Logic Express questions

[zenpicker]

I'm contemplating a switch from Adobe Audition to Logic Express. Can anyone comment on the comparative quality of Logic's restoration functions, especially noise reduction? I like Audition's a lot - how does Logic stack up?

[wcap]

I don't know the answer, but if you don't get the information you are looking for here you might try the recording subforum over at tdpri.com

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/recording-progress/

That subforum is fairly active, and some pretty knowledgeable, helpful folks hang out there. I've gotten lots of good advice regarding home recording from these folks.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by zenpicker

I'm contemplating a switch from Adobe Audition to Logic Express. Can anyone comment on the comparative quality of Logic's restoration functions, especially noise reduction? I like Audition's a lot - how does Logic stack up?

This is an area where Audition has a big edge, I think, especially with the spectrum editing, where you can "heal" squeeks and so on. Logic, express or pro has nothing like that. Logic Pro has a Denoiser plugin, which does basic hiss, not sure if it's in Express.

However, Audition's spectrum stuff is actually a light-weight version of iZotope, if I'm not mistaken, and iZotope RX appears to be way beyond what Audition has. So one way to get those features back in when moving into a Mac world is to buy that - it has to run standalone, Logic doesn't support it as a plugin. Of course it costs more than Audition and Logic Express combined....

I'm making progress at my move to Logic, and Logic is certainly extremely powerful, tons of features Audition can't touch, tho they mostly seem focused on multi-tracking, midi, virtual instruments, etc - areas where Audition is weak. Audition is stronger in areas that are more like a mastering environment, with good visualization tools, stereo imaging tools, noise reduction, sample-level waveform editing, etc, and not only does Logic not have that, but I so far can't find a real equivalent for some of these on the Mac. Probably just haven't found it yet.

[zenpicker]

That's helpful - thanks, guys. I just spent an hour in my local Apple store touring the iMac (3.03 ghz, dual core, 1 tb hard drive, 4 gb - locked and loaded) and poking around in Logic Express and Logic. Doug, my impression agrees with yours: very oriented toward Midi and electric guitar effects, not so detailed on visualization and wave editing. In fact the guy I talked to, who was a working musician, didn't know what I was talking about with wave editing or noise reduction (he is not an open-mikes kinda guy).

I saw the "denoiser" (is this a French verb meaning to remove nuts?) and it appears to be just a crude shelf-type noise cut mechanism, not based on sampling your wave form. Harrumph.

I actually don't use NR all that much anymore because a mastering engineer's bound to have the tools to do it better, so maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill on that one. But durn it, I also love the spectral display and the band-aid tool....

So I guess I could go with Logic and keep Audition tied into the network on my current Dell for specialized editing, or keep it in a Windows partition (after paying Bill Gates AGAIN for XP - aaarrgh), or buy some expensive add-on like Izotope. All of which militate against that clean, single-solution world we strive for.

Sigh. But what nice hardware!

[ScottAllyn]

It's a shame that Adobe doesn't have a Mac version of Audition. Syntrillium wrote the original code for the software and Adobe's probably just been expanding on that code base, which I'm guessing is not very portable. They'd probably have to do a complete rewrite to bring it over to the Mac.

Logic Express does have a sample editor (http://www.scottallyn.com/images/le-sample-editor.png), so Logic Pro probably has it, too. it works well enough for cutting and splicing. 'Not real pleased with the noise reduction, tho.

[zenpicker]

Originally Posted by ScottAllyn

Not real pleased with the noise reduction, tho.

Say more....

[ScottAllyn]

Admittedly, I've only just started to dig into it, but so far, it sounds like it's muffling some of the higher frequencies and you'll very easily end up with an annoying digital "warbling" artifact if you're not careful. Audition's noise reduction just works better - sample the noise floor, play around with the level slider a little bit to find the right balance and you're good to go!

[muscmp]

you may want to check out the link below. this is the apple discussion forums. you could post your question(s) about logic, logic express, soundtrack(which comes with logic pro and does have noise reduction built in), imacs or whatever apple type questions you have.

i have logic pro 8, use its editing and find it is quite good. you could also use logic's gates as noise reduction along with the eqs. i don't agree that it is midi and guitar oriented but it does have a lot of virtual instruments that are great and i've heard that logic pro 9 does have more guitar oriented stuff than my version. i consider that a huge plus for me as i felt it did not have enough for the guitarist.

hope this helps.

http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

mikeB.

[zenpicker]

Originally Posted by ScottAllyn

Admittedly, I've only just started to dig into it, but so far, it sounds like it's muffling some of the higher frequencies and you'll very easily end up with an annoying digital "warbling" artifact if you're not careful. Audition's noise reduction just works better - sample the noise floor, play around with the level slider a little bit to find the right balance and you're good to go!

Oh I do hate that warble! I know exactly what you mean. And it's all about reducing your NR to the point where you lose the artifact but still have an acceptable noise level. That's what I was looking for in Logic. Pro has some kind of sample-based EQ modeler that seemed like it might be pressed into NR service - Doug, it's exactly like Har-Bal - but that would be nothing but a gruesome workaround.

Maybe the best approach is to keep both tools on hand, awkward as that may be.

[zenpicker]

Originally Posted by muscmp

you may want to check out the link below.
http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

Thanks - I will!

[zenpicker]

Just to tie the loop, I've posted a thread over on the Apple forum about this in case anyone wants to monitor it there:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....readID=2255086

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by muscmp

i don't agree that it is midi and guitar oriented but it does have a lot of virtual instruments that are great and i've heard that logic pro 9 does have more guitar oriented stuff than my version.

Probably a better way to describe it is as "more multi-track oriented". Audition is really a great wave editor with a little, fairly weak multi-tracking thrown in, which is perfect for the kind of solo guitar stuff both I and Edward do. Understandably, that's not the mainstream market. Logic has tons of great stuff for multi-tracking, but much of that is unneeded, and some seems to get in the way, when all you want is a single stereo track of solo guitar. And they have very little in the way of wave editing, compared to Audition.

I spent several hours last night learning about "take" comping, which is very impressive. Basically a way to do multiple takes, and then select the best parts of each take and put them together. Problem is, there's a huge assumption that your takes are in sync. If you're playing with a click track, or with a band, and just doing an alternate vocal or a guitar solo, or something, this is really nice! If you're playing a solo guitar piece, rubato, then it's not only useless, but it adds some complexity that gets in the way - I was stuck trying to do something as simple as trim the head and tail off my track. I did finally find the button to turn "takes" off - right under my nose, of course! (I have this feeling it could still be useful for solo guitar, just have to figure out the workflow for tracks that aren't locked to a click track)

With a 1000 page manual for the program, and another, almost as big, just for the plugins and effects, many of my issues so far have ended up just being learning curve, and trying to do what I did in Audition in a tool with a different way of working. But there's also a certain element of the program being optimized for a different purpose. Not that it won't work, I know several solo guitarists who use it, it's just that that application isn't the one that is the default behavior that Logic or its manual is written for.

All in all, its a really impressive program, and I suspect in the long run, I'll be happy to be using it. Learning curves are just a bit painful. :-)

[zenpicker]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Probably a better way to describe it is as "more multi-track oriented". Audition is really a great wave editor with a little, fairly weak multi-tracking thrown in, which is perfect for the kind of solo guitar stuff both I and Edward do. Understandably, that's not the mainstream market. Logic has tons of great stuff for multi-tracking, but much of that is unneeded, and some seems to get in the way, when all you want is a single stereo track of solo guitar. And they have very little in the way of wave editing, compared to Audition.

I spent several hours last night learning about "take" comping, which is very impressive. Basically a way to do multiple takes, and then select the best parts of each take and put them together. Problem is, there's a huge assumption that your takes are in sync. If you're playing with a click track, or with a band, and just doing an alternate vocal or a guitar solo, or something, this is really nice! If you're playing a solo guitar piece, rubato, then it's not only useless, but it adds some complexity that gets in the way - I was stuck trying to do something as simple as trim the head and tail off my track. I did finally find the button to turn "takes" off - right under my nose, of course! (I have this feeling it could still be useful for solo guitar, just have to figure out the workflow for tracks that aren't locked to a click track)

With a 1000 page manual for the program, and another, almost as big, just for the plugins and effects, many of my issues so far have ended up just being learning curve, and trying to do what I did in Audition in a tool with a different way of working. But there's also a certain element of the program being optimized for a different purpose. Not that it won't work, I know several solo guitarists who use it, it's just that that application isn't the one that is the default behavior that Logic or its manual is written for.

All in all, its a really impressive program, and I suspect in the long run, I'll be happy to be using it. Learning curves are just a bit painful. :-)

Somehow I don't see you offering up your old Audition license in the Classifieds just yet...........

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by zenpicker

Somehow I don't see you offering up your old Audition license in the Classifieds just yet...........

Actually, I just got it installed under Parallels on the Mac. I don't think I could record with it there, but it seems to work fine for accessing some of the features. So I could use it just for noise reduction, wav editing, or for some of the visualization views, on a file recorded in Logic.

[zenpicker]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Actually, I just got it installed under Parallels on the Mac. I don't think I could record with it there, but it seems to work fine for accessing some of the features. So I could use it just for noise reduction, wav editing, or for some of the visualization views, on a file recorded in Logic.

Why couldn't you record with it there? AFAIK it looks just like a PC to the software, same drivers and everything. I have toyed with that option.