Pro Audio, Music & Mac Blog

Part 2 of a series of topical posts from the NextList – Logic vs. DP

>>> It shouldn’t frighten you but it IS definitely more of a pain in the ass in
>>> some fundamental ways (like setting up your Environment).

>> I’ve been spending time at the Logic and DP boards. Dp users all say this.
>> I’ve only met one Logic user who ever uses the environments.
>> Seriously almost no one ever uses them. Apparently in DP5 , there are
>> easier ways to accomplish the same things.

For a long time, Environments were the only way to set things up, I guess maybe that’s been changed in version 7? The last version of Logic I had was 4 or 5 several years ago on OS9. Whole different ball game under OS X with
CoreAudio and CoreMIDI, I presume.

Another thing that’s incredibly important is the way DP allows you to manage projects. It’s really very slick working with different sequences and Quicktime video and chunks (”chunks” are basically your cues or chunks of music).

> “> And I’ve got to tell you–the bundle that comes with Logic 7.2–the sounds
> and the effects–are really stunning and very useful for what I hope to do.
>
> Absolutely. This is the real strength of Logic Pro, IMO. It oughtta be though,
> for the cost differential.”
>
> I think a decent convultion reverb is worth a few hundred bucks, and it’s far
> from the only cool plug. The sampler seems excellent and pretty intuitive to
> me.

That’s an excellent point, I forgot about that plug… Though, once you’ve heard Altiverb, there IS no other convolution reverb anymore. Heh.

Audioease is a great company and make other great plug ins too, btw. Check them out.

> “Additionally, you’ll really need to add some crucial must have plug ins to
> either (you can use them with either, too as they both support AU format
> natively so buy it once, use it anywhere).
>
> What do you think this would entail? I really have no idea. I think between my
> normal acoustic sounds (created while I’m actually playing, I mean) plus some
> ear candy, I’ll be set with the internal sounds of Logic. The verb is lovely
> and seems very usable, but then I do good work with the Roland verbs. The
> guitar amp plug sounds good to me, but I’m not that demanding. I don’t do my
> own mastering at this time. What else is there?

I happen to really like some of the Logic plugs, for compression and eq. particularly. They are clean, and just work easily. There’s one EQ called FatEQ that came with WaveBurner that I was in LOVE with. That said, sometimes, you just have to try different flavored plug ins to find the right one for the sound. For example, DP’s KICK ASS MasterworksEQ is stellar. However, it is not the only EQ I will use for any given production because I know that I have RenEQ handy, VintageWarmer’s super sweet high end is incredible, etc. Calling plug ins up is the same whether you instantiate a built-in Logic or DP plug in or choose a third party one instead and, well, you’ll see… You’ll want a nice long menu to choose from. -grin-

> I’m not arguing strongly for Logic, just saying that to find better sounds
> than what I’ve heard would require effort that I’d rather spend learning a
> platform right now.

There is much to be said for Logic’s efficiency versus DP’s CPU bloat. And, again, Logic is available right NOW. DP is eh… Jul…August…