Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

On Jan 24, 2005, at 8:26 PM, GAmoore@... wrote:
>  I have no idea what those guys actually do or think. I was just 
> trying throw out a hypothetical scenario to explain to you in a 
> different way the issue with beta testers and logic - since there was 
> some confusion over the world "demand". For all I know they are both 
> great guys.

They are.

> I can only base my opinion on 8 years of interaction on the LUG seeing 
> some of these people argue with people asking for new features (like 
> multiple undo) many times, and rarely admit to any shortcoming with 
> Logic, and be a bit condescending toward people at times.

Look, I see people talking as if all apple has to do is walk down to 
the radio shack and buy that code and stick it in.  And if there are 
bugs in there all ya have to do is just spray in a can of raid they 
will be gone "So dammit what the hell are they waiting for why haven't 
they just done it already!?!?

How many times does it have to be said that just knowing of the 
existence of a bug does not mean you know it's cause, and even when you 
know the cause that does not mean that there is an easy fix, when you 
do fix it that does not mean that the fix didn't cause five other bugs 
and when you do finally have the fix fixed and all the bugs the fix 
caused fixed the you add the next feature and find it causes 30 
bugs....

> Personally, I didn't really get the impression that they were on the 
> side of the users trying to make the program more intuitive, but I 
> don't really know or care.

Whose side would they be on?

I mean lets consider your hypothesis that Orren has an ulterior motive 
to make logic more complex so that he can sell more books about it.

If logic becomes harder to use it will be less popular won't it?  And 
if it becomes less popular less people will even consider reading a 
book about it they will probably just move on to what ever people tell 
them is easier to use.  So if you are selling a peripheral product like 
a "how to book" it stands to reason that the smart money is going to be 
in seeing to it that the subject of your book is as popular as it can 
possibly be.

Also consider the fact that he wrote a book about Garage band too and 
garage band is *all* about being brain dead easy to use in the first 
place, I mean that is its beginning middle and end objective as a 
product, so if complexity of the subject is what is going to sell books 
what would even be the point of writing one about Garage Band?

Isn't it more likely that one who would write a book would hope that 
people were successfully using the program and pleased with it and 
found that they wanted to go deeper into it.

I am reminded of the first English School where I worked in Tokyo 19 
years ago, the owner was all over my case for teaching the students 
English "too fast" she said if I was too good at teaching them then 
soon they would all know English and they wouldn't need us any more.  
Nothing I could say could convince her that a) the students would not 
be able to learn at superhuman speed regardless of what I did as a 
teacher and b) she knew perfectly well that I was a young inexperienced 
kid with no teaching credentials and her school was a sham and we were 
not on the fast track to a revolution in the impartation of English as 
a second language anyway but even if by some magical coincidence we 
were wouldn't the word spread about the phenomenal success of the 
Buggerum language academy in Shithole southern Tokyo?  Maybe the reason 
I could not get that across to her was because her English sucked....

> By way of comparison, people like Nick, George, and many others give 
> me the impression of being genuinely interested in giving down to 
> earth advice and calling things as they see them - even when the 
> answer might not be favorable to apple.
>
>  But going back to my original idea which you didn't respond to - if 
> you are right that both professional and amateurs want simple and 
> stable - why does Apple/Emagic keep ignoring 100% of their users and 
> make a prodcut that one is happy with?
>

#1 I *have* responded even cited examples of why I think more than ever 
the Logic development staff are doing their damnedest to make logic 
more accessible all the time.  For example compare the preference 
arrangement of 6.x and 7.xx and tell me you don't think they have give 
the matter some thought.  Or just look at a million little details that 
they improve on all the time.  Did you notice that in 7 strip silence 
is available from the arrange page (actually that might have been there 
from late 6.xx I forget)?  Did you notice that in 7 changing audio 
tracks in the arrange page no longer interrupts recording?  Did you 
notice in 7.0.1 that when regions overlap what you see is exactly what 
you hear except if you highlight a region then the highlighted region 
is topped until it is deselected?  Have you noticed how thoughtfully 
the project folders are arranged and that they pretty perfectly manage 
all of your song data and associated samples *and* IRs.  Have you 
noticed that sample rate convert in 7.0 rivals the best conversion 
utilities you can buy?  Have you noticed that if you drag an file with 
wrong sample rate into your song it logic will automatically generate a 
file with the right sample rate and put it into the project folder?  
Have you noticed that you can drag and drop mp3s into the arrange page 
and logic will again automatically generate a new aiff of the 
appropriate sample rate?  Have you noticed...... the list of little 
courtesy features goes on and on and on.... Then there are the not so 
little ones like have you noticed you can use apple loops right in the 
arrange window, have you checked out pitch corrector.  There are 
literally and pages of features that have been added to L7 and we have 
not even touched on the bug fixes that go on for pages and pages the 
idea that apple ignore 100% of their users wishes is just patently 
absurd.  But then you are talking specifically about the complex 
twiddly bits right, I can think of lots of examples where it gets less 
twiddly all the time, how many can you name where it gets *more* 
twiddly?

#2 Nobody wants logic to be stable more that Apple and the former 
emagic team.  There is simply no remotely plausible reason why that 
would not be the case.  That means that they are trying but only pull 
it off with varying degrees of success because they have to not only 
keep up with but keep ahead of cubase right?  Which means that they 
have to keep adding features which mean that more bugs will come too 
right?

#3.  This brings us to simple vs complicated.

Since my name appeared in the credits of version 5 or 6 or so (I forget 
exactly which) I cannot deny that I have been a beta tester for emagic 
and at some time I may do it again.

I have been corresponding on and off with Gerhard for about 12 years I 
have even had the pleasure of meeting him.  My impression that he is a 
super intelligent bubbling energetic warm friendly guy and he is just 
in love with logic, it is his opus.  He is thrilled to death that he 
can go on working on it and when I talked to him in person Apple had 
just bought emagic and he was thrilled that he was going to be able to 
concentrate more deeply than ever on developing logic under apples 
umbrella and would not have to worry as much about his business sinking 
or swimming in the big scary world.  My point here is that Gerhard 
*loves* logic the way any artist loves his work in progress and logic 
is very much *his* work that is why many of the concepts in it reflect 
his personality as they are things that he came up with from beginning 
to end, and intelligent methodical imaginative individual that he is I 
have the feeling that he thought that other people would see the same 
potential and have the same enthusiasm for his inventions that he did.

Alas not all of us did.

But the amazing cool thing about him is that he would just sit there 
patiently while us beta testers tore into his babies and would if not 
always change things the way we wanted them to be at the very least 
would listen to what we had to say.

But anyway what I mean to say is he is and always has been a guy with a 
vision and he does not just want to make whatever it is everybody else 
wants him to make he wants to express his vision through his work, and 
sometimes what he wants to make and what the world actually is in the 
market for are not exactly the same thing.  In that the way I see it he 
is just like any other artist.

Anyway I can tell you that I have never seen a beta tester ask to have 
any feature made more convoluted, quite the opposite was true, I can 
also tell you that the beta team are not "yes men" they fight the 
developers and each other like cats and dogs, and the truly amazing 
thing is that the development team put up with it.  But the thing 
everybody fights about is to get what they believe to be the simplest 
most intuitive implementation of features into the release.

#4  Does everybody hate Logic?  I don't know but somehow I think not.  
If it is so then I must not be one of "everybody" because I don't hate 
it.  I get really mad at it sometimes but I definitely don't hate it.

It has been years since I have used another sequencer I sometimes think 
about giving cubase a try but I never have done it.  The reason I 
switched to logic from vision was not that I thought that Logic was 
better but rather that there were horrible bugs with Vision that would 
randomly destroy the audio portion of your song and there came a time 
when I just decided I was losing too much data and I had to switch to 
something that worked.  At that time I tried digital performer for a 
while but it turned out to be even worse than Vision and MOTU actually 
even gave me my money back, I then tried logic.  Was it perfect?  No.  
Was it the best of a bad lot?  Yes.  Is it perfect now?  No.  Is it the 
best of a bad lot?  No.  Audio sequencers are no longer a bad lot they 
are a quite good lot IMO.  So is Logic IMO the best of a good lot?  I 
have no idea, I just do not have anything to base an opinion on.