Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

On Jan 24, 2005, at 5:29 AM, GAmoore@... wrote:
>
>> It is also a nonsensical notion that by "professional" people mean 
>> "hard to figure out" that is again exactly the opposite of what 
>> professionals want out of hardware or software.  They have less 
>> patience for confusing interfaces and clumsy implementations than 
>> anyone. 
>
>
>
>  No, this is opposite of what I have heard for years on the LUG.

Then you have been hearing wrong or misinterpreting what you read.

I have been working with top end pro engineers for 20 years and I can 
tell you that the thing they hate the most is stuff that is flaky and 
complex.

Why would they like stuff like that?

Successful people are the ones that focus on getting the job done and 
do everything they can to remove pointless distractions.

I know and know of lots of very successful techno guys who were still 
using MC 500s for sequencing well into the 90s after many most of the 
amateurs had moved on to computer sequencing.

Why?  Because the MC 500s were simple dependable and let them do what 
they wanted to do quickiy.

I still know of several professionals doing film scores in Studio 
Vision on OS 9 to this day because the MIDI is simpler to edit.

> I've heard plenty of the emagic elite making comments to the affect 
> "If you complain about Logic being too complicated, obtuse, or 
> difficult to use then you are forgetting this is a 'pro' application" 
> - as if 'pro' is an excuse to not make it simple and straight forward.

I don't know who you mean by the "emagic elite".  If you mean the 
developers then I actually agree with your assessment but they are not 
professional musicians they are professional software developers.  They 
are stubborn guys with their own vision that in the past has often been 
at odds with what professional musicians actually want, but you may 
have noticed that there has been a pretty big shift away from that 
attitude over the past few years.  Personally I think the traditional 
impulse in emagic developers to make it possible to do the most obscure 
obtuse operation imaginable at the expense of having the obvious and 
most common operations become complex and confusing is the most 
unprofessional approach imaginable.

Though there may be some out there I personally I know of no 
professionals that have the time or inclination to sit messing around 
with the logic environment MIDI tinker toy widgets.

To the people I picture enjoying that stuff are the remnants of some 
English nobility siting around trying to indulge in their computer 
hobby and their music hobbies at the same time.

But as you will see if you look there has been a *very* visible shift 
away from that attitude in logic.  Take for example the new Pitch 
Corrector plugin.

That is the simplest easiest most stripped down interface of any of the 
products in that genre that I know of.

In fact if you ask me they have taken the idea of simplifying the 
interface too far with that because unlike melodyne and autotune you 
cannot drag specific notes to specific pitches, they will always just 
snap to the nearest defined pitch.

Still that is a great tool and I have already used it on an album with 
what I thought were excellent results.

The fact of the matter is the emagic developers are very aware that 
their perspective is skewed and I know for a fact that they surround 
themselves with very harsh critics and are incredibly tolerant of very 
withering critiques.

>  I've had the impression for years, that some of the non-moderated 
> elite have mastered the program and become accustomed to its quirks, 
> and then can't see past those limitations. For example, I argued for 
> "multiple undo's" about three times, and each time, the beta testers 
> would argue that its not necessary even though every other modern 
> program has that.

This just points to the irrationality of your assertions.  First you 
claim that the beta testers are calling the shots.

Then you claim that some beta testers were opposed to multiple undoes.

And then you fail to note that logic has a very robust undo history 
function.

If the beta testers were opposed to that feature *and* they were the 
ones calling the shots then it would not be there, now would it?

BTW I do know a beta tester or two and I have no idea whom you would be 
referring to because I know of none that oppose that feature AFAIK 
everyone loves it.

>  And I disagree with your whole premise that people somehow know they 
> need the most expensive $3k mac to run the $1k program although there 
> is no notifacation of that -

You can disagree with that premise all you want but please do not 
attribute it to me.

You can run logic just fine on the latest $500 CPU.  The nonsensical 
part is to expect it to run as well on that thing as it will on a CPU 
that costs 6 times more.

> and then they cheat the system by being penny-pinching and buy a cheap 
> mac. Well, as we have seen on this list, there are no cheap macs. 
> There are only apple macs and they are expensive. And if there is any 
> message from apple, its the message that anyone can produce music, 
> movies, photos, desktop publishing, etc from any mac - even an imac.

That is the message from apple and I think apple's advertising is 
deceptive (as if that should be news to anyone) in that they seem to be 
very good at diverting people's attention from the fact that though you 
*can* do that on any Mac, it is *much* easier to do it on the more 
expensive ones than on the cheaper ones.

>  I don't think many people can afford to blow $2k-$3k a year on the 
> newest mac - except very succesful pros. Anyone else would be wasting 
> money if they can't get more use out of their premium computers.

That is just the way the computer industry works.  And that is the only 
way it *can* work.  The CPUs get faster and the software gets deeper as 
it gets faster CPUs to run on and once the shift has been made there is 
not much of a practical way of going back.

How many Space Designer instances do you think I would be able to run 
on my mothers 233mhz G3 iMac?  Do you think that they should stop 
making Space designer and just freeze development of the software at a 
level that every function in it will work on outmoded equipment?

The thing to do if you want to run old or low end hardware is to stick 
with old software, and as I said I know people composing film scores on 
old CPUs with studio vision to this day.  Of course the problem will be 
that you will need to have a bunch of external synth modules and MIDI 
interfaces and stuff....

> And what about all those software authorizations? In addition to being 
> a hassle, I wonder if the various companies will tire of supplying new 
> numbers continually.

Sorry I don't quite understand what you are talking about here.