Product Reviews by KVR Members

Logic Pro is an incredible DAW, and is well respected within the overall music production community. The "Suite" caters to all-- from recent Garage Band upgraders to many well-known producers and DJs.

Logic's stregths have already been capitulated, to a large degree, in a few previous reviews. However, I will state--in Bold 20 pt Italics-- this currently is and will remain a "pro" application, despite trivial comments made otherwise.

The 10.1 update was incredible unto itself-- adding several new drummers, VCAs, and other sought out features.

10.2 demonstrates the clout, strength, and commitment of Apple to the Music Production community with the addition of Alchemy, let alone many bug fixes. Logic has been quite responsive to its user base and platform improvement / feature additions (they do listen to feedback and fix bugs. Maybe not every vocal critics' deal-breakers, but as of late they have come to the plate on many issues.) One area to focus on in the mixing stage is utilizing a well planned template. One area that could be improved is the matching of the mixer to the arranger, so if you set up the approriate placeholders, including sends/aux channels, upfront, you'll be better off through the course of a production. If you're a MIDI wizard, you also could engineer your own solution in the program's environment. Logic is an extremely powerful mixing and mastering studio.

Furthermore, Logic can serve as the rewire master with the likes of Ableton or Reason, so planning for those inputs too might be necessary. Rewire can be quite the drain on CPU, however, and if you connect Ableton, be aware that the DAW only acts as a true slave-- Ableton does not give access to anything other than the ability to port loops--or "clips--" to Logic (useful in order to access their Session view.) I believe with Reason you at least have access to its plugins-- the whole reason rewire was created? Perhaps one day Logic will create a Session-driven environment-- extremely beneficial for general workflow (and heck Apple just released an additional 1000 Apple Loops with the 10.2 release.) Given the CPU drain, I prefer using Bitwig and manually porting over loops / scenes into the arranger-- if I don't mix/master on their platform.

Logic's compressor received a faceplant in 10.1, and I dare say the GUI-- and sound-- is like a third party plugin unto itself. It has six different modes, including 2 FETs, one OPTO, and 3 VCAs (in addition to the base-line Platinum.) Also, the meters offer two views, one traditional, one more animated, similar to some others out there.

Space Designer is one heck of a convolution reverb, and its algorithmic 'verbs are pretty decent. I've read that some folk have used Logic just for this plugin alone. You can create your own Implulse responses or download others from third party sources, usually free. There's actually an Impulse Response Utility deep inside the plugin to manage the process.

Alchemy effectively affords the DAW two samplers, whereby some DAWs don't even include one (of course in addition to four or so other types of synthesis.) And talk about a good GUI. This plugin too might steer you in the DAWs direction; MacProVideo just called it one of the most powerful synths out there: http://www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/whats-new-in-logic-pro-x-10-2.

The Amps-- including Bass and Pedalboard-- are strong enough to ward off third party plugins.

Channel EQ-- and Linear EQ-- are quite good plugins too, both sonically and to a large degree visually. Q/Gain linkage is a great inclusion, and the ability to resize the GUI is awesome-- as is tweaking its settings on Logic remote.

The remote can serve as a MIDI keyboard, drum machine, or other more customized inputs such as guitar strings. It too can control Logic's transport and library, and it also can control the mixer and FX plugins such as Channel EQ. It's awesome.

Enveloper is one heck of a modulation plugin, the Delay Designer is excellent, heck some of its metering plugins are surprisingy decent, there's a sub-bass plugin similar to several third party offerings, and the included instrument library is quite deep-- amazing given the price point.

Yes, the EXS24 is dated. However, Alchemy 2 can play EXS24 instruments. And talk about good sampled pianos--let alone Saxaphones, Marimbas, and the relatively new Mellotron. Then there's the vocoder, organs, clavs, electric pianos, and a ton of orchestral samples in the EXS24. Several of the large loop vendors too include patches for the sampler, often in tandem with similar files for the likes of Kontakt.

Retro synth is actually quite good, the old ES2 is too, and you can generate decent sounds with even the simplest of plugins-- the ESM.

How about Beats? The somewhat dated, yet quite capable (if not powerful) Ultrabeat has received a face-lift with the new Drummers-- and now you can swap samples with the Front End (rather than the "Back-End" Ultrabeat.) I still like to get deep and dirty with the latter; its modulation parameters, filters, OSCs, and sequencers are all extremely flexible, again albeit somewhat dated. Enter the Drummer's front end and you have a match made in heaven. And if you want to further play around with drum loops-- just add certain arrangement parameters to your project and let 'er rip. Want to explore third party plugins? Just replace Ultrabeat. Want to experiement with the loops in third party programs? Just convert the drummer regions to MIDI. I do both all the time--all the while having fun with the original sequencer in Ultrabeat. The possibilities are just about endless. Lastly, Logic includes 50+ Gigs of content / Apple Loops. If you happen to be really experimental, after playing with Alchemy's 3000+ presets (14G alone, ) create a few with your own samples.

Anyone wanna FLEX? Time or Pitch?

In summary: Strong Buy.