“From the fun and intuitive GarageBand to the all new Logic Studio, there’s never been a better time to be a musician on the Mac,” said Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of Applications Product Marketing, in the press release. “For less than $500, Logic Studio transforms the Mac into the most powerful musical instrument in the world.”
At the heart of Logic Studio is Logic Pro 8, now with an intuitive single-window interface for instant access to powerful music creation and production functions, including snap-to-transient selection and sample accurate editing directly in the Arrange window. New audio production tools such as Quick Swipe Comping and dynamic channel strip creation speed up common tasks. Logic Pro 8 also includes end-to-end surround production capabilities with innovative surround panning controls, multichannel tracks and busses, and support for True Surround software instruments and effects.
MainStage turns the Mac into a powerful live performance rig that produces reliable, consistent sound—whether music is being made at home, in a rehearsal space, or in front of an audience. Screen controls link software plug-ins to hardware knobs, faders and buttons, so musicians can use their favorite gear while performing live. An easy-to-read interactive display, designed for distant viewing in dim light, shows exactly the information needed on stage. Professional templates simplify set-up giving musicians more time to explore and create their own unique sounds.
Soundtrack Pro 2 is the musician’s bridge to sound for picture with professional editing tools and seamless film and video integration that simplifies every aspect of the audio post production process. Musicians can compose their score in Logic Pro 8 then use Soundtrack Pro 2 to edit dialog, design sound effects and complete the mix in cinematic sound.
Studio Instruments with 40 instrument plug-ins enable musicians to access and play almost any sound imaginable, including enhanced versions of Ultrabeat, Sculpture and ES2 synthesizers, and the EXS24 sampler. Studio Effects include a new Delay Designer plug-in that offers in-depth control over individual delay taps, and Space Designer, now with True Surround enhancements for multichannel audio processing. Logic Studio gives musicians a vast Studio Sound Library, featuring content from the five Jam Pack® collections and Final Cut Studio 2, for a total of 18,000 Apple Loops, 1,300 EXS instruments and 5,000 sound effects that span a huge variety of genres and styles. Production utilities include WaveBurner for CD mastering, Compressor 3 for surround encoding, an Apple Loops utility and a new Impulse Response utility for capturing the acoustics of real performance spaces.
Logic Studio is now available for a suggested retail price of US$499 through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. Registered Logic Pro 7 users can upgrade to Logic Studio for $199. Customers who purchased Logic Pro 7 on or after August 1, 2007 are eligible for a free upgrade to Logic Studio ($9.95 shipping & handling).
Logic Studio System Requirements:
Minimum requirements to install all applications:
• Mac computer with a 1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor (PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, or Intel Xeon processor highly recommended)
• 1GB of RAM (2GB or more highly recommended)
• Display with 1024-by-768 resolution (1280-by-800 or higher recommended)
• Mac OS X v10.4.9 or later
• QuickTime 7.2 or later
• DVD drive for installation
• PCI Express, ExpressCard/34, USB, or FireWire based audio interface recommended
Additional recommendations for Logic Pro:
• At least 2GB of RAM for large EXS instruments
• USB musical keyboard (or suitable MIDI keyboard and interface) for instruments
• Logic Node requires a Mac computer with a PowerPC G5, Intel Core, or Intel Xeon processor and Gigabit Ethernet
Additional recommendations for MainStage:
• At least 2GB of RAM for large EXS instruments
• USB musical keyboard, control surface, or guitar pedal board (or suitable MIDI control device and interface)
• Standard graphics card in any Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, iMac with Intel Core Duo, Power Mac G5, or iMac G5
Surround requirements for Logic Pro and Soundtrack Pro:
• Mac computer with dual PowerPC G5 processors or an Intel Core Duo or Xeon processor
• Multichannel audio interface
Available disk space:
• 7GB to install all applications and required content
• Additional 39GB to install all optional content (large content packages can be installed on separate disk):
– 10GB for Jam Pack collections
– 16GB for sound effects
– 6GB for surround music beds
– 7GB for other optional content
Contents:
• DVD containing Logic Pro 8, MainStage, Soundtrack Pro 2, Studio Instruments, Studio Effects, WaveBurner 1.5, Compressor 3, Impulse Response Utility, Apple Loops Utility, QuickTime 7 Pro, and required content
• Six content DVDs containing Jam Pack collections, sound effects, surround music beds, EXS24 samples, and impulse response files
• Demo content DVD
• Printed and electronic documentation
More information on Logic Studio including a list of certified, compatible hardware and software, can be found here.
Users of Logic Pro 7 paid upwards of $1000 for it and will have to pony up another $199 to update to a now $499 app suite. Is another Jobsian rebate on the horizon?
@ Grigori
That would be nice. Though I’d rather get the hours of my life back it took to get Logic set up properly.
Damn, now I know what I’m using my iPhone $100 credit for…….
Something tells me you’ll soon be spending even more time in that department.
I’ve just checked out the manuals for this, and there’s a mess of them; I counted 13, but I may have missed some.
I think I just died and went to heaven! $499? down from $1200!!! YeeHaw! Now I know what my Xmas present will be. I *was* torn between Logic8 and Motu’s Digital Performer, simply on the basis of price, but this has sealed the deal. Way to go Apple! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
F@#@#@# I’ve been Iphoned!
I just bought Logic Pro 7 in June.
Hey, MacDude… you’re BACK!!!!!
whoooohoooo!!!!!!!!!
(not)
@ Brau:
It remains to be seen if they made it any more (ahem) logical… If you have any background in the “old school” of recording – y’know, where there are concepts like signal flow and all – and you’re contimplating jumping headfirst into Logic or DP, go with DP. It’s much more straightforward and grounded in the world of traditional world of recording, IMHO.
@ skeeter
Thanks for the advice, I certainly appreciate it, but I have leaned toward Logic over DP because it offers a little more for me in the area of computer based music creation. Only the price was holding me back. If I was setting up a recording studio for doing straight ahead recording with a bevvy of studio musicians I would certainly use DP as I have had experience with its straight ahead simplicity. For my own use though I am willing to trade some of this off.
MDN word: PLAY, and I most certainly will!
Yes, let’s bring out the old EFI / Trusted Computing canard again, and try and flog it for more attention.
Folks, just IGNORE THE TROLL. Periodically some numbskull (and I suspect from the writing it’s the same numbskull every time) decides to start posting in virtually every thread here about how Apple is going to start using the TC / EFI combo to take away all our freedom. Oh, the humanity! I highly suspect that this is just a way to get the search engines to index “Apple / EFI / TC / evil computing nightmare scenario” … but if I believed that and said it out loud the black helicopters would come.
Seriously, anyone who can’t see Apple’s position on privacy / activation / serial # issues isn’t paying attention. Judge anyone, from a person to a corporation, by their actions. And Apple’s actions show consistently that it is not willing to go to extremes to “validate” your license, identity, etc. See OS X. See iLife. See iWork. The internet could vanish into thin air tomorrow, and all my applications will happily keep working, minus whatever information (like iTunes) they might get from the internet for me.
Go take these Microsoftian claims somewhere relevant, like Microsoft Daily News.
One more thing … With this recent price drop, musicians can now buy Logic Studio and Digital Performer for less than the cost of LogicPro8 yesterday. That’s incredible news!
“I’ve been Iphoned!”
There’s a phrase that needs to die quickly.
Logic desperately needed a new, more intuitive UI! I wish Apple would have aquired Digital Performer instead of Logic, but if they make it better, I’ll be happy. Frankly, it was such a pain to use that I’d just use GarageBand for quick projects.
@ ndelc
Me too. I’ve found that GB does most of the things I need it to do, but its shortcomings are glaring when you run into them. I wish Logic had an interface as simple as GB’s.
Another one here in agreement regarding GarageBand. Having spent countless hours (months? years?) in front of Cubase, Logic and Pro Tools, I can say that every time I fire up GB, I’m pleasantly surprised how quickly I can get things done in it. There is only one thing you need to make sure about working in GB: think carefully about the type and the size of the project you’re about to begin in GB and if you may hit some obstacles along the way. In GB, the limitations are rather clear, so you should be able to make a good decision if GB is adequate for the project. Once you have determined that GB will do the trick, working with GB, even on professional projects, is just so much more fun than anything else!
Blucaso…
He would take it to Microsoft Daily News, but it’s probably down installing some security update or another.
I love the bit about The OS actually has to go through EFI to get to the hardware calls. MacDude or whoever this jerk is would presumably like Macintosh systems to backgrade to the antiquated BIOS – a technology dead-end – or return to Open Firmware with its stunning lack of third-party support and incompatibility with Windows under BootCamp.
Personally, I’m relatively happy about my operating system talking to my hardware through a well-managed firmware interface. I’d much prefer that to having some fsckwit write some piece of malware that somehow screws my hardware to hell and back. Of course it is possible that MacDood or whoever is just such a fsckwit.
The thing about all this EFI paranoia that I don’t get is: if you don’t trust Apple’s firmware, why would you ever have trusted Apple’s OS? There’s nothing EFI can do in terms of sneakiness that OS X can’t. Firmware is just software that’s stored in a flash chip. If Apple wanted to do nefarious things, switching to an Intel architecture and using EFI to do it was the hard way.
“Oh noes, the firmware can connect invisibly to the internet.” Guess what? So can the OS!
I am not denying that there are an important privacy questions around the personal computer, but the type of firmware in the PC has NO relevance.
A TPM might be another matter, but that’s not the same as EFI. And from all reports I’ve heard, Apple’s latest system boards don’t even include a TPM.
Ryan…
Because the people complaining have their own petty agendas which can include…
• Being keen to stop Apple from moving forward: BootCamp was a major stake through the heart of every grey, vanilla box builder in the universe. EFI allows Macs to boot Windows and allows Apple to create an advanced extensible firmware environment that is better than those manufacturers who can’t face dumping BIOS, just as they couldn’t face dumping the 5.25 floppy, the 3.5 microfloppy, the RS-232 serial port or IEEE-1284 (or whatever it’s called) parallel port, or the PS/2 keyboard or mouse port.
• Wanting a free rein to create little hacks in the OS to make hardware behave in a manner that may not be appropriate to either the OS vendor or the hardware manufacturer. Such a desire could be either benign or not, but most of the hardware controlled by the EFI sub-systems (disks, memory, I/O ports, etc.) is stuff I’d prefer to have protected from some muppet with a malevolent personality.
• Wanting an easy ride when trying to get MacOS to run on their sad little WinDell “industry-standard” personal computers with their PS/2 ports, brain-damaged Intel NetBurst processors (from the time before Intel finally got a clue) or their AMD equivalents.
wtf?
Logic Express 8 is only $199 now, and has all the features of Logic Pro 7 and more?
I think I just got iPhoned…
NICE trend from Apple; remember Shake anyone?