Logic 9 - Thoughts on the new features

I'm looking over the "What's New" page for Apple's Logic 9 and decided to post my random thoughts. For science.

"Flex Time" - This is essentially Apple keeping up with the Ableton's and the Digidesign's - it was going to happen eventually. I must admit I am curious about Ableton Live just from word of mouth, but I actually have a demo CD for it lying around from when I bought a UC-33 Evolution MIDI controller and never bothered to install it so - not that curious. The idea of being able to use the "Flex Tool" to click and drag to change the timing of audio without making cuts might be interesting. On the other hand, the ability to "quantize audio" and use "Varispeed" to slow down a track while recording and then speed it up again for playback just seems stupid and evil to me. I'm no virtuoso, but I hate this shit. However, I understand Logic has to put it in there to keep up with ProTools, so there it is. Under this category, "Speed Fades," seem pretty cool - I mean, I've often found inspiration by using the Scissor tool to scrub a track or thought to myself "Oh man, if only there was an easy way to record this!!!" I think this category is what makes the update Logic 9 and not Logic 8.5, but it's not really stuff that I'm interested in. I give it 5/10.

"Production Tools" - I never even used quick comping in Logic 8, but that's likely to change whenever I actually start laying down vocal tracks so I can't really evaluate the the new editing stuff they show off. However, I've never thought to myself - "Oh man, if only I could import entire tracks and settings from this other song!!!" so that whole "Selective Track Import" seems like a waste of time to me. Selective drum replacing, however, I could see as useful. But the big dick daddy in this category is the "Convert to Sampler," I've wish for that before so I'm actually pretty excited to see it. It's not going to get me to be an early adopter of Logic 9 - shit, money is so tight nothing short of a bag of it falling in my lap from the sky would change that - but maybe after 6 months to a year I'll actually upgrade mainly for this. Bounce in place could be useful, but I tend to just use buses for this kind of thing... a trick I learned from SFLogicNinja. For example, the Virus TI can only be bounced in real time, but what I do once I am happy with my Virus tracks is I'll route the Virus output to Bus 1, then create an audio track whose input is Bus 1 and then just record it. This way I can do one instrument at a time and then apply effects (compression/EQ) independently. Whether I bounce or whether I record it to an audio track, it's real time, and with my current computer (iMac from last year) I've really never had any slow downs or anything like that, whereas with my G4 powerbook and my old Windows98 PC, I would constantly need to bounce tracks down to save processing power in a project. Enough rambling, I'm giving this category 9/10.

"Guitar Gear" - From my first impression of Logic 9, this is the category that Apple's marketing seems to be emphasizing the most and I can't understand why. Guitar amp simulation is such a fucking hornet's nest, and as a guitarist who owns a tube amp head, a 4x12 speaker cabinet and a collection of Boss pedals, it just is not for me. Unless the simulations end up being, like, godlike and not just a shitty compromise like every other attempt at amp simulation I just think this is a big waste of time. Now I may be proven wrong on this, it may end up being that these amp simulations and the pedal board effects become the next big thing for electronic music and everyone's going to route their synths and samples through them. Conversely, this combined, with mainstage might usher in a whole new era of guitar bands not using amps. I just think it's highly unlikely. I give this a 3/10.

My over all impression? 5/10 + 9/10 + 3/10 divided by 3 = 5.6/10, so I guess I'm quantitatively more excited about than I initially thought. Mainly that's the Convert Audio Track to Sampler feature, I think. I just look at this like, take out the amp simulations, take out the Flex Time, and give me the new Production Tools category as 8.5. But that's just wishful thinking, that's never been how this whole music software thing works. I've been spoiled by the Access Virus upgrades over the past few years, I think.

Full circle (jerk)

My first blog post ever was me agonizing over the upgrade to Logic 8 and counting up all the money I've spent on Logic software since I started with Logic 4 back in the day. Now Apple has announced Logic 9. I'm not linking to it. Seriously, fuck off Apple.

Logic 8 came out 2 years ago. It was a huge update, added a bunch of nice shit to Logic and redesigned the interface. It was $200. Now Logic 9 is here and it adds a bunch of guitar amp and pedal simulations. Yay? It is also $200.

Right now, I have everything in my studio working together and playing nicely. Plus I'm broke as hell and work one of the worst jobs in the world. I think it is best if I opt out of this upgrade.

Inevitably I'm going to end up upgrading - it's the nature of the beast. There'll be an update to the Virus software or some shit, and I'll "fucking NEEEEEEEED" Logic 9.

Until then - Fuck off and die, Apple. Just fuck right the fuck off.

Yikes!!!

Just saw this post on matrixsynth.

Some dude decided to open up his Blofeld and remove one of the knobs to see what decoder was used.

Somehow I don't think that's a good idea.

Blofeld Gripe #1

The "Play" button should play a note.


The Blofeld is so small it would be awesome just to plug it into an electrical outlet, put on some headphones and make some patches. However, you need some kind of MIDI input to play a note to hear whatever patch you're working on. That means I have to hook up my wife's Micron, connect a MIDI cable, blah blah blah... pretty soon the entire coffee table is taken up by gear.

How awesome would it be if I could just press that button that says "Play" and it actually, y'know, played a freaking note. Just C4 - I'm not asking for anything fancy.

Even something like the Korg Nanokey wouldn't alleviate this; it's USB powered, so then I'd need to hook it up to a laptop, blah blah blah... Once again, the coffee table is full of gear.

I just want to watch bad movies while creating and editing Blofeld sounds. Is that so much to ask?!