Anyone here fluent with Logic Pro X?

I've been using FL Studio since I was 12 (I'm 19 now), so it's become basically the root of my entire workflow. I've really come a long way with it but I hear tons of talk about how it's an "inferior" DAW or a "beginner's" DAW and it's inferior to others like Ableton and Logic. I don't consider myself a beginner at all, really, and at first I didn't really see why any particular DAW would be superior to another (after all, isn't the "best" DAW simply the one you're most comfortable using?)

However, a friend of mine convinced me to give Logic Pro X a shot, and his music is a lot more sound design intensive than mine (he showed me some pretty cool effects and synths, especially the Delay Designer and the Sculpture synth), and I feel like I could really benefit from getting better at sound design (I feel like a lot of my music is pretty basic as far as sound design goes, but maybe that's just me.

I really want to learn how to use this program, but just from messing around in it for a couple hours, it's like learning to walk all over again, and I'm not sure if it's worth it. Can anyone speak from experience or give some helpful hints or tips for a beginner to get started?

Read the manual. Search for tutorial videos on Youtube. Find Logic forums on the internet and join them. Practice.

I was in a similar position to this when I first ventured out of Fruity-land.

There are great things about “real” DAWs, but there are also bad things, in my opinion.

For example, imo, the FL sequencer “paradigm” is much more useful for electronic music than a more traditional DAW’s (I first branched out to DP, then PT, but I think Logic is also similar) typical MIDI sequencing features. Logic seems marginally better than DP and PT in this regard.

Doesn’t mean this is a bad idea. Logic in particular seems to be an amazing value for the dollar these days, considering what you get with it. Especially for sound design.

My meta-advice would be, look into a workflow where you can use BOTH FL AND your new DAW at the same time. What I did was try and migrate away from FL entirely to a new app, and this really screwed me up because, like you said, until you get good at an app it’s like trying to do basic computer shit while wearing mittens. Impossible and frustrating.

If you can come up with a multi-app workflow then you’ll be more powerful than any single app alone.

  On 6/10/2014 at 12:14 PM, Rbrmyofr said:

Read the manual. Search for tutorial videos on Youtube. Find Logic forums on the internet and join them. Practice.

its a great DAW but it has a lot to offer and is set up a bit different than FL so i recommend finding a tutorial explaining what/where everything is within the program. At that point, since you already have experience with recording programs you'll be able to hop to it. I will say, sculpture, delay designer and SPACE designer are fucking amazing plugins. Space designer is one of the best reverbs available and is super fun for sound design.

What about Logic Pro vs Ableton? I've used Ableton for live stuff before, but never for the complete production process. Do any of you have experience with both and recommend one over the other?

I use both, and I have to tutor on both. For my own stuff I do practically everything in Ableton because I actually prefer the arrange view to Logic, however I like to use ReWire to get access to some of Logic synths/plug ins which is a nice way to tie the two together in. I really like the EFM1 so sometimes try to use that. I think I'm just used to Ableton, so in that way I prefer it, but it's just a case of training yourself to understand the inner workings. The way they route audio is slightly different. Side chains can't listen to software instrument tracks (you have to use a bus send) in Logic. Also the multi output versions of the samplers are kinda cumbersome. Things like that.

If you know production then I don't think it would take you more than a few days to fully acclimatise and work Logic to a pretty good level.

It's one of those things that if you take the time it will become a lot easier, but at the same time don't force yourself to do something differently if it's taking you longer. I sometimes struggle with that in Logic compared to Ableton, which is why my own work is biased towards Ableton. By all means look at these problems but if it's not affecting your sound quality then don't feel like you have to ditch FL if you get great results with it.

i also prefer ableton to logic, especially cause of max4live.but as b born droid said logic has really nice instruments and plugins.

imo the only other daw that brings something different and useful to the table is samplitude with its object editing features. otherwise, logic, protools, cubase, studio one, betwig (until v2.0) and all the others...they're all the same to me, more or less.

they renoise. a lot of ppl prefer its tracker to 'classic' daws.

I spent one day messing around in Logic Pro, and I ended up so exhausted and frustrated at the end of the day that I ended up going to bed hours before I usually do

I spent today messing around with Ableton, and I have to say Ableton is worlds more intuitive than Logic Pro X. I'm sure LPX is a great program and all, but if there's any DAW I'm going to be migrating to from FL, it's going to be Ableton, fo sho

Thanks for all the advice, guys!

If you go to Ableton, make sure you spend time learning how to create audio effect racks using the macros to control the rack. That way if you have controller which Ableton can use as a control surface, it'll automatically map to the macro controls.

Aside from it being shit loads of fun, I now have a library of various racks I've built up that I can instantly drop into any track in any session. Ableton is fucking brilliant for designing stuff imo which is another reason I do the majority of work in it over LPX.

I own both Ableton and Logic. Never use Ableton anymore as it has no sysex support whereas I made a controller for my MKS80 in the Logic environment. You can program loads of interesting stuff via the environment in Logic, it's more like Reaktor than a regular DAW when you get into that part of it.