why God gives us spare HD partitions- to futz with these things.

Still Digitally Performing (and using too many parantheses),
Phil

PS Shooshie you should start a magazine or something. Oh wait that would cost.

buddhabelly · Post by **buddhabelly** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 1:58 pm

philbrown wrote:Is Logic's Environment fully implemented in Express? If so I just might jump in and try it. Most of Express's limitations I could live with for a while, at least to see if it does what I need MIDI-wise. Especially with a 30 day demo available (which I wasn't aware of - Thanks).

Logic Express is missing a few key components environment wise: customizable transformers, chord memorizer, and you there is only one sum input for all your MIDI devices, so if you have 2 MIDI ports, all the data is summed together. Transformers are key to doing algorithmic manipulations in the environment. Probably more I can't think of.