Sorry for the long absence folks! My wife, our bunny, and I just finished a gruelling move from Toronto to Halifax to begin our new lives. It’s terrifying being here, so far away from family. Can’t wait to see where it leads!
I’ve begun trying out different DAWs in preparation to buy one, and the first one under scrutiny is Logic Pro X! (Currently 10.5.1) I started with this one because it’s the most similar to Garageband, so I hoped the level of frustration/overwhelm would be a bit more manageable than if I’d tried a completely new system.
Annnnd… Turns out I was (mostly) right! As with other Apple products, Logic’s familiar UI makes it easy to transition to the paid version while still adding sh*t-loads of bells ‘n whistles. Let’s get started, shall we?
The interface, as I mentioned, is similar to Garageband when you open it up, but with additional views for the mixer, for example. It can get a bit cluttered on one screen, but it’s easy to swap one view out for another, and you can usually have 2-3 up without it getting too busy.
Speaking of shortcuts, Logic has TONS of them: From splicing and dicing tracks, to zooms and fades, playhead catching, bouncing, etc., and with many more customizable from the ‘key commands’ menu. You could literally spend days in there, just getting set up to do fast, efficient work.
I’m not at a stage where I’m recording anything live yet, but Logic seems to have a pretty intuitive interface for that, according to the Youtube videos I’ve looked through. It’s easy to record multiple takes, then swap different parts between them, before mixing them back together into a cohesive whole. The “quick swipe comping” feature is particularly cool.
If you aren’t as familiar with Garageband/Logic, the flex time function analyzes the intransients of recorded tracks, allowing you to drag the wave functions around – very useful if you have trouble staying on time, or want to compress or lengthen certain parts (up to a point).
One of the features I don’t remember from Garageband is flex pitch, which is particularly helpful in making small adjustments to vocals. Each part of your vocals can be tweaked by pitch in cents, vibrato, drift, and so on. Careful not to overdo it though.
Synthwise, I explored Logic’s two most powerful: ES2 and Alchemy. The former packs an impressive amount of firepower, with three oscillators (plus a 4th one used to boost the bass for the resulting signal), 2 LFOs, 3 envelopes, and TEN modulation routers. Yes, you heard that right.
There’s plenty of additive and subtractive options, including frequency and ring modulation, two filters with the usual resonance and drive features, plus distortion, flanger and phaser, and a unison option with up to 32 voices. Coming from a synth that maxed out at 10 voices, that’s pretty insane.
One challenge I found working with ES2 however, is that it’s not always the most intuitive. Some controls are placed in confusing places, like the X/Y pad placed around a semi-circle of other dials, NONE of which have anything to do with it.
Much as I liked the ES2, it was Alchemy that really blew me away. Frankly, I needed a few online videos just to start scratching the surface. They have hundreds of presets however, if you just want to quickly dive in.
First, there’s the 4 oscillators, all of which can be customized with an array of filters, and over a dozen other modulators (up to three per oscillator), in addition to some unique features like symmetry, syncing, wave phasing, and the ever-helpful unison feature.
There’s also a noise oscillator for each oscillator, that can produce 13 different types of sounds, including white, brown, and pink noise, vinyl, fire and ocean… Jesus.
If that wasn’t enough, virtually every dial on Alchemy can be modulated by a virtually unlimited set of LFOs, EGs, and sequencers, with a modmap and envelope follower for smaller adjustments. Plus a bunch of other features I didn’t even have time for (keyfollow helped me in SO many places).
To create an evolving sound, Alchemy offers two morph pads, and 8 presets, each of which can be linked to p to 8 customizable dials, plus 4 more connected to ADSR envelope functions.
Alchemy has been described as primarily a sampler synth, offering even more features to create formant, granular, or spectral sounds, as well as others. All that was a bit beyond me however, so I’ll leave that for another reviewer.
Finally, there’s a few other basic effects, like reverb, delay, EQing, etc., which can be added, and which can also be modded by the tools above. With all that control, you almost don’t need anything else to create a complete and beautiful sound.
That said, Logic Pro expands on their plugins from GB, and offers more control over the ones which were already present. I confess I only experimented with these briefly to get a basic idea of what was possible, but I learned more from my online research.
On of the bigger changes from GB lies in the compressor plugins, which now includes a limiter, knee controls (affecting how strongly the signal is compressed close to the cutoff point), and most helpful for beginners like me, it actually shows you with a meter how much the sound is attenuated. Speaking as someone who can’t always tell if the signal is actually compressed or if I’m just imagining it, this is invaluable.
Some others I liked:
- The Enveloper lets you add more punch to the attack and release of a signal. Especially good to give drums more or less punch, or to give it a boomier, dirtier feel.
- The Space Designer is a reverb plugin that models the sound you might get playing in different types of rooms. Lots of options.
- The Exciter is amazing at bringing out more brightness in a track, by adding additional harmonics. Logic boosts the original GB plugin with additional control over how much of the high-end is excited.
- There’s a few different delay options, but Stereo Delay is a nice balance in complexity, allowing right and left channels to be delayed separately for variation and to create a “fatter” delay.
- A more complicated delay option is the Delay Designer, because it actually lets you choose WHERE your echos or “taps” will be. You can even customize each tap, using panning, pitch, resonance, and cutoff controls. In the end, your “delay” may come out sounding more like a complicated sequencer rhythm.
I should mention as well that Logic comes with everything you need to mix and master the tracks you’ve arranged, complete with EQs, compessors and multipressors, limiters, stereo-widening, and so on.
By the way, there’s metric tons of useful resources out there to help you learn the gory details. In particular, I’m calling out MusicTechHelpGuy, who has been lauded by many as “one of the best instructors of music production on the internet”. I’ve checked out dozens of his videos, and love his clear and comprehensive explanation of Logic’s many features.
So, what’s my impression? Logic seems versatile enough, but with special emphasis on recording artists. For pure synth-users like me, the Alchemy synth is single-handedly the most useful feature, which makes the intuitive UI, shortcuts, and plugins just gravy on the turkey.
I had the advantage of coming to Logic Pro from it’s younger cousin Garageband, so I suspect new users without that benefit will find it somewhat intimidating, especially with synths like Alchemy. If you like a challenge and know you’ll grow into more of what Logic has to offer though, it’s a great fit for your current and future music projects.