Create Digital Music » logic-studio

Nov 12 2007

My Logic Studio Review for Macworld: Big Overhaul Pays Off

Logic Studio 8

My review of Apple’s Logic Studio (including Logic Pro 8) is now live at Macworld.com (it’ll also be in the January 2008 print issue).

Summary:

Pros: Single-window view speeds editing and setup; MainStage program ideal for playing instruments and effects live; powerful, easy-to-access editing and take management tools; bundles Soundtrack Pro but halves the price; no more dongle; can sync with others via .Mac or Bonjour.

Cons: Some MIDI features are still obscure; MainStage doesn’t integrate with Logic or ReWire.

Or, to put it more simply: take away a dongle, slash the price, and make Logic easier to use, and you’ve got a winner.

Logic Studio: All-in-one music creation package is easier to use, more playable

I do hope competitors are taking a notice of what the Logic team at Apple has done with the interface.

Call for Help: Logic Environment Round-Up

With the release of Logic Studio 8, several soundware houses released custom Logic Environments / sound packs. Taking advantage of Logic’s unique modular engine, beneath its shiny new skin, has some real potential. I’m trying to organize a round-up of everything out there, so if you represent a company doing commercial Logic development — or have some Environments you built yourself for personal use you’d like to make available to others — let us know! Community development has worked well elsewhere (sound packs for Ableton Live, ensembles for Reaktor, patches and externals for Max, ReFills for Reason, to name a few), so it’d be great to see a re-invigorated Logic user base.