Logic 8 is out

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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
joe narcossist said:
I guess you're probably right:)

I'm just very tired of looking at music - and quite often hearing it- as a collection of midi instructions in little grey boxes. This seemed like a good way of getting round that without having to transfer what knowledge I have of computer music creation to a MPC or whatever, something which sounds a far bigger leap in method.
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Not really, from what I can see; essentially what they've produced is an MPC with some free software; the inner workings of their Maschine look - haven't used one mind! - but look pretty much like the innards of the MPC. You seemingly get more effects with the NI but aside from that can't see much difference, with an MPC you just record into Logic or whatever (either via midi or tracking in sequence line by sequence line), or I just use what I recorded in the machine itself.
It seems like they're charging twice the price for something that already exists but has cool flashing lights. If you got Logic you can already plug an MPC into it. Sorry if I'm wrong though, that's just going on the tutorial for the NI on youtube, I'm not a massive gearhead.
 
Grievous Angel

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
joe narcossist said:
Grievous - your way of working in Ableton/Reason sounds like a very good one. I'm finding the enormity of trying to create free flowing and evolving (both musically and spatially) tunes across a six minute Cubase blank canvas quite exhausting and predominantly unfulfilling.
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Yes, filling that blank canvas is a pain. One advantage of doing it in Live is that you can take your chunks of tune and mix them together with other tracks, so you can see whether they fit in terms of rhythm, structure and eq. This helps you keep on target.

However, you should be able to do something similar in Cubase (though I could never get it to do it). You can create your tune in sections, assign them to keys, and trigger them as you go. Try it, if you want to stick with Cubase it could be good creative technique for you.

Mind you, another benefit of the Live approach is that you don't have to look at a linear left to right screen, you have a grid of loops in front of you waiting to be triggered... record your button pushing and then edit the results... it sounds great, I should do it more! (Must do it on metronome ;))

BTW - one good creative technique is trying to copy favourite tunes exactly. Invariably one comes up with something very original (and almost entirely unrelated to what you're copying!). While trying to do something original almost always makes something dull and formulaic.

joe narcossist said:
Automation loses its purpose, sections run beyond what they should and the constant temptation to change instruments which *aren't quite right* generally leads to a mess. I've been bouncing loops dry out of Kontakt and trying to arrange them as audio but a lot of the creative energy is lost waiting for rendering and doing minute tweaks which again lose any kind of significance later on.
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Well, you'd still need to bounce out parts to make the Live technique work... though just editing a two track bounce of everything can work!

But it sounds like you're not entirely satisfied with the sections themselves, as if the groove isn't quite there. This is why I went back to Reason... say what you like about the quality of the audio engine but it's a solid groove engine and very immediate...

I hate the automation envelopes in Logic! Always disappearing...
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Grievous Angel said:
BTW - one good creative technique is trying to copy favourite tunes exactly. Invariably one comes up with something very original (and almost entirely unrelated to what you're copying!). While trying to do something original almost always makes something dull and formulaic.
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True dat. I try to make Burial and end up with Dolly Parton.
 
J

joe narcossist

Active member
baboon2004 said:
True dat. I try to make Burial and end up with Dolly Parton.
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haha

Thanks for the advice Paul - I'll have a go this afternoon and see what happens.

One thing I don't understand about groove differing in different programs - if you've sampled a decent groove (via recycle->midifile->miditemplate) is there anyway the DAW can act as anti-groove to make it sound different from its source?
 
Grievous Angel

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
joe narcossist said:
One thing I don't understand about groove differing in different programs - if you've sampled a decent groove (via recycle->midifile->miditemplate) is there anyway the DAW can act as anti-groove to make it sound different from its source?
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Yes, I have tried this. I'm not sure it's really worth it but you can do it by

1) taking the groove midi template and applying it to midi data
2) "fix" / "commit" to the groove within the midi data
3) take another groove and apply that to the now fixed midi data

This gives you multiple grooves affecting the midi data.

And, IME, it gives you a right dogs dinner.

Reason offers a slightly different option on top of this. I tend to use an mpc swing groove on everything (I have tried hundreds if not thousands of different grooves on different platforms but mpc swing grooves sound "right" and most of the others don't... YMMV, I'm basically making garage / funky / wonky, so r'n'b is at the core, and mpc grooves are just right).

However, what I often do is apply an mpc swing groove in the regroove mixer, AND apply Reason's own swing - but set to a negative amount. This makes the mpc groove less obvious, but adds a subtle push-and-pull to the beat.

Try it and see what you think. Some of the tunes I've done like this have got some crowds going crazy, according to the DJs I've sent them to. But do tell me if you know a better technique.
 
A

Ach!

Turd on the Run
I haven't used Cubase for a long time, in fact the last time I used it extensively was on the ST. I did play with it on the PC in the late 90s, but that was the time when I got into using Logic.
I'm very comfortable with the Midi editing in Logic, being able to add and delete notes simply by clicking on the editor, and I especially like the velocity editing, where it is possible to click on the actual note you want and change the volume by moving the mouse forward or backward.

I've just downloaded a version of cubase to test it out, and am disappointed with midi editing. I now remember how annoying it was trying to change velocities of notes in tracks, especially where notes overlap in drum programmes and such.

Which of the sequencers/DAWs has midi editing most similar to Logic? Are there any? Or must I start the process of creating a Hackintosh and run Logic on a PC that way?
 
D

doom

Public Housing
I kind of liked Logic 7, but I sold it in the end. Couldn't really do it justice on my 1gHz PB. The only way I'm gonna give L8 a whirl is with Hackintosh, or, round someones elses. I don't really ever see myself buying another computer.. dont wanna end up like this guy;

m127_estudio_MX.jpg
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Have just got a copy of Ableton Live Lite bundled with another programme. Is there any point in learning how to use this, or should I just wait til I can upgrade to Ableton Live and learn how to use the full functionality of the programme then.

ie Is the functionality hugely different between the two?
 
M

massrock

Well-known member
I think it's got most of core things, just very very limited in how many tracks and plugins you can use. Very.

Still worth playing around with though I would say.

All the warping is there so it's still useful for manipulating audio files.

I think they leave out most of the MIDI control so using it for live DJing is pretty much out.

You can actually build up tracks with it though if you render stuff down as you go.

But basically it is very cleverly designed to be just enough to make you realise how much you want the full version.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
thanks for that. I had a brief play around with it last night, but didn't get very deep into it. But as long as I can work out in egenral principle how to record tracks, use VSTs, and the whole warp marker thing, then it's time well-spent while I save up for the upgrade. I'm liking the interface, but finding it slightly less immediately intuitive than Reason (4).
 
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massrock

Well-known member
I think Live is lovely, just really well designed. As a big sequencer you can jam with it's unrivalled.

The only thing I really don't like about it and this is probably the most common criticism is the piano roll being a bit crap. I think they might have done some work on that in 8 which I haven't tried yet.
 
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BareBones

wheezy
Propellerhead are bringing out a proper DAW soon, separate to Reason, which has VST support and audio recording etc, you know, like a real proper DAW. Should be pretty good i reckon.
 
4linehaiku

4linehaiku

Repetitive
It looks quite shiny. I'm not really qualified to give a more indepth analysis than that. The new flextime things to be biting Ableton pretty hard, but is very nicely done.
May give it a whirl when I get my new Macbook Pro, don't think the current machine would be up to it.
 
G

gyto

Active member
this does actually look great:D im an audio specialist at an apple mac shop. if it can really take on ableton in the time-stretching stuff it will win :p
 
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