Is it me or does Logic suck? Logic experts please read.

[DoryLobel]

Hi all! So I finally switched to my new Intel Mac. I'm planning to get HD3 soon, but I have to work in the meantime and Logic 7 Pro with a Motu 896 and Apogee ad da is what I'll be using for the next 4 months. Can't use PT le due to the lack of adc (automatic delay compensation).

Here's the thing- I'm totally new to Logic, but I can't believe some of the stuff that it can't do editing wise. The most important thing to me is editing speed and workflow, I'm used to nuendo and protools. I hope that you guys will be able to help me. I'll be the first one to admit my stupidity! This should help maximize the efficiency of all novice logic users.

Here are the questions I have (feel free to advise on all or any of them):

1-If you load or record a stereo file to a track in the arrange window, will it always show just one side of it, making it appear as a mono track? I hear both sides, but can only see one mono track...which one is it using for the graphic representation?!

2-can you only zoom vertically up to the point where the track is the size of about a 3rd of the screen? Can't you blow it up to the full height of the screen for fine edits!? ARGGG!

3-Is there no function/key command to make a selection or a marquee selection of part of a region blow up and zoom to the full size of the screen (protools/nuendo style). I know the "Z" key command will zoom (but only in and not out) to a full region, but I'm looking for fast zoom to specific parts. I want to select let's say just 1 second of a single track in a full arrange window and then have the view zoom just to that little spot.

4-Is there no on/off toggle to the snap mode (like either snap to grid or free edit). Right now all I could figure out to do is to set a key command for smart snap and another key command for snap to ticks (which unless I'm mistaken is the same as no snap at all ). So annoying! I want to be able to turn snap in and out quickly with one button. I realize that dragging with control let's you fine edit, but that's also stupid and inefficient.

5-When I drag audio regions, why can't I see the actual waveform move? only the contour of the region moves and it redraws it only when I let go of the mouse. SOOOO STUPID! (sorry, this is like a therapy session where I'm reliving my worst experiences...). Let's say I want to line up the exact attack of a kick or a reverse cymbal to a bar line, I can't do it!!!!

6-Is there a quick way to put in a fade in or out on a region without switching to a different tool? In nuendo you just drag little white box on the region and the fade is there and in pt there's a quick key command.

7- How do I find out what's the tempo in an audio file? is there no beat calculator where I just select several beats in the region with the marquee tool and then ask the software to calculate the bpm based on the amount of beats selected (nuendo style)?



Weehoooo! let's start with these questions.


Quick disclaimer- I realize a lot of people take software comparisons very personally. I own Nuendo, PT LE, Performer, Logic and cubase so I'm not attached to any DAW. All I care about is the end result. I think keeping this thread productive and positive (despite my apparent negativity and frustration!) is important. I know some great musicians and producers that use Logic and make great sounding records. Hopefully all or most of my problems are due to my lack of experience with logic and not due to the actual interface design.

Thanks so much for reading and thanks in advance for your help!


Best,
Dory.

[beingmf]

First of all, just get used to the esc-button. Every tool you'd need for quick editing is there.

So, that means, you'll find all your zoom and marquee tool needs right there.

1-If you load or record a stereo file to a track in the arrange window, will it always show just one side of it, making it appear as a mono track? I hear both sides, but can only see one mono track...which one is it using for the graphic representation?!

I think (but it's merely a guess) that the waveform representation is a summed graphic of L+R.

2-can you only zoom vertically up to the point where the track is the size of about a 3rd of the screen? Can't you blow it up to the full height of the screen for fine edits!? ARGGG!

Don't drag the vertical boundaries of a track, use the (ESC-)zoom tool and lasso-drag around the object you want to magnify.

3-Is there no function/key command to make a selection or a marquee selection of part of a region blow up and zoom to the full size of the screen (protools/nuendo style). I know the "Z" key command will zoom (but only in and not out) to a full region, but I'm looking for fast zoom to specific parts. I want to select let's say just 1 second of a single track in a full arrange window and then have the view zoom just to that little spot.

Maybe the solution is defining different screensets with different zoom factors (accessible via the "number" keys and the little "•1" top right menu).

4-Is there no on/off toggle to the snap mode (like either snap to grid or free edit). Right now all I could figure out to do is to set a key command for smart snap and another key command for snap to ticks (which unless I'm mistaken is the same as no snap at all ). So annoying! I want to be able to turn snap in and out quickly with one button. I realize that dragging with control let's you fine edit, but that's also stupid and inefficient.

Not really, but this is just a matter of what you're used to... (ctrl-shift btw lets you move it even finer)

5-When I drag audio regions, why can't I see the actual waveform move? only the contour of the region moves and it redraws it only when I let go of the mouse. SOOOO STUPID! (sorry, this is like a therapy session where I'm reliving my worst experiences...). Let's say I want to line up the exact attack of a kick or a reverse cymbal to a bar line, I can't do it!!!!

This sucks big time, and the only way to work around is using an anchor point in the audio editor window... I hate it.

6-Is there a quick way to put in a fade in or out on a region without switching to a different tool? In nuendo you just drag little white box on the region and the fade is there and in pt there's a quick key command.

ESC!

7- How do I find out what's the tempo in an audio file? is there no beat calculator where I just select several beats in the region with the marquee tool and then ask the software to calculate the bpm based on the amount of beats selected (nuendo style)?

Cut the "region" that it will loop/play correctly in time. Then simply drag an e.g. 2 bar selection, highlight your region and press (on my computer at least) "T" – so Logic will set the tempo according to the length of your region.
I like it, though I slowly feel bored by Logic (Reaper is so much better, but I hate PCs, and I hate Mac plugins too, so I've gaot a severe problem).

Have fun!

[Rufuss Sewell]

It's you...

1. The waveform shows the left channel on the top (positive side) and the right channel on the bottom (negative side.)

2. If you double click on the waveform it will open in the sample editor. You will have a full screen display and can make sample accurate fine edits here.

3. See #2. Once in the sample editor drag the magnifying glass over the area you want to zoom in on.

4. Hmmm... sorry I don't feel your pain here. Just use two buttons and get over it.

5. You're f#$%ed here.

6. Select any amount of regions and select your desired fades in the parameters box in the upper right hand corner. This feature slays Pro Tools which does not allow batch fades to contain different values for fade in and out. This is the #1 reason I prefer to edit drums in Logic over Pro Tools. The way PT handles batch fades makes the entire program completely useless to me. Weird huh?

7. I can't answer that one.

[JuelzB]

You can also zoom using "Ctrl" and the arrows on your keyboard (right next to ctrl; up and down for vertical zoom, left and right for the other way) for me its quicker than selecting the magnifying glass.

Press ESC whenever you wanna select a tool, like the scissors instead of selecting it on the left side of the screen. ESC opens up a little window with all the tools right where your mouse is pointing at. Press ESC a second time to get back to the "normal" mode.

[H-Rezz]

Originally Posted by DoryLobel

7- How do I find out what's the tempo in an audio file? is there no beat calculator where I just select several beats in the region with the marquee tool and then ask the software to calculate the bpm based on the amount of beats selected (nuendo style)?

.

Let me help you with 7 , the others have helped you with the rest ....

Cut a 1 bar piece of Audio as precisley as you can , snap it to the beginning of a bar , locate that bar , Then under options select 'Adjust tempo using region length and locators' and Logic will find the tempo for you ......

On point 5 , what is the reason you want to see all the Audio move as opposed to the shadow , is this a visual thing ? I just don't understand how this is annoying !

[beyond]

best way of getting along with logic is repeating to yourself: "logic is not nuendo, logic is not nuendo, logic is not nuendo, logic is not nuendo, logic is not nuendo, logic is not nuendo, logic is not nuendo,...."

[amost]

There's always Nuendo on the Bootcamped XP side of your Mac Pro. It works pretty well.

[Jam]

Another answer to 7: Logic has a DJ mixer style beat counter available as a plug-in.

Jam

[zebastian21]

its you...Logic doesnt suck.
learn how to use it first . check out video tutorials.
www.macprovideo.com
www.vtc.com
good luck

[popmann]

For audio? It ain't up to the others, IMO. "sucks" is a bit harsh.

It's a MIDI sequencer. And still the best. Still the best VI host. It does some cool things with audio in terms of matching to MIDI...it smokes others for the compostitional side of things, IMO. And I think you'll find that's how it's used--to compose. Using TDM hardware, the arrangements are built in Logic...then the audio is transferred to ProTools to edit/mix, which PT is far better at.

Steinberg's done the best, IMO, at combining the two...it's still not QUITE PT level editing...not QUITE Logic level MIDI/synth host...but, a decent compromise between the two.

[oceantracks]

Originally Posted by popmann

For audio? It ain't up to the others, IMO. "sucks" is a bit harsh.

It's a MIDI sequencer. And still the best. Still the best VI host. It does some cool things with audio in terms of matching to MIDI...it smokes others for the compostitional side of things, IMO. And I think you'll find that's how it's used--to compose. Using TDM hardware, the arrangements are built in Logic...then the audio is transferred to ProTools to edit/mix, which PT is far better at.

Steinberg's done the best, IMO, at combining the two...it's still not QUITE PT level editing...not QUITE Logic level MIDI/synth host...but, a decent compromise between the two.

Logic may indeed be smoking something but it isn't the competition...been there done that...nothing it does compositionally that I can't do in PT.....I think it's rep is greatly overrated there. It is one of the ugliest environments to work in on a personal computer....the mixer looks like a toy. VIs? All the freezing stuff was buggier than hell and many on the Logic forum's answer was..."Uh...yeah, I know...well, I don't use freezing..." etc. Ivory and VSL both had problems with audio artifacts, etc. Automation was iffy at best. Etc.

Nuendo killed it, but had it's own stupid issues (can't move track order around in the Mix window...are you kidding me?

I realize everyone has their favorite playground but someone who doesn't like Logic isn't an idiot....JMHO

TH

[Ricey]

Originally Posted by DoryLobel

I own Nuendo, PT LE, Performer, Logic and cubase so I'm not attached to any DAW.

time to commit, i would say. if you learn one of those programs fully, you will know more about all of them.

[quincyg]

it's not you...logic kinda sucks, however...

as you see there are ways to do most of what you are looking to do. it sounds like you are having issues with universal track mode, which affects how stereo files are displayed. i think you may start to have more frustrations if you are planning to use logic as a front end for your hd system.

It has been over a year since i ran this hd/logic setup, but at the time universal track mode was not compatible with hd. so in order to record a stereo track you had to have two seperate tracks show up in the arrange. no big deal, but these tracks are not locked together, so if you move one the other will not follow. this resulted in endless headaches.

there is a lot of speculation that apple will be releasing an all new logic or garbageband pro in october. this may be good news. i'm not holding my breath.

most people seem to love or hate logic within a month or two. follow you instincts. if it feels like pulling teeth to use it after a couple of months, move on.

good luck.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by H-Rezz

[snip]...

On point 5 , what is the reason you want to see all the Audio move as opposed to the shadow , is this a visual thing ? I just don't understand how this is annoying !

Because a lot of times when you're moving around audio, perhaps lining it to a grid or maybe trying to paste it into or trying to get coherent wave relationships when splicing two bits of audio in the same track -- you're not interested in where the beginning of the clip is -- you're interested in a transient peak.

My DAW (which shall go nameless so as not to start a spitting contest) used to have "opaque" (clip outline) dragging and, back then, it was nice just to be able to drag a clip and not have to go out for coffee while things were recomputed.

But today my DAW not only shows the outline of the clip you're dragging -- when you drag it over another clip, it turns transparent so you can see not only it but the wave form beneath it -- which is utterly invaluable for doing things like voice or acoustic guitar edits, since you can line up transients smack on the money, get crossfades phase coherent, etc.

In fact I recently had occasion to snip a neighborhood noise out of the dying chord from a guitar at the end of an acoustic guitar song.

At first I was having problems getting things right and I realized that just lining up the fundamental of the main wave form wasn't going to do it... I zoomed in and found the higher tones in the chord riding the wave... the cuts that had been problematic ignored them... once I identified the major overtones I was able to line them up at the point of my splice using the transparent dragging feature and I ended up with a splice that was, I think, virtually unnoticeable, even when you were looking for it.


Some of these convenience features don't seem like a big deal until you have them...

[Ashermusic]

The problem with switching from one DAW to another is that the old one has trained you to think the way it thinks so when the new one does things differently your instinctive reaction will be negative.

You need to get past that or you will be unhappy. There are many things Logic does better than other DAWS and there are many things others do better than Logic.

Personally I do not think audio editing is its greatest strength although one can certainly get the work done.

[statikcat]

It is funny so many of the options in a program called LOGIC is accessed by using the ESCAPE key. Lol

[Fredrik]

Originally Posted by statikcat

It is funny so many of the options in a program called LOGIC is accessed by using the ESCAPE key. Lol

Yeah, I would say that its time well spent to get into the key command editor to get som functions up on the keys. For the magnifying tool just hold ctrl (or is it cmd hmm) for a temporary change.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by statikcat

It is funny so many of the options in a program called LOGIC is accessed by using the ESCAPE key. Lol

I think I understand the logic of that...

In the really old days of computing, before multi-tasking and even before task-switching, everything was modal.

That means that when you were in one mode, like say typing text, you were in that mode entirely. If you wanted to do something else you had to escape that mode entirely, often with a series of key commands that began with the escape key.

So, in those days, it was common for a sequence of keystrokes to begin with an escape key. (They were even called "escape sequences" sometimes.)


I remember telling my mom, way back, when she was puzzling over her first (dedicated) word processor (a little CPM computer made in England)... Ma, it's it's like the computing world boils down to two things: you're either going into something/confirming something or you're backing out of something... (ENTER and ESCAPE keys, respectively, of course).

[JPZ]

I come from Pro Tools and still use it every day. I made it a point to learn Logic and see how powerful a native system I could put together with a Mac Pro. 6 months of unlearning PT and accepting Logic for what it is and I do mostly real instruments, not a ton of midi. Now I look forward to working with Logic and PT is zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz boring. Logic takes a lot of learning. It doesn't do things the way other daws do and it took a while to get over that. Now I love it. It isn't quite up on the audio side as PT but you can get it done and it's powerful, much less expensive, more complete out of the box, plugs are half the price of TDM's, to me Logic sounds better and I can use whatever interface I frickin want. Logic, MacPro, Apogee Ensemble cost me less than 5K. Similar power in PT? 4 x more and that's without a bunch of great VI's and plugs.

[Ricey]

Originally Posted by statikcat

It is funny so many of the options in a program called LOGIC is accessed by using the ESCAPE key. Lol

the thing with Logic is, if you don't like a key command, you can change it. make 'em all the same as PT if you want...

am i the only one who uses right-click to open the toolbar under the cursor?

[timtoonz]

A few tips that I think weren't mentioned yet...

The quickest "zoom to selection" method is hold down the CTRL key and drag a square with your mouse. It'll zoom to that -- use it constantly. Also, CTRL clicking anywhere in the arrange page will return you to your previous zoom level - very handy.

You can also save 3 zoom level presets and recall them (preset to key commands CTRL-1, 2 and 3 respectively, I think)


It's true that it's annoying not to see the waveform move when you drag it - just an outline. Sometimes I trim the region to the attack point and use my key command for "snap to song position" so that I can precisely move hits to a particular beat or bar. Then you can extend your region for 'pre-attack' space if needed.

The strength and weakness of Logic is that there are often a dozen different ways to do a simple task. Sometimes I think of it as a 'tool construction kit' more than a finished program. It can be a pain having to custom build your own tools, but of course once you're finished with that phase, it's nice to have a custom music-making environment all your own. A very different, very non-Logic-al alternative to ProTools, for sure.

Man am I tired of waiting for Logic 8....

[statikcat]

Originally Posted by Ricey

the thing with Logic is, if you don't like a key command, you can change it. make 'em all the same as PT if you want...

am i the only one who uses right-click to open the toolbar under the cursor?

Ya I know most apps do that. Just sounds funny is all.

[DoryLobel]

First of all, thanks a lot for all the help guys! I can tell many of you identify with my situation. Honestly, I'm shocked because except for questions 6 & 7, I'm screwed with everything else. Unfortunately, most of the answers you gave me are things I already knew about from reading the manual.

As for the people who said stuff like "learn the software first", trust me- I did my homework. I make music for a living fulltime. I even bought the stupid "ask video" dvd tutorial 1-3 and that doesn't really help either. Plus, for those of you who have seen that dvd- isn’t the girl in it the most annoying thing you’ve ever seen? (with the cheesy one liners like - "Markers- sign posts along the road" or "Cycle mode- a serious case of deja vu") . It's as if they put her there to intensify my pain! She better not ever run into me at Trader Joe's!

Aww F#$*! Maybe I should just use PT LE for the next few months... And now- let me piss off some people by restating, but with confidence: I guess Logic kinda does suck! I wanted so bad to be proven wrong… And no- that’s not a harsh statement. Anyone who’s offended by that should calm down and get some perspective. We’re musicians! It’s ok to get emotional and express ourselves with some intensity.

Thanks again for all the help! With all my bitterness, I still think this place is truly a gem and an amazing source of brainpower and experience. Love you guys!

[Jazzpunk]

Originally Posted by DoryLobel

Quick disclaimer- I realize a lot of people take software comparisons very personally. I own Nuendo, PT LE, Performer, Logic and cubase so I'm not attached to any DAW. All I care about is the end result.

Paid for all of those did ya? Yikes. This isn't meant as a dig but perhaps with all of that DAW hopping, the DAW isn't really the problem? Just a thought.

[DoryLobel]

Originally Posted by Jazzpunk

Paid for all of those did ya? Yikes. This isn't meant as a dig but perhaps with all of that DAW hopping, the DAW isn't really the problem? Just a thought.

What a silly question! Of course I did pay for most of them, and the rest were bought for me by artists I was working with as a musical director. In reality, 99% of my actual writing and recording work was on Nuendo and Cubase (probably even more on cubase). I've just been using Performer on the road and I bought Logic about 4 years ago but it turned me off so bad so I just didn't use it.

[Jazzpunk]

Originally Posted by DoryLobel

She better not ever run into me at Trader Joe's!

Well if she does spot you there, she can always just move to a line with a different cashier.

(Sorry but it was just too easy )

[JPZ]

Originally Posted by DoryLobel

F

Aww F#$*! Maybe I should just use PT LE for the next few months... And now- let me piss off some people by restating, but with confidence: I guess Logic kinda does suck! I wanted so bad to be proven wrong… And no- that’s not a harsh statement. Anyone who’s offended by that should calm down and get some perspective. We’re musicians! It’s ok to get emotional and express ourselves with some intensity.

Restating your opinion with confidence. It seems like you just wanted positive reinforcement of your thesis by starting this thread. I only say this because I was in your exact position and felt the same way 6-8 months ago. The light went on and I turned the corner on the learning curve though and just completed a 2nd record - all live musicians - all in Logic. Fun times, sounds great, a totally new and sometimes wacky way of doing things, buy new plugs without freaking over the cost and hey, I can actually hear it when I pan something across the stereo spectrum again!(PT old timers will probably get this one)

[Tibbon]

I'm a Logic user, and I think that there's ways to do all of those things you wanted.

Anyways, why in PT LE is no ADC a breaker for you?
It didn't stop people from making a TON of albums with PT LE, and with PT TDM....

There hasn't always been ADC

[kaki putih]

I just ordered a MacBook Pro several days ago - and Logic Pro 7 with it. Half of these replies here make me feel very bad about that second part now... *choke*

[Jazzpunk]

Originally Posted by kaki putih

I just ordered a MacBook Pro several days ago - and Logic Pro 7 with it. Half of these replies here make me feel very bad about that second part now... *choke*

Don't worry, as long as you are actually willing to spend some time learning the program you will be fine.

That said, I do enjoy being able to easily maneuver between both Logic and Pro Tools. Definitely don't find the need to own three additional DAW's as the OP mentioned!