Any Logic users here? Some advice needed : )

The Lounge Other Gear
#1

[edited slightly for brevity]
Hi guys

Ive done some research and although ive gleaned partial answers to some of my queries i thought itd be better if i can seek some advice from anyone here directly. I edit audiobooks/podcasts/radio etc in Pro Tools, but for various reasons I would really like to ditch this for a different DAW, howeveri havent been able to find one that matches some of the specific functionalities that i rely heavily upon. Reaper was the most attractive proposition due to price and customizability, but i found it was difficult to replicate my workflow without jumping through a whole bunch of hoops. Could any logic users confirm some/all of the following?

Shuffle mode behaviour- when deleting a portion of audio, the audio to the right of the deleted bit shuffles to fill the empty space. Fine. But if i expand/drag out a clip (on either the left or right side), does the surrounding audio move to accomodate this change? In Pro Tools its second nature to do this, but in other DAWs not so?

Paste replace/paste special- I have a portion of room tone audio copied to the clipboard (for e.g 5 secs worth), I then select a small area of audio, lets say 2 secs, and paste special/replace- the selected area is filled with a portion of the audio copied to the clipboard, rather than the whole clipboard file being pasted in. In Pro Tools this command is called Paste Special>Repeat to fill selection.

Audiosuite- is there an equivalent in Logic for rendering a plugin effect into the audio, essentially baking it in to the source material? Afaik audiosuite is pro-tools exclusive…?

Multitool to automatically switch between different cursor types depending where on the audio file the cursor is placed (trim and fades at edges, grabber at bottom, selecter at top)- is there something similar in logic? I use a magic trackpad so no right click functions possible, tho id be open to switching that up to a mouse if it was the only way

Customizability- really need to be able to re-direct a few regularly used key commands (e.g paste special) to specific button combos on my keyboard, as i use them probably thousands of times per project so they need to be in a logical place on the keyboard otherwise my hand will probably end up falling off

Markers and memory locations- projects are typically 10-15 hours long so the ability to place markers on the timeline, and also a list of marker locations to easily navigate to each one, is a pretty big deal

Long projects- typically projects are 10-15 hours, often more. Can Logic manage projects with such a long timeline?

AAF compatibility (self explanatory)

Varispeed/high speed scrubbing- can i play back the project at a faster rate than normal speed? If so, am i able to make edits while this is happening?

Thanks in advance to anyone that is able to confirm any of these points : )

#2

re- audiosuite… you can bounce in place.

there’s a lot of great things about logic but still some hangovers of poor audio editing workflow (for me). i usually edit in ableton because i find it more streamlined… then i consolidate those tracks and import them into logic for mixing and further processing.

there’s a bunch of great youtube tutorials for key commands and setting up defaults. you can customize logic pretty much endlessly.

this playlist is a good start of walking through various tasks with tips etc in logic pro.

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#3

ah cool, that answers the audiosuite and customizability questions then at least. not good to hear about poor audio editing workflow- can i ask for any specifics regarding that? re: ableton, yeh i know it like the back of my hand and for music projects i can whizz through it but its not in any way suited for long form narrative editing (nor would i expect it to be, tbf)

#4

no specifics really i’ve never liked the feel of editing audio in logic… since V2 or whatever… people get used to it and get fast on it and it’s certainly better than it’s ever been but some functions always seem obscured to me and default behaviors when dragging audio around and making lot’s copy/paste small edits are things i can do a lot faster in live.

ymmv of course… logic certainly can do all the things that other DAWs do… more or less it’s just my preference to do those things mostly in other environments. i’m hopeful the next big update will address some of that stuff… regardless… $200 is the best deal in DAWs w/all the excellent instruments and plug ins you get in logic.

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#5

I did voice-over recording and editing for interactive media for years; I used ProTools, Logic and Ableton at various points. I haven’t used Logic regularly for a good while, so not able to answer the specific questions you pose above. Anecdotally, however, nothing beats ProTools for fast editing, particularly for voice-over. I could fly through editing sessions in PT and was just never able to get the same flow from any other tool. Of course, PT brings all sorts of other baggage along with it. :\

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#6

Yeh sounds similar to my previous experience with logic when I used it for a little while for music maybe 10 or so years ago. There was just some behaviours that I couldn’t get along with and I ended up ditching it and going back to Ableton. Wouldn’t even consider using it for music now but as an alternative to pro tools for narrative editing I was hoping it could be a viable option

#7

Yep every time I look into this (at least once a year) I always end up coming back to the conclusion that whether I like it or not pro tools does this the best and anything else would require compromise and workarounds. I’ve been using it for 10 years for this line of work and I have my workflow pretty much nailed with it, so jumping ship to a new environment would be fairly risky for me. When it works it’s great, but every so often there’ll be some obstacle that puts it completely out of action and suddenly I’m left thinking why am I paying £30 a month/£360 a freaking year to put up with this crap… ah well, thanks for the reply anyhow

#8

Yeah that was my experience too—you’re pretty much stuck dedicating a machine to ProTools, only upgrading the system when you absolutely must, and doing it very very carefully.

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#9

These can all be done.

AAF: supported.
Varispeed: -50% - +100%

I’d also recommend grabbing the Logic PDF. It’s 2000+ pages long, but you can use the search to find ‘keywords’ quickly.

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#10

…when it comes to straight forward basic audioediting, protools remains the rocksolid eversince first to come daw…it simply was and is THE digital taperecorder all over the pro planet…

but…logic was right behind that and has on all the rest a daw can do quite some skills on top to offer…
so of course it’s full customizable…also in personalized shortcuts as much as u like…
if u wanna switch from a long time pro user of one daw to another…there’s always some learning curve involved…

but…given the fact ur on apple anyways, logic is a no brainer to all that avid planet…
it’s a damned serious pro daw and even longer in the whole sonic game than protools…just started witha proper midi engine, instead of an audio engine, which is still and uptodate a midi core that was never programmed that far out to all details as in logic…even down to all kind of sheet notatiion and print out…
when protools came up to kill analog tape production, logic was introducing digital audio handling pretty soonish, too…and was for a long time, next to cubase, the only compatatible front end to handle protools hardware…

once this software had a pricetag on eyelevel with protools for too many good reasons…
so, since it became apple exclusive and is sold these days for a nobrainer price tag, don’t be fooled…that whole pro backend is all still in there…
and once u got that licence from the appstore…it will be forever attached to ur apple id and is ready to download on every apple machine ur setting up…

so bite the apple and switch…takes a few weeks til u settle in and ur old workflow and result achievements start to end there again where they used to be…but once u adapted u’ll never look back and ur avid years are over for the better…

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#11

i always mix in logic. i hate mixing in ableton. i still use logic for lot’s of stuff and it’s much improved in many ways. but there’s no one daw that gets it all done for me. i’ll use all the environments i have for a long time. i’m not married to any of them. ableton and logic are the mains though… probably get deeper into ableton but still will probably mix in logic. studio one looks interesting but not sure i can be arsed to learn another daw.

pro tools is probably best of audio editing or using it like a tape machine. i also edited lot’s of voice over stuff in pro tools long ago and it’s easily the fastest or was then. i can probably get through a lot of things in ableton pretty quickly now too… but if you’re spotting to video then pro tools is a no brainer.

#12

thanks, that ticks a few more off the list : )

yeh i was worried that would be the case…! im hoping to have some down time next month so i may download the logic trial and have a look at the manual while i having a crack at it. cheers

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