Apple Logic Queries

quote:

© Naim Audio Ltd, 2006.

Logic Studio or Pro 7 ?
and which Macbook (old, new, specs) ? ( and what type of music, # of tracks etc etc.....

Logic is my life, I use it 12 hours a day and am using it right now ! so I can give you a detailed response but need more info

... and everyday I fantasize about bringing Nickleback back in time to 15th century Spain and performing torture experiments on them in the basement of the castle of Segovia ......

not sure where that quote came from

If it's good enough for Radiohead, using MacBook Pros, then....

Have a look on the Apple site (US), under the Pro/Profiles section....Will give you some interesting reads and an idea of kit being used in various scenarios...

yup, what Steve said....

but right of the bat, without knowing Dave's specific needs I can say:

1) get 4gigs of ram, Logic only accesses 3.5 max so you don't need more and with 4gigs you can do lots of tracks in a project, lots...
2) assumming you may be buying a mac book, get the option for 7200rpm hard-drive instead of 5400
3) get an external HD ( again preferably 7200 rpm) and record you audio tracks to that drive and keep all your samples on that as well
4) if you have Logic 7 then upgrade to logic Studio, they made the new version use the cpu and ram more efficiently ( and what you get in the Studio package is stunning for the price)
5) visit http://logicprohelp.com/ great help site, all questions answered there, loads of great advice and tips and tricks... right from beginners and newbies to certified Logic trainers

6) you can lose your mind with ADC's and DAC's,(external soundcards) but if you are on a budget, the Apogee Duet is great, sounds very good and works seamlessly with logic ( was designed for it). If you have lots of cash ,the Metric Halo ULN-2 is fantastic ( great mic and instrument pre's and a DAC section that would make a Lavry blush....
7)If you are not recording live vocals or instruments, then just use whatever dac you have in your stereo set-up

I am on a fully loaded Macbook Pro, but you will be shocked what you can get away with on any newish Macbook....with 4 gigs ram ....

cheers and have fun and feel free to ask more questions, I work in all kinds of music but not Nickleback and other " Man-Rock" ( a term i made up for that junk)

Have to get back to Logic now so I can make more money to buy more Naim gear, and more coffee..

Re outboard sound - I use the Motu 828iii with my rig (mac pro - logic studio, VirusTi etc), but have played with logic on a basic macbook..which is my next purchase.

Harold - intriguing read - do you work from home?

Hi Andy, VirusTi !! fantastic ! I have had my eye on the Ti desktop for a while now, incredible sound, which do you have? polar,desktop, keyboard? all great, great company.

I do work from home most of the time,high speed internet very handy, but sometimes go to the park with my dog,... laptops are great. I recently got the MacBook pro as I am moving to Berlin in April and the Mac-pro tower would probably drive me crackers on a plane or train, and it was getting a bit long in the tooth. I am shocked at how powerful these new guys are the MacBooks also, you will be very happy with it.

I take it with a VirusTi that you are not into Nickleback ?

cheers
joaquim

quote:

Originally posted by haroldbudd:
...and the Mac-pro tower would probably drive me crackers on a plane or train...

What ?!? Where you gonna plug it in..? ....I've got two Pros sitting at my feet, stuffed with internals, and believe me, they aren't going anywhere - I can hardly lift them !

True the laptops are serious power options these days...I know guys doing Final Cut editing on the move....I do the majority of my main work on the desktops and big screens, but I know if I'm on the road I can handle most things on the 17" laptop, especially if something comes up while on press or something - working on a book last year, away from home office, and many of the images needed extra work, whilst I was with the photographer...They were the high-res master files, and I was throwing 1Gb Tiffs around on the laptop as if they were 10Mb Jpegs !

Even the iMacs have some beef behind them in the current range...

Steve

Dave, I don't think any of us meant to turn this into a full-on geek fest ! Looks like Im pulling a 48 hour session here, so feel free to take control back of this thread with any questions, we'll be here, unless I run out of coffee...

Steve, you said " they were high-res master files, and I was throwing 1GB Tiffs around...as if they were 10Mb Jpegs " ........ next time I slip into making a cheesy kraftwerk tribute track, I will fire up Logics Vocoder and use that line, thanx

My girlfriend got an iMac about 8 months ago and it was beefier than my 4 year old tower, but things are as they should be now beef-wise as this Macbook pro is beefier than her iMac, Mac beef is getting leaner ............ OK I should really switch to Tea now. You guys are British right? Will I go into some kinda tea/coffee shock-horror ? Being a Spaniard should I be drinking like, Espresso ?

Fair warning Dave, Logic will keep you up very late......but lots and lots of fun

joaquim

Yes Dave, tell us to shut up at any point...!

Joaquim - Yep, I'm a Brit, lost in Thailand right now. I must be un-British though, as I don't drink so much tea, but my body weight in coffee...Must be the creative thing !

Macs are even worse than Naims....You buy the best, at the time, and 9-12 months later, she suddenly looks like an old lady...!...Least I don't need a separate PSU to feel that I'm doing my best work though...!

Steve.

Harold,

I have the 61 note keyboard version, sat on an apex above a Roland A90ex. Didn't want to pay out for the newer ti2 version, so picked the ti1 up at a reasonable price.

My wife likes Nickleback. I'm not into them, tho.

also have an upright downstairs - currently learning grade 4 piano pieces!

Any chance I can get a word in? Seriously though... lots of good stuff here, thankyou.
A few things:

1. Appears one can buy Logic Studio or Logic Pro 8? Are there huge disadvantages with the cheaper one?

2. Would be the latest Macbook if I got one.

3. What type of music? Probably very, very bad music. Electronic to start.

4. Not recording instruments at present, but am keen to experiment with sampling. I hear the Aphex Twin's track 'Upright Kangaroo' and the wonderful integration of him burping in the melody - mind you maybe he didn't sample it, maybe the sound came preinstalled with the Logic package? Anyway I digress, my query here is will for example an Apogee card improve things sound quality wise? Recorded and playback?


DB

Dave ! good ok.....

1. Logic Studio is Logic 8 , they just dropped the #, the cheaper version is Logic Express which does drop a lot of the bundled sounds and synths, effects etc etc of Studio. The price for Studio(8) considering what you get is insanely good. ( 40 gigs of samples sounds alone ! )

2. latest Macbook- great, but go for the unibody ( not the white one ) and try to get 4 gigs ram and 7200 rpm drive if you can....might not seem like you need it to begin with but when you start to use the vast power of Logic ( and you will ) these things will come in handy, you can always ad more ram later also, so not completely needed from the go but nice if you can swing it.

3.Aphex Twin, one of my faves.....so since you are not recording real orchestras and you want to mess with making your own samples, a cheap but very good mic like the Rode nt1 will be fine and you don't even need the Apogee Duet. you can get a lesser interface since you are going to experiment and mangle the sound anyway. ( the Apogee Duet is nice though because it is small and can be powered from the firewire port, so you can actually physically go out and get/ record sounds easily that you will play with.

4) the synths, sounds, loops that come with Logic Studio will be more than enough to make any kind of electronic music you want. In the install package is included a full track by track song by Plaid who are, like Aphex, also on the warp label. every sound in the track was done entirely in logic with the same things you will have and the cool thing is you can literally see every single thing they used, how they used it and how they built the song up in Logic. This is great especially if you are starting out.

5) don't forget that link I gave you for logic pro help site..... you will need it at first but less later. And let me know, when you get to the Mic/ interface point as there are really so so many options that can work for you.

cheers, and feel free to ask more questions

ok back to Logic

joaquim

Dave,
I've been faffing round with mic's and audio recordings (Jus started), and the need to understand things like gain and what needs phantom power etc, plus what type of mic does what etc.

I'd go for the full logic studio pack - its seriously good value for money compared to the competition!

I also did quite a bit of research re audio interfaces.

Let me know if you need any more info.

Harold/ Andy/ SC,

Ok so I am now sitting pennieless with a 4 Gb Macbook Pro and full Logic. It's quite amazing, unpacking the Mac, there is next to nothing in the box. Quite quite different from all the bundles and crap that accompanies a PC. Also interesting to note that the Logic software weighs more than the Mac!

Anyway. I will go quiet for a while as I attempt to learn. One other query, the necessity for an outboard DAC. My understanding of DACs is limited to say the least... all (I think) I know is that the DAC converts the digital output of the Mac to the analogue necessary for the Naim amp input. If no external DAC is installed, does this occur within the Mac? Will adding an external DAC improve quality sent to the amp? And if so what is a good DAC... without breaking the bank too much further. An input for recording would be nice.

Apologies for any idiotic queries.

Regards
DB

Congrats Dave !

I see you went for the MBPro. That together with logic means you have more power on your lap, literally, than Aphex had in the 90's ! The rest is up to you.

You are correct in assuming that there is a little DAC/ADC built into your machine. This is fine since you are just starting but even a cheapy interface will improve the sound coming in and out of your machine significantly. M-audio make cheap-good intro units, but I think I can assume that you want to basically kill three birds with one stone, that is: 1. DAC for output quality for Logic-the music you create into the Naim 2. ADC for good input Quality from external mic or external instruments and 3. also using the DAC to play regular music into the Naim . Not sure how penniless you are, so it makes it hard to point to one unit, and there are so so many to chose from. If you could give us a roundabout budget it would make it much easier to make suggestions, but the Apogee Duet I mentioned will have you completely covered sound and feature wise, and like Logic Studio itself it is great bang for the buck. If you cant buy that soon, don't worry, just use this time to get to know Logic, how to load instruments, loops etc etc.

I know you just spent a big pile of change, and I was in the same position as you years ago. I came from a completely Analog recording background and still it can be very intimidating at first. It may seem like I am telling you to buy more stuff but there are a couple of very cheap things that I think are more important right now than even an interface(ad/dac).

You will need a midi keyboard controller to play all the synths and machines in logic. I think the others would agree that all you need is an m-audio usb keyboard. they are very very cheap and come in all sizes. You could use the caps lock keyboard in order to use the keys on your laptop as a synth/keyboard controller for now but this is far from ideal. Just search M-audio and you will see all the options.

Secondly, (if you have 30 bucks left! ), buy this great book, http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Pro-Training-Logic-Express/dp/0321502922/

It is by far the best intro to Logic book I have ever seen and I wish I had it when I started. The Giant manuals that you have for Logic are great but can be very techie, but this book takes you step by step into how to build up a track with included audio files and tutorials. Indespensable and only the price of a couple CD's. ( it is written by the master of the Logic Pro Help website I told you about )

Also, for now you could get a USB mic and just use the inputs on your mac to start recording real audio. MXL make 5 different usb mics that are very cheap and sound surprisingly good, just search the usb section of the MXL site. With one of these, you could get also a Beresford DAC which is about 150 bucks to handle all you DA. Many people on this forum have one and It is one of the three DACs I myself have. It sounds great with Naim, and a no-brainer intro DAC considering the price.

sorry if this message was long but you really have so many options ! we can help you narrow those down quite a bit so just let us know when and how much and we will help.

now load up that Plaid demo track that came with logic and enjoy

joaquim

Sorry me again

How are you hooking up to your Naim now ? not sure what naim you have but the DIN inputs make things a tiny bit trickier. Don't worry though as there are solutons.

re the midi interface - it depend how much stall you want ot place on keyboard quiality IMV.

If you do play piano, then the semi weighted synth style interfaces do feel strange, but they are the way to go re getting the data in.

I was hanging my nose over the Novation stuff, mainly because of the auto-map features. my mate then purchased a Ti 61 note synth, which i had a long play with, and the rest is history.

learning piano i tend to use the A90 more, tho. It has the fully weighted action etc i like. (proper practice is done no the upright, tho)

The choices are endless, and don't forget you can use fleabay...

Ya the Novation auto-map is great ( for most things, still a few things that it's not perfect on,) but with the TI you are all set controller wise. Don't think Dave needs anything that crazy fancy..... not yet anyway ! I have a few controller keyboards including a M-audio pro 88 with the weighted keys which is nice for piano stuff but not needed for synthy things, and it was really cheap though for an 88 key job

Does your Ti have aftertouch in the keys? if so is it Poly-after touch or mono ? i need a good poly aftertouch controller for the Arturia CS-80V plug-in for complete Blade-runner period Vangelis fun.......the novation is only mono after touch and the auto-map is a bit wonky with that particular soft synth. it would be a great excuse to get a Ti !

cheers

cheers

HI Harold,

I get full after touch playing chords, so I guess that means it does do what you need - bugger!

It also does mulit-out into 3 auxes, so you can config plug-ins on those three channels - I'm re-progging some tracks ready for live work using this method...


Sound-wise I'd say its like having Ni massive and FM8, plus analogue stuff all under one hood - had i have know i would not have previously brought the NI synth boxed set.

I have the CS80 (and J8v amongst others) - sure are nice sounds...

thanx for the info Andy, but when you hold down a chord and only apply extra pressure on one note in that chord does the after touch only affect that note or the whole chord ? If so thats true poly. My novation apllies after touch to the whole chord, not whichever individual notes you apply pressure to in that chord, thats mono after touch, not poly. Mono or poly after touch does not refer to wether or not you can have several notes affected by after touch but wther or not you can can have individual notes affected seperately with after touch in the whole bunch. Phew ! when you have a minute check that out if you can thanx.

I have Native instruments Komplete, very very good sound quality, Reaktor is fantastic !

thanx

Leave this with me - I'm off round to my drummer pal's place tonight with the Ti and will investigate then.

cheers for now.

andy

quote:

Originally posted by haroldbudd:

1) get 4gigs of ram, Logic only accesses 3.5 max so you don't need more and with 4gigs you can do lots of tracks in a project, lots...

Small point, but EXS24, the Logic sampler plug-in can use any extra RAM as can any other application you may be running alongside Logic.

quote:

Apogee Duet is great, sounds very good and works seamlessly with logic ( was designed for it). If you have lots of cash ,the Metric Halo ULN-2 is fantastic ( great mic and instrument pre's and a DAC section that would make a Lavry blush....

None of these work though with the new Unibody Macbook as it has no Firewire.

Regards

Stephen

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:

quote:

Originally posted by haroldbudd:
Apogee Duet is great, sounds very good and works seamlessly with logic ( was designed for it). If you have lots of cash ,the Metric Halo ULN-2 is fantastic ( great mic and instrument pre's and a DAC section that would make a Lavry blush....

None of these work though with the new Unibody Macbook as it has no Firewire.

Dave got the MacBook Pro though, which does - 800.

quote:

Originally posted by SC:

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:

quote:

Originally posted by haroldbudd:
Apogee Duet is great, sounds very good and works seamlessly with logic ( was designed for it). If you have lots of cash ,the Metric Halo ULN-2 is fantastic ( great mic and instrument pre's and a DAC section that would make a Lavry blush....

None of these work though with the new Unibody Macbook as it has no Firewire.

Dave got the MacBook Pro though, which does - 800.

Yep, saw that but wanted to clarify the situation in case anyone else got disappointed! The old style white Macbook (now updated to almost unibody specifications) does of course - to make things more complicated!

Regards

Stephen

Cool Stephen.

Seems crazy Apple now moving away from Firewire 400, especially since they were primary one of the ones to push it into use....I've been here before with Apple though !

Steve.