Apple Logic Pro Users

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kirsten Ray on September 4, 2010 at 8:02pm

I'm willing to participate. I gave up on a previous version of Logic Express, but did just get Logic Pro 9 and would love to go through this experience this with others.

Permalink Reply by Edward Sparks on September 4, 2010 at 9:34pm

Welcome Kristen...my son got me an iMAC for Father's Day and so I am learning the MAC and am taking on Logic Pro 9 after only working with CuBase LE on a PC! Quite a jump I know but I have worked with video editing software on a PC for years and so it's not all foreign. I totally love LP9 now that I have had since June to get my feet wet and then jump in up to my neck. I decided to learn the new software by recording an EP to release and sell at my solo shows. I decided it would be a true solo record, like McCartney's first solo album (titled McCartney) by playing all the instruments and doing all the vocals myself, all alone. After recording several albums with others it has been a real challenge but just as much a real treat! Plus slowly uncovering the depth of this software has been totally inspiring to write another song in a different style just to get to try new recording techniques. As you can tell I am loving it. So far of the five song EP I am working on, I have four songs recorded, two of which are finished and two still need one or two parts finalized...and I still have to write one more new song! I am attaching an MP3 of the first one I finished in the new studio...It's called "The Ice Around My Heart." Thanks, Edward

Attachments:

• Ice Around my Heart 7 20 2010 MP3.mp3, 4.5 MB

Permalink Reply by Patrick Michael Alaggio on September 11, 2010 at 6:21am

Cool looking PC based studio Edward! Is that keyboard a multi-track synthesizer also? I think over time I will be moving into PC software (beyond the basic editing tools I use now) but that is a future step since I have grown up in a hardware based world and that is where my knowledge is. Just replaced one of my two 8-track ADATs with the HD24 and looking forward to its arrival at the end of next week.

It has the ability to do a high speed transfer of tracks to a PC using the optional "Firewire" connector but that is a future (maybe) if in fact I go that way at all. For now the new 160GB hard drive I ordered for the second bay is capable of handling 24 tracks of music for 7,200 minutes of recording time.

My next purchases will be to get back the phenomenal EFX processor I had to sell, the Lexicon PCM 70. Then I'd like to get a great pair of matched mics for stereo imaging. I am leaning towards AKG 414s but am open to suggestions if anyone would care to comment. Thanks.

Permalink Reply by Edward Sparks on September 11, 2010 at 3:07pm

Very cool, I remember the ADATs were out when I got my little Fostex 8 track reel to reel set up back in 1993. I wanted one but they were too expensive! I think the AKG 414 is one of the most useful and best sounding mics ever made...I have one in my studio and I love it for acoustic instruments and vocals as well.
The keyboard I am using is an old '80's KORG M1 workstation...IT has a full function sequencer which is totally wasted on me...but the sound it can make are incredible...especially the drum and string sounds. Edward

Permalink Reply by Patrick Michael Alaggio on September 12, 2010 at 6:58am

That's about the time frame I began my small Alesis ADAT studio, 1994. The 8-track units were around $2,000 at that time and that was without the mixing board, EFX processors, mics, DAT tape (for mixdown), stands, cables, monitors, headphones, remote boxes, synthesizer keyboard, instruments, etc. and let's not forget the recording room(s) and treatment! It's no wonder why so many have opted for PC based solutions. But back then that was a huge step towards home based studios vs. $200 an hour rooms that were in the cities and only available to the wealthy or truly gifted muscians who were lucky enough to land recording contracts. I think we spent about $35K to get what we needed to produce a solid CD and we had two superb engineers and a ton of great musicians around to work with. Unfortunately, my (soon to be) ex wouldn't back my dream, which I had had and drawn in the basement of my home way back in 1977 many years before we met and that attempt to build an indy label turned out to be the last nail in our troubled marriage's coffin. Just for S&Giggles I'll mention that Windham Hill had the same vision and wound up selling his Indy Label to a Major for something like $28 million!

Nowadays I think the top producers are using a combination of the hardware and software tools we've been discussing. I know the hardware continues to improve and keeps coming down in price while the software based systems are also becoming more reliable. I can't tell you how many times my engineering buddy threw up his hands in disgust back in 94 to 97 when his Mac would lock up and or loose his work. It drove a stake through my heart as far as pursuing that technology. If it weren't for the fact that he was a great synthesizer/keyboard artist I don't think it ever would have worked for him.

Now, the ADAT HD24 that I showed you is available for under $1,500 new. We picked up ours used for $800 from a reliable studio and then bought an extra 160GB hard drive with caddy to mount in one of the two bays, which will give us 7200 minutes of 24-track recording time. I also understnd there is a "firewire" high-speed transfer adjunct that allow the hardware and PC worlds to meet effectively. I think that is only around $200. I'll keep you posted as I learn more but for now I am simply trying to get my hardware studio back into the shape I am dreaming of. That means better mics, two matched AKG 414s is where I am leaning, plus that superb EFX processor I had to sell off during the Big "D", the Lexicon PCM70. Then, as far as software editing is concerned, I totally understand the advantages of doing this on individual tracks and will most likely be looking for a system that is cost-effective and allows me to dump my h/w recorded materials in tracks on the PC so I can do some magic in there... as I do now with programs suchs as Audacity and Cool Edit 2000, etc. I don't ever see myself recording directly into the PC, it's just not in my comfort zone and I already own most of the equipment I need to do it well externally.

This is the one I finally built alone in 1994 in a 23' x 12' sunroom off the back of my home.

Permalink Reply by Edward Sparks on September 12, 2010 at 4:01pm

Great drawing of your old dream studio! I would be interested in the "Key" to the numbers by the items in the drawing...any chance you have that and will post it here? Thanks, Edward

Permalink Reply by Patrick Michael Alaggio on September 12, 2010 at 5:26pm

Besides the obvious physical measurements, which were about 32 feet by 24, the numbers represented the players positions when playing live. The couch was a huge sectional and would have been easily moved against the wall leaving a large inner area where everyone could see each other. Not perfect but as good as the space I had would allow.

Besides the freezer, air conditoning and cabinets in the bar area ther are five black rectangles and squares. The largest was the old 32" screen TV for football games of course! lol. The other four were superb speakers. The largest two were custom made for me by a young genious that was my girlfriends younger brother. They were 5' x 26" x 26" six-way speakers with 13 drivers in each cabinet, which included an 18" subwoofer, mids, tweeters and super-tweeters and weighed about 220lbs apiece since they were two boxes thick, the outside being a pine cabinet. They were amazing and incredibly efficient and we tested them with an Adcom power amp with 350 watts of power with all kinds of high-end audiophile "direct-to-disc" recordings of the day. Including one that was a huge pipe organ that was the closest thing pure to ecstacy I ever experienced musically until I got some of my original work done right. (lmao) The two smaller speakers are superb ADS L810s that I still use and love to this day.

Since I had only bought my home a year earlier I was in no position to do this alone. I was only 23 and sold telephone systems at the time. I had sold five systems to Crazy Eddies and one day when we were all finished Mort Gindy offered me anything I wanted for "his cost". When I started to laugh he asked why and I told him about this dream. His answer was that they didn't carry the high-end gear I was after, e.g. (2) Tascam 8-track reel to reels, etc. but that he could get anything I wanted and would only charge me 10% above his costs. Shortly thereafter the "Greenbrook Musician's Guild" was born as ten of us sat around my kitchen and I offered them a part of the dream for $2,000 each... as long as they would contribute their skills as carpenters, electricians etc. to building the space. The talent that was around that table was astounding and I was by far the least of them being more business at that time and only five years into my creative growth. I know we would have made it if only these folks had any money to play with. Needless to say it had to wait until I could foot the bill alone and that did not sit well with my ex who would have loved to see me put in another 15 years with AT&T... which wasn't going to happen in a million years.

I guess dreams die hard and I am not in the grave yet. I enjoy working with musicians to damn much to just sit back now and rot.


PS: The small bathroom is obvious but the furnace and water heater enclosure are not... that's what that is. The three little round circles are physcial supports that would have remained after tearing down the wall that divided the cellar in half.

Permalink Reply by SteveO Mallis on September 4, 2010 at 11:13pm

Ed, I'm using Garage Band with my iMac so far. Would like to follow the conversation to see what's happening with LP9. Steve

Permalink Reply by Edward Sparks on September 5, 2010 at 7:30am

Excellent Steve...I have the Garage Band that came with the iMAC too and I played with it a little and then my son told me I had to learn LP9 and since he gave it to me I felt compelled! The cool thing is that if you are familiar with Garage Band, you can think of LP9 as Garage Band on steroids! I think a lot of the concepts are the same, especially the amp modeling and pedalboard "stuff" which I just love, but you have much more control over everything else!!! So, welcome...and please let us in on some of the Garage Band fun you have had so we can all learn some of that as well. Although I haven't done it, understand that you can actually open anything you have done in Garage Band in LP9 and continue to work on it! So, I am certainly interested in what you have learned and done! Thanks for participating with us here! Edward

Permalink Reply by Edward Sparks on September 5, 2010 at 7:34am

I have found an incredible wealth of very useful information for both the novice and intermediate user of LP9 on YouTube! Lots of free tutorials, some good, some bad, some professionally done, some not so professionally done, but almost all I have found parts of helpful! Just put Logic Pro 90in the search box and hold on! Edward

Here's one to start with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6fTEOo3yfk

Permalink Reply by Edward Sparks on September 7, 2010 at 8:41am

Here is a great YouTube tutorial on using the Amp Designer and General Mixing Techniques - Using compression in LP9. Enjoy, Edward

Amp designer...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpfp4ObUu2g

General mixing Tech....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtX_gRDvcug&feature=channel

Permalink Reply by Leanne Regalla on September 7, 2010 at 7:03pm

I'm hoping to get Logic Pro soon, so yeah, I'm interested. I do pretty much everything on Garageband now since it's so easy and I'm not doing any major productions anyway.

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