Hi, I am currently using Logic 8. 3 lame questions:
- Will there be anything in Logic 8 that I will miss NOT having in Logic 9?
- Will I have to reinstall every single plug-in? Both instruments and effects or will it simply be updated from Logic 8?
- I am also on OSX 10.5. Should I switch to OSX 10.6? Will it mean reinstalling EVERYTHING from scratch then?
After the user "Ski" remarked about some lost functionality in Logic 9's undo history functionality, I responded:
I haven't had the time and money to upgrade my Logic. I got back from a week-long trip a couple of days ago and found a really nice surprise in the home studio: my wife bought me the Logic Studio 9 upgrade while I was away!
I had an extra 250 gig HD sitting around, plus a copy of Snow Leopard I've been meaning to install for a while, so I slid the drive into my Mac Pro and did a fresh install of Snow Leopard and iLife 09. Then I ran Software Update a few times and got everything to be current. Finally I used my new Logic Studio upgrade package to do a fresh install of all components, including Logic Pro 9.0. It asks for your previous serial number or XS Key.
The next thing I did is take Logic Pro 9 and Mainstage 2 for a quick whirl.
Logic 9 definitely looks just a bit nicer. The subtle shading to show the active section of the consolidated arrange window in Logic 8 is still there, but Apple has added a tasteful border around the active area, which makes it much easier to tell where you are.
Another thing I immediately played with is the resizable plug-ins. I like to tweak percussion sounds in Ultrabeat, but I find the UI so small that it's frustrating. Now you can resize the plug-in window and scale the entire UI. Brilliant.
Then I checked out the Pedalboard. I am not a guitarist, but I am something of a noisician, so running beats and other stuff through pedals is nothing new to me. You can not only chain a bunch of pedals, but you can change the signal flow and toggle or blend between effects in real time with the "mixer" pedal. This is a very inspiring way to mangle sound. I found myself wishing I could resize the window to show more actual pedals however, and suddenly I felt like I was using Ableton Live's frustrating side-scrolling signal path with no way to display the entire chain. I have a 30" monitor (2560x1600), but the pedalboard will only occupy about half of the screen. Sounds like something that could be addressed.
As for MainStage: If you play live with a MacBook as I do, you must check out MainStage 2. While Version 1 seemed more like a proof-of-concept to me, Version 2 is sweet. The "Playback" plugin opens up a world of possibilities. I had been suffering the limitations of using Logic to perform my live techno sets, and I was considering getting Ableton Live. I think instead I will re-tool my live set to use MainStage.
The Undo history issue Ski mentions sounds more like a bug to me than a feature change. I admit I am brand new at this, so I could be totally wrong, but I can't imagine Apple needing to take away a feature like that.
I haven't yet gotten into the power of Flex Time, which I suspect will completely negate any perceived need I may have had to buy Ableton Live.
The remaining two new features I most look forward to in composition are (1) the ability to set the volume of audio regions without needing to use automation, and (2) the myriad of new track management functions, such as bouncing in place and importing tracks from other projects.
So ... I'm not qualified to answer your question #1 yet. So let's move on.
2. If you install Logic 8 without installing a new OS, you will not need to re-install any plug-ins. Provided they are still compatible with Logic 9 (I don't know of any issues but no doubt there are some), they will continue to work.
3. So ... my wife upgraded her MacBook to 10.6 last year. The results were a bit disappointing - little if any performance gain, and a few new UI tweaks she'll never notice or use. I'll admit my results are somewhat preliminary, having installed it on my first-gen Mac Pro only a couple of days ago, but the performance increase when launching apps in amazing. Apps that took 3-4 seconds to launch (like Safari) now take 1 second. I suspect some of their multi-core optimizations are really working well for me on my Mac Pro.
You do not need 10.6 to run Logic 9, unless you want to run it as a 64-bit app. Presently there are very few practical reasons to do that, as it limits compatibility in some areas and its performance suffers. But if your computer has 4+ cores, you may benefit from Snow Leopard in other ways.
I'll admit I'm all over the place at the moment, and I'm typing this long message mainly because I'm waiting for 600 megs of software updates to download (Logic Studio apps are all updating to the latest as I write) ... but hopefully there's a little insight here for you.
