Logic Pro 11 Announced

[Ian Shaw]

So, in around half an hour I've taken an old rough demo of mine, just singing & playing acoustic guitar into a desk recorder, split it into 2 stems, extracted the tempo, added a drummer, created a chord track for the session bass player & keyboard & have to say I'm completely stunned by the results, especially the piano player, who has given the whole thing a slight country lilt!

The down side is that there is absolutely no creativity in this apart from the original demo song, so I don't know where this leaves me. This is not how I compose these days anyway so the tech is in most ways completely useless to me now.

It leaves me a bit gobsmacked, but also fairly worried for the industry as a whole.

Ian

[muzines]

I'm more interested in pro workflow features - routing MIDI out of plugins to other tracks, and realtime bounce in place of external hardware are genuinely good improvements (printing external synths when you're using them vie the External Instrument plugin has traditionally been super clunky - now it's a simple easy action.)

And I really want them to rework and upgrade plugin handling and the preset browser and some other areas of Logic...

As for the session players - Drummer has always been, and continues to be quite useful particularly in sketching up things, but I just don't do music by starting to input chords into the computer with a mouse, and then get some traditional instruments to follow those chords - those things are likely to get little use here, and Logic will continue to be, to me, Logic as usual.

[Dave Rowles]

Pulled up a project I've been working on for a bit, and it seemed to load a bit quicker than before. But biggest thing for me was it's spreading the processing across the cores a lot more evenly. The other stuff is quite nice to have, but I generally didn't need all the extra stuff to write things for me

[IAA]

it's spreading the processing across the cores a lot more evenly

Interesting. I think I’ve seen this too. I noticed session bass seemed to occupy 2 cores as opposed to just one. Maybe it’s a split between sound and “AI”. Interested in what Muzines thinks on this.

[muzines]

I haven't really given it much of a workout yet since the update dropped. Probably not much has changed but it's possible there are under the hood optimisations going on. It's quite common for plugins to be split over two cores and has been for a while...

[tea for two]

So, in around half an hour I've taken an old rough demo of mine, just singing & playing acoustic guitar into a desk recorder, split it into 2 stems, extracted the tempo, added a drummer, created a chord track for the session bass player & keyboard & have to say I'm completely stunned by the results, especially the piano player, who has given the whole thing a slight country lilt!

The down side is that there is absolutely no creativity in this apart from the original demo song, so I don't know where this leaves me. This is not how I compose these days anyway so the tech is in most ways completely useless to me now.

It leaves me a bit gobsmacked, but also fairly worried for the industry as a whole.

Ian

As you say there's no personal creative input in these auto accompaniments generation so it can leave us feeling hollow.
For most SoS foruumees the auto accompaniments generation in latest LPXI won't be touched I reckon. Preehaps if writers block to just get out of the block in terms of idea generation then doing own thing.

For those millions would love to make music yet find it difficult or even can't for them LPXI auto accompaniments generation is a gift.

Personally I'm already so reliant on machines : computer, audio interface, midi controller, software
the only way I feel I actually made music is by playing every lead accompaniment sequence.
This is reason I avoid sequencer, avoid euro rack.

[BigRedX]

The way I'd approach the session players would be to use them as initial inspiration and once you can hear what the parts really should be replace them with something you have played yourself.

However the range of styles will need to be greater than that for the Logic X 10.4.8 Drummer, because there's nothing there that is even remotely close to what I want from a drum track - post-punk "tribal" drumming with toms forming an important part of the main rhythm pattern and plenty of dynamics.

[ManFromGlass]

I suspect Logic will be “helping” to create more music for media now. When that deadline clock is ticking and there is no budget for players then a Logic created track with a bit of manipulation will get the job done.
Assuming there are mid to low level composing jobs left that Ai isn’t doing now.

The good thing about the Logic assist is that it’s your time signatures, instrumentation and key changes precisely where you need them rather than Ai giving you something close. And if the producer changes the cut then it would be easier to get Logic to follow.

[The Coastal Path]

My personal view is that AI will destroy pretty much all creative work within the next five years. Music will be entirely generated by AI. It will be cheaper and easy to mass market and people will not be able to tell the difference between AI produced content and music made by humans.

The same is also true of all digital visual design. Websites, logos... everything will be made by AI. All TV shows and movies will also be entirely produced with click of a button. No writers, cameras or actors required. Currently, if you sign a form to appear as an extra these days, you sign away the rights to your appearance - so you can be re-created as a digital extra in the future. I hear from a colleague Netflix had a meeting recently to discuss all future editing of shows to be done by AI.

The future, I'm afraid, is here and isn't pretty.

Time to crack out the oil paints I reckon.

[MarkOne]

I think Apple have missed a trick, with the Bass and Keyboard AI.

I'm not opposed to them in principle (I still avidly use Drummer on a lot of projects, because - hey, I'm not a drummer - and nobody's called me out on songs that use it and say - Hey that drum track is bogus!)

But as far as I can see it they only follow the global chord track, and while that is endlessly editable, and you can use MIDI to input a chord at a position, there is no possibility to just noodle away at the keyboard, coming up with interesting chord progressions (which is more or less 100% my songwriting workflow) and take take that MIDI file as the basis for creating a global chord track from it.

Maybe in a future update perhaps.

Otherwise its create the MIDI track, and then get in there on the global chord track and peck away with a mouse. Seems to be a creativity hoover

[IAA]

It needs a “follow” function that looks at a midi track and follows that.

[MarkOne]

It needs a “follow” function that looks at a midi track and follows that.

Yes, I’m not suggesting it needs to be real time, but just the ability to follow a MIDI track, or important that track into the chord track.

[MarkOne]

Anyone else finding Logic 11 takes ages to boot up?

(I'm on a 13" M1 MBP running 14.5)

I had the Icon in the dock bounce for a while and then stop, OSX thinks it's running, (Because if you open the force quit dialog it shows up) and then all of a sudden minutes later, the UI appears.

Weird.

[muzines]

Anyone else finding Logic 11 takes ages to boot up?

10 seconds for me, the same as 10.8.1.

I had the Icon in the dock bounce for a while and then stop, OSX thinks it's running, (Because if you open the force quit dialog it shows up) and then all of a sudden minutes later, the UI appears.

I've seen others reporting some slow loading times. Not sure what's going on...

Have you tried trashing your prefs?

[Dave Rowles]

Anyone else finding Logic 11 takes ages to boot up?

No, in fact it appears to load up faster for me.

[MarkOne]

OK, I'm thinking it might be Rosetta, or something to do with that.

I switched Logic to boot natively and not using Rosetta and boom! straight in.

I'll switch back again later to see. (Need to actually do something productive now!)

[Mattsong]

The install was smooth and all my 3rd party plugins seem to be working. The chord track and session musicians are partly complete as has been noted here.
The big surprise, ChromaGlow.
I thought the last thing I need is another distortion plug-in. Initial impression is that this is really good and remarkably versatile. There is just something different about how the distorted waves interact with the original sounds. It reminds me of FM or Scuplture in the organic nature of the resultant sound.
I’d be interested in other views on this and I would love to find out what is going on under the hood.

[muzines]

This is saturation - there are *loads* of third-party saturation plugins, many of which sound excellent.

Basically, it's small amounts of controlled distortion in a way that analog devices saturate, which can be pleasing and exciting in small amounts, or dirty and aggressive as you dial it up. Much like clean digital recording can be a bit to boring and sterile to some people, we often like, at least for many creative applications, some saturation/warmth/vibe/mojo to our audio, and often use analog devices, from preamps, through tube amps, transformers etc to partially achieve this - and this is the effect that saturation plugins are trying to replicate.

[muzines]

As to slow loading - yes, under Rosetta here, Logic burns a core for a few minutes before it actually opens (and then it seems fine).

I don't know whether than applies when it's running on Intel systems too.

[tea for two]

Ipad

I was on 16.x.x ipadOS there was no Logic upade in my AppStore account.
After I updated to ipadOS 17.5 approx 3.5GB update, only thereafter Logic update appeared in my AppStore account to download.

New blurb says :
Chroma Glow recommended M1 ipad 2021 and later;
Stem Splitter requires M1 ipad 2021 and later. I'm on 2018 A12x ipad;
Mastering Assistant recommended M1 ipad 2021 and later, it's automatically on the Stereo Out.

Just a brief followup ipad.
I should been clearer : regardless of updating to latest ipadOS 17.5, as I'm not on M1 or later ipad, Stem Splitter is Not available to install on my 2018 A12x ipad pro. Apple's requirements state M1 ipad or later for Stem Splitter.
Mastering Assistant is installed on my 2018 A12x ipad pro. Chroma Glow isn't.
Auto accompaniment generators are installed on my 2018 A12x ipad pro.

[ConcertinaChap]

Is it possible to upgrade to 11 while still keeping 10? I know I can just rename the Logic Pro app to something else (say Logic Pro Legacy) but what about library folders like Library/Application Support/Logic? Do they get overwritten?

CC

[muzines]

Is it possible to upgrade to 11 while still keeping 10? I know I can just rename the Logic Pro app to something else (say Logic Pro Legacy) but what about library folders like Library/Application Support/Logic? Do they get overwritten?

CC

Yes, you can keep multiple versions in your Apps folder - I have versions from 10.4.8 through 11 here - it’s fine. Logic will use all your app support content as normal, whichever version you use. Everything Logic requires to run (apart from the “Essential Content”), is self-contained within the application bundle.

You can then choose to run whichever version you want at any time.

[ConcertinaChap]

Lovely. That's what I was hoping. Thanks, Dennis.

Do you know offhand if the project file format has changed? Like it did when going from 9 to X? If not don't go looking, I ought to be able to work that out for myself.

Cheers,

CC

[muzines]

Do you know offhand if the project file format has changed? Like it did when going from 9 to X? If not don't go looking, I ought to be able to work that out for myself.

You can think of 11 as more or less 10.9, it's not the upgrade the version number might otherwise suggest.

The file format hasn't changed substantially since 10.8.1, and you can load projects created in 11 back in 10.8... obviously LP11-only features won't translate.

[ConcertinaChap]

Thanks again. That was the picture I was getting from having a shufty around. Looks to me if what's going on is not a big redesign like going from 9 to X but a change in the naming convention like going from OSX to MacOS 11. So I think I'll stop worrying.

Cheers,

CC