Logic Pro 12.x

[magog]

Many of you have probably already come across this video in your YouTube feed. And probably very, very few of you will have the time or patients to watch someone talk for 30 minutes or so about their history with Logic Pro since the Emagic days. Regardless of your personal feelings for Christian Henson (I know he's divisive), he's undeniably a professional musician and composer and Logic Pro power user. So, the perspective he shares in the video is one that I think should carry some weight.

I thought it was refreshing to watch a Youtuber giving Logic 12 a negative review. Most of Youtube seems to be gushing over the new release and all the virtual session players.

I think Christian makes some good points about where the missed opportunities are. In this day of increased AI and increased automation and increased isolation, there is an opportunity for music software to bring real people together in the joy of collaboration.

Instead Logic seems to be focussed on allowing individual creatives to make uninspired music in isolation with robots.

And although I am personally a solo musician, creating my music in isolation, and although I do rely on Logic's Drummer, quite a bit, I do tend to agree with him. Imagine if Logic went the other direction - facilitating a marketplace of collaborators where it was as easy for me to find someone to program drums in my Logic song, and if they made it almost as easy as using their AI Drummer? Obviously it's never going to be as quick as pushing the button, but they sure could make it a lot easier.

It was also disappointing to learn that the Logic team is only made up of 10-12 developers (!). I have been assuming that Apple has secretly had a large team rewriting and modernizing Logic for the last 5 years. Now I think that's pretty unlikely.

[oobesan]

Yes, it's a development team comprised of about a dozen people. To develop a product with a 20+ million user base. By a company currently valued at $3.86 trillion USD. Think about that for a second. Apple gives the Logic Pro team twelve f**king developers, despite being valued at FOUR f**king trillion dollars. Is it any wonder why Logic Pro 12.x is as disappointing as it is?

As far as Christian's somewhat refreshing take in a sea of YouTube shills, yeah, I agree. He could have gone MUCH harder at Apple. His tiny little company Crow Hill has as many people as Logic Pro haha. I've already removed from my YouTube feed all the Logic Pro influencers who have made glorified PR videos for Apple, instead of just demonstrating the new features.

[magog]

Ok so assuming a team of 12 developers for the 25 years Apple has owned Logic, by my calculations that’s something like $12 Million revenue per developer!

[pdxindy]

I thought it was refreshing to watch a Youtuber giving Logic 12 a negative review. Most of Youtube seems to be gushing over the new release and all the virtual session players.

I heard Apple pays per 'gush' on 3rd party product videos

Me, I'm forgiving about what's included in an update when year after year the updates are free. Hell, I paid only $200 for Logic more than 10 years ago and there have been plenty of great updates since and every one free. So for me, if an update here and there is meh, it doesn't bother me.

[Bombadil]

I never dreamed in my life I’d own a tool like Logic. I bought it @179€ in 2013.
However, it became a vehicle for a LOT of 3rd party expense, lol. Easily, 20x the price of Logic.

[Papuzzo]

I wonder if now that there is a subscription Apple may start charging for major updates. Will Logic 13 be free for those who aren't in the subscription plan? I have to say, 10 years of free updates means people essentially paid around 20 bucks a year. This makes Logic the best bang for the buck and beats Reaper. And Logic comes with much better plugins. I am trialing Logic 11.2 now and if they can confirm that Logic 13 and 14 will be free upgrades i will bite.

[ksandvik]

You can't predict the future of Apple SW releases, seems most companies are now (alas) jumping on the subscription model, either full (Adobe ugh) or partly. Ableton has a nice system -- rent to own -- which I think is more appropriate, it's like a lease where when the lease time is up you own Ableton Live and future revenue is then from upgrades.

So just get Logic, even if they ask $9.95 a month in future, you could just delay the upgrades, and many of us just move on to other DAWs then. I have a strategy of dual DAW use, Logic and Ableton Live, depending on what happens I just switch back and forth.

[dayjob]

i bought cubase 15 pro last year during the 50% off sale and did the crossgrade. was very affordable. started learning it in bits. it’s good but different. full package. lot’s of interesting stuff. setting up audio i/o and all that is different and a little convoluted but i can’t complain about the features. recorded a few hardware jams into it already.. so hopefully i’ll have my head around it pretty good by the time i finish putting those tracks together.

i’d like to freeze my computer in amber for a while and think of buying a new mac now and then just to be able to install Sequoia 15.7 and not be forced to use whatever OS the next round of apple computers is stuck with. 26 seems a bit buggy and i hate liquid glass on my phone. have turned off all that stuff so it basically looks like previous iOS.

still using logic too but if it goes subscription i’m out and will not update/upgrade. so it goes. good luck everyone. it’ll be fine though. there’s lot’s of options and computers are stupid fast and getting faster all the time.

[Morty-C-137]

Always buy stuff on what it can do for you as is now, right now. Not based on some promise of what it can be. That’s for investors

[oobesan]

It bears repeating. Apple has granted the Logic Pro Development team about dozen developers. Apple is worth $4 trillion USD. Logic Pro has 20+ million users.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

It bears repeating. Apple has granted the Logic Pro Development team about dozen developers. Apple is worth $4 trillion USD. Logic Pro has 20+ million users.

With the exception of this last update, all updates have been feature-rich (Whether theyre the features all users want or not) and despite long-term annoyances and bugs going unfixed, there's normally a shed-load of fixed with each update, which, for the last 10-11 years has been given for free. And there's even a possibility that us sub-dodgers will continue to get updates for free.

12-steong development team seems to be doing well enough in the eyes and wallets of 20+ million users, so I imagine Apple is quite happy with how they're allocating resources.

[bradkvr]

Hiring more developers rarely if ever speeds up a project, especially if it's one that involves a lot of legacy code. I imagine Apple found that 12 devs is the right number for Logic.

[macmoffatt]

.........for the last 10-11 years has been given for free. And there's even a possibility that us sub-dodgers will continue to get updates for free.Very true and definitely possible, you will only need to buy a new Mac every few years - that is why they bought Emagic including staff and added a few from GarageBand to make Logic look right. for example iMac 2011 OS 10.13 max = Logic -> 10.4.8, iMac 2015 OS 12.7.6 max = Logic 10.7.9 so what happens next MacMini M4
OS 15.7.6 max unknown = Logic 13 ???
for this strategy you only need 12 devs, with 20 million users could be 20 million mac sales regularly. When that stops they may think again.

Food for thought, I am bouncing Audio out of Logic and dumping it into Mixbus 11, which does run on the 2011 iMac with a 10%-15% DSP load, and it sounds great, my opinion

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

.........for the last 10-11 years has been given for free. And there's even a possibility that us sub-dodgers will continue to get updates for free.Very true and definitely possible, you will only need to buy a new Mac every few years - that is why they bought Emagic including staff and added a few from GarageBand to make Logic look right. for example iMac 2011 OS 10.13 max = Logic -> 10.4.8, iMac 2015 OS 12.7.6 max = Logic 10.7.9 so what happens next MacMini M4
OS 15.7.6 max unknown = Logic 13 ???
for this strategy you only need 12 devs, with 20 million users could be 20 million mac sales regularly. When that stops they may think again.

Food for thought, I am bouncing Audio out of Logic and dumping it into Mixbus 11, which does run on the 2011 iMac with a 10%-15% DSP load, and it sounds great, my opinion

I've been with Apple & Logic for nearly 20 years, so I know the dance very well. But the numbers have worked out greatly in my favour, so consider that you warnings might not ctually account for much other than your own experience

[macmoffatt]

no warnings, I describe what I experienced, I started this journey with an update from 1.7 to 2, in those days the updates, upgrades were mega expensive compared to now. Agreed 12 is not all spectacular, but the updates before were, I am not complaining