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Recent Upgrade

I've just upgraded from Logic Pro 7.2 to Logic 8 in the last couple of days. And I'm more impressed than I thought I would be. It's odd, if you read the various support pages and sites, there appear to be a lot of problems, but I hardly found any issues. This is how far I got without reading the manual:

All-In-One Screen

I like the all-in-one-screen approach especially as there's still flexibility to expand out to other screens. It makes the previous approach of trying to fit Logic 7 into one screen seem very clumsy in comparison. The tabbed idea for the lower pane is great. It gets me confused at times, but I can easily see myself settling into a pattern that works well. The ability to switch easily between piano roll, sample editor and mixer at the same time as having the event browser open is wonderful. And best of all, they don't just appear and disappear in odd places like they used to in 7.2. Ok, I know I could have customised the screensets further in 7.2, and I did customise them to suit me, but I always felt it was the wrong way to do things from a user-interface-design perspective. I've yet to find anything layout-wise in 7.2, that I could not do in 8.

Studio Packs

I like the Jam Packs, Studio Packs and Apple Loops. Never thought I'd say that. I avoid most pre-made templates with audio applications since I like starting afresh and avoiding licensing issues. I usually find the lack of flexibility too constraining and you're stuck with the rhythm provided whether you like it or not. This is even worse when you only get a couple of loops per groove/rhythm. The Studio Packs in Logic 8 have a lot of variety. Enough to vary the beat sufficiently for a 3-5 minute song in most cases and stretch it out further if you want to edit the files. The ability to change the reference note per loop is useful as well.

Depending on the file type you choose, you can edit the midi. That's a bonus ability so you can further customise the loops to your liking. I've found it very quick to lay a foundation down and add to it with my own recorded instruments. Frighteningly quick and easy.

License of Jam Packs / Studio Packs / Apple Loops

I know you can't just use a provided audio file straight into a soundtrack on its own or at least that's a normal licence restriction. Normally, you have to add something, e.g. use it as a backing and add your own melody for it to count as original and conform to the user agreement.

It's also usually a grey-area about what counts as a music library, e.g look at the number of agencies that refuse to take tracks on with samples (not as in how a DJ may samples or even mash-ups, but samples from sampler software as well). Now those are the typical issues for using sampled sounds. In this case, I can't even find the agreement for those files. I can see the software licence and the agreement for subsidiary software such as the open-source applications that Apple bundled in with OS X. But I can't find the agreement for the Studio Packs. Must be on the packaging somewhere. I'll check the EULA agreement at apple.com soon.

Sad to say, until I can find the licence/agreement, then the Studio Packs remain a gimmick that I can't use in my licensable compositions, still a fun gimmick though.

Regions don't repeat

One annoying issue I have come across is that it doesn't always play a repeated region/loop until the last repeat. So let's say you have a drum loop playing 4 times, it will be silent for the first 3 times, then only play on the 4th. Very odd, very annoying. And stopping and starting doesn't seem to help either. It does fix itself every so often but I don't know how or why.

Having said that, I thought I was running the up-to-date patches. I was wrong. I found over 300Mb of Pro Application updates to install. Haven't had chance to test it since.

Preset Settings

A lot more work has gone into preset selection. The presets were there for channel settings in 7.2 and I didn't think much of them. Occasionally I'd pick one just to see if it would liven up a track, pretty much like a lucky dip for looking for new ideas. I love the effect of a distorted guitar amp emulator on drums, probably no use throughout a song, but nice for a few bars. In 8, there's more to the presets. Pick a channel and choose the preset and Logic 8 will load relevant software instruments, channel effects and routing if on an instrument channel and channel effects and routing for all other channel types.

It's the introduction of the presets on the Instrument channels that impressed me most. They're there if I want to use them, but I don't have to. I've found them very useful for roughly selecting the sound I want, then I can tweak it from there.

Overall, I found using the presets a lot more enjoyable than I have with any other DAW. I'm hoping that it's better than my experience of playing through a Line6 POD a few years ago. It was very fun and great for creativity, but in the end, I always found something wrong with the sounds; to me it just didn't sound like I wanted it to no matter how much tweaking I did. I'm not sure how long-lasting the new Logic 8 preset experience will be for me. I've yet to use a preset out-of-the-box so far and I fully expect to have to tweak them to suit.

Efficiency

I found it interesting that nearly every preset adds a number of plug-ins. I looked in shock as I thought my Mac would crawl to a halt but grinned as I realised it wasn't struggling at all. Something has improved here from 7.2 to 8. Either the plug-ins are more efficient or Logic handles them more efficiently. The caveat here is that I loaded the Yamaha piano preset (which loads EXS24 sampler with Yamaha and a plug-in or two including Space Designer) and I started to get clicks and stutters. I've always had similar issues using Kontakt 2's high CPU piano patches as well, so I'm not too concerned. I manage my plug-ins more closely when I need to.

Settings for New Projects

This surprised me. It took me a few minutes to find out how to create a basic project. After selecting to create a New Project, you're now presented with a list of options as to what type of project you want, e.g. recording a band, writing electronic music, producing, mastering, surround - sorry can't remember the titles. These got in my way a bit. I just wanted a basic template with 3 audio channels, one each for drums, guitar and bass and two instrument channels, one for Kontakt2 with a number of aux outputs and an empty channel to make it easier to add more instruments as I need them. Didn't take too long. I was disappointed that my standard templates hadn't been converted from 7.2 to 8. Maybe I could have just copied them across to the template folder. Doesn't matter now, I created new templates quickly, but if you've a lot of detail in your templates, you may want to think about this step a bit more.

Triplets

I often create and edit using the piano roll. 7.2 had a couple of options for changing the grid to show tuplets. Very useful for entering triplet quavers in 4/4 time. This had me stumped for a while. A quick search on google showed that you now change the grid by changing the figure in the main transport bar. Nifty, I think. Curious if that has any repercussions elsewhere though, like what else does the transport bar number relate to?

More Reliable

7.2 had a feature where it wouldn't always record when you set record. I never did figure out what caused this and it only happened say 1-in-100 times. If that was the take that I wanted, I wasn't impressed. I worked around it by having a 2 bar intro and checking that it was recording so I wouldn't lose takes. So far, I haven't seen this issue in Logic 8.

Kontakt2

It works well with Kontakt2. Didn't think I'd be saying that either after having read support sites for Native Instruments and Apple. Maybe I'd better quantify "well". It works as it used to. I hope it works better but I haven't got that far yet. For instance in 7.2, I had to automate the volume of the aux channels to automate the volume of the output busses from Kontakt2. I was unable to have midi control Kontakts internal channel output volumes. I know the multi-channel/multi-output facilities have been improved in Logic 8 so I'll try a few other approaches and see if it can work better for me.

Reliability

It hasn't crashed yet, but I've hardly used it, just a couple of days. 7.2 hardly ever crashed either and usually only if I had something complicated going on with Kontakt2.

Tiger, not Leopard

Read around and you'll come across a number of issues which the authors attribute to combining Logic 8 and OS X 10.5 (Leopard). I'm still running 10.4 (Tiger) and I've seen none of the issues.

Routing

Routing functionality seems to be improved. I haven't figured this out fully yet. All I can say so far is that busses and auxes seem to be there when I want them. There's a lot less of having to create the buss than there was in 7.2. This is another subject for reading the manual. I've seen a few issues, but I think they're down to user-error (i.e. me not having read the manual and not knowing fully how the new software works). For instance, creating a multi-output instance of Kontakt2 via the mixer results in the main songs Output buss being a surround mix, not a stereo as may have previously been selected. Remove Kontakt2 and the main buss reverts back to stereo. However I've an instance of Kontakt2 that uses the aux outputs for additional outputs (as per LP 7.2) and that loads fine while still keeping the main stereo buss.

CME UF8

I use a CME UF8 as a master keyboard. Two issues carried over from 7.2 into 8.

1. Change any fader other than Master and it will change the volume of the current channel. Doesn't matter which fader you select.

2. Midi notes played on the CME and recorded in Logic appear on two channels. Every note is duplicated. Easy enough to remove when I remember, but can be awkward if I forget. I don't have the problem with Novation Remote.

Next?

• Now I need to read the manual. Maybe some of my questions will be answered in that.
• Look into using SoundTrack Pro and how it integrates to Logic.
• Look into the templates for the CME UF8 and Novation Remote
• Try different multi-channel approaches for Kontakt2.

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