New Home for Logic Pro Manuals

In a previous post, I lamented that Apple was no longer updating the manuals for Logic Pro in Apple Books. Today, I found out why.

Apple has switched to using the Tips app for User Guides. This applies to Logic Pro, MainStage, GarageBand, and Final Cut Pro. In fact, Safari, Preview, and Finder (the Mac, really) also open Tips when you want help and they all show User Guides when you do.

This is cool, and searchable, but one negative I have with it is that I don’t think you can have it open on an iPad, except as a Sidecar window.

Logic and Third Party Effects Plug-ins

There are a number of companies that make effects plug-ins compatible with Logic Pro. By most accounts, these all sound pretty good to great. I know a lot of people live in these, whether they choose one manufacturer or mix and match from several or many. Of course, I think people should do whatever works for them so any way is cool.

I have been looking at plug-ins from Universal Audio (UA) lately. They often have big sales, and I use one of their hardware interfaces. One of the things that’s unique to UA is their Unison technology. Supposedly, when you connect a real device like a microphone, guitar, or bass to a Unison-enabled plug-in like a preamp, channel strip, or guitar or bass amp, the circuit acts just like the real circuit, with the interactions between the instrument/mic and the amp. UA claims this gives you a much more realistic simulation of what it’s like to record the real thing, as opposed to it merely being modeled. This Unison technology only works on UA hardware. Conceptually, this is really cool. Think about it, it brings thousands of dollars of hardware gear inside your home and computer for much, much less money. They have models of brands like SSL, Neve, Avalon, Manley, Ampeg, Marshall, Fender, and others.

The problem for me, at least right now, is that the differences are too subtle. Can I really hear that the Unison version of X channel strip sounds different than when I use that same channel strip on the already-recorded track? Not always, or sometimes maybe I hear a little here or there.

The other thing is, Logic Pro comes with tons of effects plug-ins that do much of the same things. Their compression and EQ plug-ins model some of the same hardware as other brands do. There are people who have done entire productions with just what’s built-in Logic Pro alone. I am not that far along in my production skills that I feel like I need those third-party plug-ins as well as or instead of what Apple has provided. However, I want them. It’s probably just consumerism and all that. I do like buying new gear.

Actually, what’s in Logic Pro is very impressive. They shipped some really cool ones recently such as ChromaGlow. There was a point where some of the older ones hadn’t been updated for Logic Pro X, but I’m not sure if any haven’t at this point. Do yourself a favor and check out what’s included and see if you can save yourself some money by using what’s stock. I’m trying to hold on and just work with those myself. But that UA sale is calling my name and they keep sending me emails to tempt me back.

An Idea for Logic

And other DAWs, but I don’t use them.

Sometimes I would like to solo a track, but not really. Soloing mutes all the other tracks, but there are times I want to hear the other tracks, just not as loudly. I would like to see a feature where I could pull down the levels of all the other tracks but leave the one at the same level.

I have conceived a way this could be done right now, though I haven’t tried it. Every channel could be run to a Bus, and then when I wanted to isolate one of them, remove it from the bus and turn down the bus. Then, when work on the channel is done, add it back to the bus. It seems a bit unwieldy and could get messy though, and if you use a lot of busses, you would have to figure out all that routing. I may have to play around with this idea and see if it works.

Overall, this is one of those things that a digital audio workstation is suited for. We don’t have to do everything like they did before we worked in the box. There’s room for lots of other ideas and workflows that wouldn’t have worked in the old analog days.

Logic Pro 11

Nope, I’m not going to make that joke.

It’s been nearly a year since the announcement of Logic Pro 11 and frankly, I missed it, or at least posting about it here. In fact, there have been four releases since 11, 11.0.1, 11.1, 11.1.1, and 11.1.2. Looking at the release notes, I have to say Apple is a little inconsistent with the numbering. Version 11 was huge, 11.0.1 was mostly fixes and improvements, 11.1 had new features and enhancements as well as fixes, 11.1.1 did add a feature as well as fixes, and 11.1.2 had a fix. I guess they decided that the one feature added in 11.1.1 didn’t justify it being 11.2.

It is great to see the continued development of Logic Pro for the Mac (as well as its compatriots MainStage and GarageBand). Despite some fears due to the subscription version of Logic Pro for iPad, Logic Pro for Mac has not moved to subscription. Personally, I don’t think it will, and I definitely hope it doesn’t.

I also didn’t post about Logic Pro for iPad, which I think is great, but since I have never used it, I don’t have anything to say. I think they could have a cool product if they shipped MainStage for iPad. I’m a bit surprised it hasn’t happened yet.

Logic Pro Manuals – A Disappointment

A long time ago, I posted about how the manuals for Logic Pro and MainStage were available in iBooks. Yes, that post is so old that it was called iBooks, not Books or Apple Books.

I recently found out that Apple has not updated these books in nearly a year. Logic Pro 11 came out in May 2024 and the Books versions don’t cover the new features at all. The copyrights are dated 2023. So we’re back to using the PDF versions. I can only hope this is something Apple is working on and hasn’t completed yet, because the Books version works better than the PDF in my opinion. On the other hand, Apple seems to keep track of what people use in order to focus their efforts, so if those manuals in Books didn’t get many readers, they may have decided to not bother anymore. We’ll only know if they ever update the books, they will likely not tell us otherwise.

And hey, Logic Pro 11 is really cool, but that’s for another post.