Live data from Hacker News

Logic Pro X

apple.com

181–190 of 240 posts

Re: Logic Pro X

#181

Can any musicians in the know about music software comment on how this compares to say, Ableton Live?

The one thing that has always kept me from Live (and this probably applies to .001% of DAW users) is last I checked it doesn't support score based composition. To me the easiest way to visualize my music is good old-fashioned 350 year old notation. My process is to compose by dropping notes on a staff, then either tweak the MIDI (to sound less mechanical) or re-record tracks live, after the composition phase has completed. In the past I have found three apps that handle this well: older versions of Cakewalk on windows, Opcode's Studio Vision Pro (tragically murdered by Gibson--something I'll never forgive them for) and Logic. I tried Digital Performer, and could never get the hang of their score view. I've also tried composing in Finale, which has great note entry, but lack anything further. I'm hoping that LPX doesn't munge the note entry too bad.

Re: Logic Pro X

#182
post #42

For all the talk about how Apple hates skeuomorphism, when I got to this part I started wondering if I was looking at an April Fools' joke: http://imagebin.org/264732

There's some reason behind this. Amps for example aren't named after the real world models (I don't think they have the license for that). But through the design in the app it's easy to tell what it's modelled after. It also helps make the app more accessible to musicians who use the real world objects everyday. The only real problem with the design is knobs which can be tricky to use but I've found by placing the mouse over it and using the trackpad scroll they work well enough.

Re: Logic Pro X

#184

I've been a long time Logic Pro user. Since the updates to Logic slowed to a trickle I've also been using Ableton Live a fair bit. I've always appreciated Logic's clean, well laid out interface (as opposed to say, Cubase) and its general sense of respect for the intelligence of its users. Unfortunately it seems Apple has gone in the direction of Garageband-ifiyng Logic; pushing it towards amateurs who want to easily…

Your comment is a bit like free jazz: it's all very impressive on the surface, but it doesn't really mean anything and ultimately one feels like it was just an exercise in ego massage. Logic has long had a home in the 'pro' world at the songwriting and demo production stage. You'll be hard-pressed to find an engineer in a commercial studio doing tracking or mixing in anything other than Pro Tools (though they certain…

I think the comment you're replying to rests on the assumption that it's not possible to optimize your interface for all levels of competency, i.e., changes that make an interface more beginner-friendly will necessarily limit the scope of possibilities available to power users or just make those possibilities more difficult to achieve. Not everyone agrees, of course, but it's not an unreasonable position. That said, although the Drummer feature looks a little bit silly, I agree with you in that I'm not seeing anything in this overview that indicates that the core functionality is being re-oriented in favor of beginner-friendliness.

(On a side note, the dig against free jazz seems unnecessary. It rarely makes sense to dismiss an entire genre of music as meaningless. Occam's Razor is a heuristic, not a law, but consider which of these hypotheses seems like the more reasonable choice to explain the datum "I don't hear anything meaningful in free jazz":

1. I am not concerned with or attuned to the musical priorities and structures that inform free jazz.

2. Everyone who derives meaning from free jazz, a group that includes some very skilled musicians, is wrong about it being meaningful.

The choice seems evident.)

Re: Logic Pro X

#185
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is a bit like free jazz: it's all very impressive on the surface, but it doesn't really mean anything and ultimately one feels like it was just an exercise in ego massage. Logic has long had a home in the 'pro' world at the songwriting and demo production stage. You'll be hard-pressed to find an engineer in a commercial studio doing tracking or mixing in anything other than Pro Tools (though they certain…

Couldn't agree more - there are far more pro-oriented features in this release than the few flashy garageband-y one demoed with the marketing material of the release. I haven't had a chance to dive in yet, but as someone who works in Logic day-to-day (albeit part-time), i'm ecstatic about many of the upgrades they've detailed on http://www.apple.com/logic-pro/in-depth/ .

I'm time-pressed in a very different way to you: I get just a few hours a week in when my family is asleep and my chores are complete. That's why I'm excited about this new stuff: it looks like it will increase the percentage of my limited studio time I can spend actually playing and singing.

The thing I'm most looking forward to? The iPad app. TouchOSC is great, but this looks like I'll be able to load new instruments and create new tracks! Perfect: I can sit on my big comfy chair far from my screen, guitar in my hands, ipad on the arm, and muck about like I used to with a Portastudio. I might even break my iron-clad "No Apple dot-zero version" rule.

Re: Logic Pro X

#186

Has anyone tried using Github to manage and share a Logic Pro project? I work on music with someone 300 miles away and I'd love to have the power of git. Right now were both using different DAWs and export audio to dropbox. This release of Logic looks great and my partner is already using Logic so if I switch over and implemented git we could ideally be working off the same files all the time with version tracking, b…

Although idea of sharing music across the web sounds appealing in theory, as a musician, I personally wouldn't love the idea of working hard on something and 'web-collaborating' with a stranger and have them possibly add things to a song that I wouldn't like hearing in person. On the other hand, the github idea is interesting. You "open-source" your music and allow others to fork it while still having some form of ve…

I don't know what genres you're into but web-collaboration between strangers is standard in electronic music. Even among the professionals.

Re: Logic Pro X

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is a niche feature but I think it's an important differentiator (and something that I love After Effects for). I'm probably the only person who's excited to code up my own Arpeggiators and Rhythm pattern generators...

I don't even know what an Arpeggiator is, sounds cool though.

If you play a chord into an arpeggiator, it... well, it arpeggiates it. In other words, it plays each note of the chord individually in a particular rhythm (e.g. 16th notes) in a particular pattern (e.g. up/down, up, random). Very, very common in electronic music.

Re: Logic Pro X

#189
post #46

For a company that just threw out skeuomorphism as a design principle, the amount of drumkit, pedal, amp and mixing deck images this thing has is surprising. The pitch correction stuff is cool - I dreamed of that sort of stuff a while ago, but never made any attempt to try to work out how it'd work. I wonder how it works with voices and the like, as opposed to string instruments.

> For a company that just threw out skeuomorphism as a design principle No, only the iOS team did. And bets are still up to whether it was a good decision or a catastrophe for the iOS platform.

Nah, OSX Mavericks shows the same direction. That said, it's no secret that both operating systems are moving towards unity (as in being together, not ubuntu).

Re: Logic Pro X

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a company that just threw out skeuomorphism as a design principle No, only the iOS team did. And bets are still up to whether it was a good decision or a catastrophe for the iOS platform.

I don't know about catastrophe but it's sad that Apple put that much manpower into pleasing a small but vocal minority of bloggers. Normal users really don't prioritize the faux leather vs flat issue that much - for them features count more.

No one seriously believed they are trying to appease bloggers. They obviously agree with the bloggers!
Post reply on HN