What’s the best way to help get someone started on computer music making? From comments, we get this request from a mother looking to buy the first software on a budget for her teenage son. I’m, uh, hoping your son isn’t reading this (actually, he probably won’t mind – just remember, act surprised).

I am completely new to this kind of software, but my teenage son is requesting the likes for Christmas. I started out looking at Ableton Live 8, but am a bit wary of the price. I’ve also looked at Reason and Apple’s Logic Studio. The price is a bit of a deterent, (he’s not an only child) and I have also looked at the Live Intro and Logic Express. I would love some advice on what to get. He is wanting something that will let him play around with the existing song library on his iPod (mixing songs together, making remixes of individual songs etc), as well as something he can create his own music with. He’d like to be able to save or record what he does. Eventually he might want to be able to plug in a guitar or mic and add his own playing/singing to what he has done on the computer. Any suggestions?

Good question! I take she had also pulled up some of my reviews (presumably for Macworld) and hadn’t come to any definite conclusion, because I said nice things about both.

The challenge here, as always, is that any number of tools will be up to the job, including GarageBand. I quite like Logic Express as a bargain choice for Mac production. It’s got the amp and pedalboard options for guitar, and nice effects built in. Apple’s done a lot to make the interface friendly and attractive. And for someone just getting started, there’s almost nothing in Pro that’s missing from Express that you’ll really need. Logic Express is also an interesting choice for doing remixes, because of the new Flex Time feature.

That said, I’m going to go with Ableton Live Intro as my recommendation, based on the way she describes her son. It’s an ideal choice on the Mac for getting creative ideas flowing, thanks to Live’s non-linear Session View and approach to musical clips. Live offers a tough-to-beat toolkit for the beginning remixer, with the ability to slice and rework audio and apply various envelopes to musical materials. But it’s also a good place to begin experimenting with your own ideas; because you don’t have to look at a linear, left-to-right view of your music, the addictive process of imagining ideas is easy to employ.

Live Intro does just about everything you’d need to get going (though it’s too bad, for a guitarist/vocalist, that Looper is missing). Intro also bundles a lot of preset sounds. And it’s only $99. The best advice: give Live Intro a try, and then as your son’s work grows, he might add on Logic Express or upgrade Live to a higher-level version. By then, he’ll know more about his own tastes and needs.

Here’s a comparison of the two Live versions (I actually couldn’t find a chart this simple for Logic Pro versus Express, though I’m sure I’ve seen that somewhere):
Live Intro vs. Live 8 comparison chart

Anyway, that’s just my humble opinion. And yes, I use both tools myself. Live is a place where I’ve often started new ideas, even if I finish them off somewhere else. And Live will work with Logic, so if he decides he wants some of the features in Logic, he can use them together.

Readers, any different thoughts? Of course, there are many other software options not listed here available on the Mac.

On Windows, we’d have a different set of variables – there, I might be inclined to point to Cakewalk’s Music Creator 5 and Reaper, too. (I like FL Studio, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it to someone with this particular set of tastes.)

I have to say I think Express is a model of what a more entry-level edition of a product could be. (I know Apple competitors reading this are shaking their heads and pointing out that Apple is in the comfortable position of selling pricey computers with big margins, but I think Apple still provides incentive to buy the Studio version without feeling the need to cripple Express.)

Nearly everything new in Logic Studio 9 is also in Logic Express 9, which Apple began shipping yesterday.

Apple Logic 9’s audio editing have been transformed, via a new means of squishing audio around in time (FlexTime) and new editing tools (Bounce in Place, one-step conversion to sliced sampler instruments, drum replacement, the ability to edit in takes, and reorganized contextual menus for regions). All of those features are in Express, as is the new Amp Designer and Pedalboard.

What Express gives you: Express is basically all of Logic Pro, with all the major effects and instruments, mixing, notation, and stereo output. You ven get things like the UltraBeat drum machine.

What Express doesn’t give you: The big ommissions from Logic Express are, naturally, the additional apps in the suite – MainStage for live performance, Soundtrack Pro for editing, and the lot. You also don’t get surround sound (no biggie). Most importantly, you miss out on some of my favorite sound design tools – the insane Sculpture physical modeling instrument and Space Designer convolution reverb and not to be found.

Logic still isn’t for everyone – well, anyway, I don’t really believe in “one size fits all” for music tech, generally. But if you do like Logic’s workflow and aren’t quite ready for the whole Studio suite, Express is a good choice, priced at US$199. That almost makes it the best bargain DAW available on the Mac – except that for non-commercial use, Reaper, now available on Mac, is cheaper (and for commercial use, roughly ties).

http://www.apple.com/logicexpress/

In other Logic news, those of you wondering what happened to the PDF manual for Logic Studio 9, it’s back! Apparently there was a production delay that held up its release; Apple says it was never their intention to eliminate the PDF version. Also, if you do choose to use the default Mac help viewer, that incorporates the full text of the documentation available in previous versions as PDF and print, along with all the expanded documentation for Logic Studio 9. I still find the help viewer annoying, because it insists on staying the topmost window, but both it and the PDF version work. (For window management on the Mac, check out my new best friend TwoUp, which could help solve this problem if you’ve got a big display. It finally makes my Mac manages windows as well as, well, Windows.)

Direct PDF documentation link from Apple (thanks, dead_red_eyes on comments!)