An alternative to Logic

[Barbarossa]

from where i stand, ANYTHING is an alternative to logic, heh heh but thats not what i wanted to say - i wanted to comment on that old story about all the oh so great internal logic plugins and how thats the most complete package and whatnot.

You miss the whole point. I didn't mention with one word the plugins.
Logic rules not because of it'S plugins, but because of it's workflow.
But this can only be understood by people, who have really worked with it for a longer time.
It says enough, that no one leaves Logic due to software reasons...

and it even comes with the industrys most outdated sampling plugin for free"

LOL!
You have absolutely no clue, what a great sampler the EXS is. Ever worked with one instance per track, without multitimbral output hassles? Do you know, why in big studios the drums sounds are not organized in sets, but per instrument? And the monotimbral EXS is perfect for a professional, means efficient, workflow.
Although i have Kontakt2 myself, i would be glad, to have a workhorse sampler like the EXS (but with HQI ).

[Max el Belga]

Let me put it this way : if my Logic would have great tits and a nice ass I'd marry her !

[Barbarossa]

Let me put it this way : if my Logic would have great tits and a nice ass I'd marry her !

[beej]

You couldn't marry her, she's been mine for years...

[Sascha Franck]

You have absolutely no clue, what a great sampler the EXS is. Ever worked with one instance per track, without multitimbral output hassles? Do you know, why in big studios the drums sounds are not organized in sets, but per instrument? And the monotimbral EXS is perfect for a professional, means efficient, workflow.

I'm afraid I have to sort of disagree here.
Even if I personally still like the EXS for a variety of reasons (mainly efficiency, great sounding filter and slick looking GUI), monotimbrality is defenitely not something to praise it for. I mean, even with multitimbral samplers it's not as if you *have* to use that feature - but occasionally it might come in handy.
Just imagine you'd have a nice multitimbral setup of, say, some orchestral stuff. You may want to re-use that one in another song. With the EXS this would mean to save up to 16 individual presets, then load up to 16 instances into different instrument objects and then reload the presets.
In addition, just changing the MIDI channel on your master keyboard to get to another sound could be quite welcomed at times as well. Oh well, and while we're at it, lack of program change support is quite something else. Not a single of Logic's own plugins supports those. Quite a shame if you ask me, especially considering that for some 3rd party plugins it's working rather well.

And fwiw, I would never use a "plain" sampler for drums anyways - I could never understand why they would use any stock sampler in some "professional" studios instead of just using a dedicated drumsampler, which is making a ton of things sooooo much easier.

Although i have Kontakt2 myself, i would be glad, to have a workhorse sampler like the EXS (but with HQI ).

On this I totally agree. Especially the filters in Kontakt still aren't anything to write home about (unless you tweak them with further saturation FX and what not), and while I love it a lot for being a modulation monster, most of the times this isn't what you need to get a job done. You usually need quick access to the most important parameters (envelopes, filters, etc.) and patches.
But hell yeah, the EXS could indeed do well with an optional HQI mode. The aliasing on "not so much samples" patches and on extreme pitchbends is quite horrible - whereas, with Kontakts new HQI mode you can easily build a patch from one single sample (the same goes for VSampler and ShortCircuit).

[DHR53]

Logic... I love it! It's simply the easiest and fastest way for ME to make music. But that could be said for almost any program that you are used to or really know. After using everything out there, I came to the conclusion I can still get what I need done, faster and more effiiciently in Logic, so I got rid of everything else... After all the time I spent trying to jump back and forth between hosts, it's nice to finally be "there"...

[bduffy]

Logic... I love it! It's simply the easiest and fastest way for ME to make music. But that could be said for almost any program that you are used to or really know.

Amen to that, brother.

Actually, I thought that was FLStudio in your sig all this time!

[fgimian]

So have they added an easy way to fade in and out audio clips in logic like Cubase & Sonar ? I think with the older version you had to use numeric fields to set fade in and out.

Also, did they add reordable inserts ?

I personally always thought that Logic's scoring was the best of the sequencers (obviously dedicated software is even better), but Logic scoring totally destroys Cubase scoring in my opinion (others may disagree).

I also just love the way screensets work in Logic, it's like, click a number and BANG, new screenset, Cubase requires more work to set things up.

Having said that, I always felt that Cubase was more robust in audio editing, but I haven't used Logic beyond v5.

In answer to the original poster's question, I think that Sonar or Cubase would be the only real alternative to Logic on PC. If the original poster plans to deal mainly with audio, then maybe a small Protools rig would be good for learning, I'm pretty sure many large studios use Logic for arranging & MIDI and then bus all audio out to Protools where they do their mixing. I really don't know why they do this, when they could mix in Logic with DSP cards like Powercore & UAD1s, but Protools is Protools I guess People love Digidesign and what not

I've owned an Mbox, sold it, could not stand it at all. Cubase is my baby and I feel so much more comfortable doing my thang in there. I am extremely curious about Logic though and am considering investing in a Logic based Mac setup ... maybe I'm just going nuts

Fots

[bduffy]

So have they added an easy way to fade in and out audio clips in logic like Cubase & Sonar ? I think with the older version you had to use numeric fields to set fade in and out.

Numeric fields? Was that the Atari version? No, you can do fades in Cubase/Sonar with handles, just like everything else.

Also, did they add reordable inserts ?

Sigh. No, but word on the street is that you can in SX 4.

There may be hope yet for a shiny new sequencer for you!

[fgimian]

So have they added an easy way to fade in and out audio clips in logic like Cubase & Sonar ? I think with the older version you had to use numeric fields to set fade in and out.

Numeric fields? Was that the Atari version? No, you can do fades in Cubase/Sonar with handles, just like everything else.

Also, did they add reordable inserts ?

Sigh. No, but word on the street is that you can in SX 4.

There may be hope yet for a shiny new sequencer for you!

YAY for shiny sequencers !!!

bduffy, I thought you were a Cubase man, do you use Logic also ? What are your thoughts on the comparison between the 2 hosts ? I truly love the fact that Logic includes awesome plugins out of the box and basically could do everything one would ever need for music production with only exotic plugins missing.

Fots

[bduffy]

So have they added an easy way to fade in and out audio clips in logic like Cubase & Sonar ? I think with the older version you had to use numeric fields to set fade in and out.

Numeric fields? Was that the Atari version? No, you can do fades in Cubase/Sonar with handles, just like everything else.

Also, did they add reordable inserts ?

Sigh. No, but word on the street is that you can in SX 4.

There may be hope yet for a shiny new sequencer for you!

YAY for shiny sequencers !!!

bduffy, I thought you were a Cubase man, do you use Logic also ? What are your thoughts on the comparison between the 2 hosts ? I truly love the fact that Logic includes awesome plugins out of the box and basically could do everything one would ever need for music production with only exotic plugins missing.

Fots

Yes, I am a Cubase man, probably for life. But don't look at me for comparisons! I'm a PC-man too, so I have no clue about where Logic's at these days. I figure all those industry cats can't be wrong, so...who knows? I'd love to say "use Cubase", but I know when I did try Logic 5, it made me want to kill, I found it so confusing; so I don't know what it would be like trying to switch. Im sure some of our comrades could elucidate, most namely Sascha... actually, he just wrote about this a couple posts ago!

[derek]

You miss the whole point. I didn't mention with one word the plugins.

who said my comment about the plugins was directed towards you? it was brought up in this thread,
so i commented.

Logic rules not because of it'S plugins, but because of it's workflow.

thats what logic users say about logic, nuendo users about nuendo, pt users about pt...see the pattern?
i usually try to stay away from the whole workflow argument (suffice it to say i think nuendo is a lot better
here because to me workflow is mostly about audioediting).

But this can only be understood by people, who have really worked with it for a longer time.

3 LPs enough?

You have absolutely no clue, what a great sampler the EXS is. Ever worked with one instance per track, without multitimbral output hassles?

multitimbral hassles? good one :-) see, the nice thing is, a multitimbral sampler allows you to work in both ways (nobody stops you from
opening one instance per instrument), the EXS doesnt. the moment where you do serious string arrangement work or other stuff that
puts sampler technology to the limit, the EXS is not even an option. my string project has hundreds of string patches ready to go,
all with individual audio channels. try that with the EXS.
same goes for the "one setting for all" vs "individual settings" philosophy. one can do both approaches (theres usually a button
somewhere for that), the other cant.

Do you know, why in big studios the drums sounds are not organized in sets, but per instrument? And the monotimbral EXS is perfect for a professional, means efficient, workflow.

yeah, the usual spin when something has only a fraction of the features of the others is to call it "efficient", right. nevermind that the others are equally simple (read: "efficient") unless you need it by hiding unused parts from the UI.

anyway, you like to be limited by your sampler, fine. as long as that is clear on the table, people seeking advice can make up their
own mind about that.

[DHR53]

Logic... I love it! It's simply the easiest and fastest way for ME to make music. But that could be said for almost any program that you are used to or really know.

Amen to that, brother.

Actually, I thought that was FLStudio in your sig all this time!

Ironic no doubt! But then I've always been on record as saying I think Fruity's interface is excellent... it's the workflow, that's er well... different!

p.s. I still have my original web purchased "Lifetime Upgrade" version on my PC... (since version 3) that was a pretty sweet deal!

[bduffy]

Logic... I love it! It's simply the easiest and fastest way for ME to make music. But that could be said for almost any program that you are used to or really know.

Amen to that, brother.

Actually, I thought that was FLStudio in your sig all this time!

Ironic no doubt! But then I've always been on record as saying I think Fruity's interface is excellent... it's the workflow, that's er well... different!

p.s. I still have my original web purchased "Lifetime Upgrade" version on my PC... (since version 3) that was a pretty sweet deal!

I have a lot of respect for FLstudio, it's just not quite my cup of tea. It's too bad, I think it was a such a weird decision to cut out PC users from Logic. You'd think with even Pro Tools crossing over and considering how many people they lost...strange move.

[DHR53]

Who knows, now with the Intel move, maybe they'll reconsider? I really have no idea what's on tap for Logic at this point... the audio needs to be revamped, or at least "option drag" a clip (to stretch it) would be nice! Come on Apple?? Really, that's one of things that irks me about them, they ignore such obvious stuff, and fix things no one cares about! Grrrr... I really had no problems with SX other than it just didn't work as well on the Mac (as the PC), and wasn't nearly as efficient as Logic. Other than those issues I could use it anytime... I'm hoping Apple listens to the "professional" users for a change, instead of those "marketiing" dicks!