Apple Logic Pro 9
Reviews
Trusted musician and artist reviews for Apple Logic Pro 9
Based on 72 Reviews
Apple's DAW is just plain Logical
Logic Pro 9 is possibly one of the best DAWs on the market, surpassing even its successor Logic Pro X. Sure, it may only work with a proprietary plugin format (AU) and it doesn’t have a built-in performance mode like FL Studio or Ableton Live, but what it does have, it handles so masterfully and flexibly it’s hard to hold that against it. Logic Pro 9 is particularly good if you’re working with MIDI, though audio-oriented producers are certainly not left in the cold with Logic’s answer to Live’s Warp feature, Flex.
I personally use Logic Pro 9 to produce my own work, and I adore its workflow. Everything from the layout to the keyboard shortcuts flows beautifully, and whether I’m deepening a dubstep growl, brightening a eurobeat brass, or just plain dabbling in any of its stellar built-in plugins, Logic is a DAW that will heighten, not hinder, your productions.
Not perfect, but overall fantastic DAW
I've used Logic to write, record, arrange, mix, and master electronic music for the last few years. I'm very comfortable with the Apple ecosystem of apps, so when deciding between DAWs I naturally gravitated towards it. I used DAWs many years ago (Cakewalk) so I was already familiar with the general operation, but to learn the ins and outs of Logic I used "Logic Pro 9 Essential Training" from Lynda.com, and just followed along with all the videos.
I can't compare with Ableton, FL, Cubase, etc since I don't have experience with those, but I will say Logic Pro 9 has been a pleasure to learn and use. I think the best feature of a DAW is it's ability to sort of "stay out of the way" of the creative process, and Logic achieves that most of the way. Channel strips are great to recall your go-to plugin chains, the mixer view is intuitive, the piano roll is great, and the main arrange window is nice and provides lots of helpful context and menus around what you're doing.
If I had to point out a drawback, I would say it's automation, particularly snapping it to a grid. It can be infuriating snapping inflection points to the right places, in fact I think I've seen DJs complain on Twitter about how frustrating the automation can be.
And finally, Logic Pro 9's stock synths and plugins are nothing short of stellar. The ES M, ES1, ES2, and EXS24 (the sampler) are all very good synths in their own right. I've actually heard people say that if you are new to synthesis, you should exclusively learn ES1 and ES2 before moving on to third party synths (good advice I think). What I'm most impressed with is Logic's stock effects. Space Designer for reverb might be the only reverb you need. Channel EQ is a great equalizer (I stick one on every channel), the stereo spread fx are great, chorus/phaser/flanger and all that good stuff, and finally (very important for electronic music) the Compressor effect is pretty awesome. I was pretty new to compression, and Logic's Compressor helped me get a good grasp of it.
want to produce music
At this point I would start on Logic Pro X if I were you. Might as well learn on the newest thing available!
Apple Logic Pro 9
Logic Pro is a digital audio workstation and MIDI sequencer software application for the macOS platform. It was originally created in the early 1990s as Notator Logic, or Logic, by German software developer C-Lab, later Emagic. It became an Apple product, eventually known as Logic Pro, after Apple bought Emagic in 2002. It is the 2nd most popular digital audio workstation (DAW) according to a survey conducted in 2015.
A consumer-level version based on the same interface and audio engine but with reduced features, called Logic Express, was also available at a reduced cost. Apple's GarageBand, another application using Logic’s audio engine, is bundled in iLife, a suite of software which comes included on any new Macintosh computer. On December 8, 2011, the boxed version of Logic Pro was discontinued, along with Logic Express, and Logic Pro is now only available through the Apple App Store at the price of $199.99 in the United States, which used to be the price of Logic Express.
Logic Pro 9 On July 23, 2009, Logic Pro 9 was announced. A major new feature included "Flex Time", Apple's take on "elastic" audio, which allows audio to be quantized. A version of the pedalboard from GarageBand was included, together with a new virtual guitar amplifier where the modeled components could be combined in different ways. There were also a number of improvements to audio editing, fulfilled user requests such as "bounce in place" and selective track and channel strip import, as well as an expanded content library including one more Jam Pack. Some of the bundled software, including MainStage 2 and Soundtrack Pro 3, was also improved. Logic Pro 9 is Universal Binary, although not officially supported for use on PowerPC computers. SoundDiver, which had been quietly bundled with previous versions, was dropped, eliminating support for arguably the world's most popular synthesizer editor/librarian. As Apple has bundled so many software instruments with Logic, it is not likely that we'll see the return of integration with external synthesizer hardware to the Logic platform.
On January 12, 2010, Apple released Logic Pro 9.1, an Intel only release, thereby officially discontinuing Logic for the PowerPC platform. Logic Pro 9.1 has the option of running in 64-bit mode, which allows the application to address more memory than in the past. Says Apple "With 64-bit mode, the application memory is not limited to 4GB as with 32-bit applications, so there is essentially no practical limit by today's standards." Third party plug-ins that are 32-bit are still compatible, but will run from a 'wrapper' inside Logic Pro itself.
On December 9, 2011, Apple announced that Logic Pro Studio 9 would no longer be available on DVD, and would only be sold via the Mac App Store. The price was reduced from $499 to $199.99 for the Logic Pro app, and $29.99 for MainStage. The download was just over 400MB, and 19GB of optional loops were available as in-app downloads.
This version of Logic Pro Studio 9 no longer allows users to access any microtunings in Scala format other than those provided with the software by Apple.
It's crazy how many producers use mainly the Logic built-in synths to produce. Was just watching the Albin Myers video on his page, the track he was working on was pretty much all ES2 and ESX24. Just goes to show the power of picking a couple synths and learning them inside and out!
Logic's software instruments are the reason I love it. It isn't my main DAW, I usually just use it to quickly bounce some audio tracks that I import into Ableton Live.
DAW for the win!
No words, It is so dynamic. This audio workstation is so fluid when it comes to layering tracks and managing all my synth plugins!
I saw that Nicky Romero used it and I wanted to try it out. I got it and loved it, its really nice for recording live sounds
the best
no upgrade to Logic X? :)