In a time of chimpanzees, I was a penguin.
The religious right is motivated by the suspicion that someone, somewhere,
is having fun -- and that this must be stopped.
Was browsing the Apple Store and... Apple re-brands Logic 8 as "Logic Studio" and drops the price to $499.
At the previous price of $1000+ it was completely unjustifiable given that I'm not a music professional. Now? Hmm. Somehow I know what I'm getting for Christmas :-).
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
Ground rules: Comments that consist solely of insults, fact-free talking points, are off-topic, or simply spam the same argument over and over will be deleted. The penguin is the only one allowed to be an ass here. All viewpoints, however, are welcomed, even if I disagree vehemently with you.
WARNING: You are entitled to create your own arguments, but you are NOT entitled to create your own facts. If you spew scientific denialism, or insist that the sky is purple, or otherwise insist that your made-up universe of pink unicorns and cotton candy trees is "real", well -- expect the banhammer.
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I have no idea what this has to do with a mother a child under a tree starving to death. But whatever.
ReplyDeleteYou very fortunate penguin....I have LogicGold 4.1 running on an old Performa with a Yamaha S80 (with six keys no longer functional thanks to a
ReplyDeleteslightly insane cat)...Logic is a monster in terms of what you can do with it (I've read eight pages of the manual and my head exploded...)
Merry Christmas!
Boy, I have to really work my ass off now -- I want this Logic Studio and a Macbook, and I just don't have the cash.
ReplyDeleteI have a credit card, and buying both "NOW!" would still leave me a few thousand bucks away from maxing out. But me no do that -- me in too much credit debt already.
But when I finally get my hands on that Logic Studio... Oh!
(My singing isn't as good as it used to be. I'll use this time to improve it...)
Go for the Macbook first, Jim. It comes with GarageBand, which is better than the software you pay $500 for on Windows. Then you can save up for Logic. Logic *will* import GarageBand projects. Of coure, you're still only halfway to the Macbook.
ReplyDeleteOne other thing you'll need is a USB sound system with a MIDI port (since I assume you want to hook up your keyboard to record your kanoodling). I'm using a Lexicon Lambda, which I bought through Zzounds for $150, and it works fine and has all the ports you need -- two XLR's, two stereo inputs, an instrument input, and a MIDI port. Don't bother installing the crappy software that comes with it, you don't need that on a Mac, it just works (tm) with a Mac and GarageBand. However, a cheap $50 USB to MIDI converter will work just as well too if you don't need the microphone inputs. This is just a two-track recorder, though note that you can do multi-session recording with GarageBand so you can do multiple takes and a mixdown at the end of all the tracks you've recorded. A four-track recorder will set you back a little more dough, around $200. More than four tracks will not work with USB2, you'll need to go Firewire which will be *significantly* more dough. But that's overkill for what we do, reality is that we need a vocal mike and an instrument mike (and/or MIDI input) because that's all we do (duh).
I might opt for a four-track, but maybe a two-track is all I'll need -- give me a synth with 24-note polyphonic capabilities (hell, make it 16-note -- I don't write symphonies), and the musical portion is covered. And I've never heard of the Lexicon Lambda, but it sounds like it's perfect for the music-making I have in mind. (I intend to sing -- the mic input is a must.)
ReplyDeleteThe synth I have is a rarity -- a Roland JW-50. It has one partially dead key. It's also at least fifteen years old, so that's understandable. I can play back anything on the disks initialized for this synth with no problem, but if I were to consider performing live again, my JW-50 would be of little use.
I still have an eye on the Yamaha S90 -- there's another thousand bucks out of my nose once I make the purchase. Jesus, it's been a long time since I lived for music. By no means do I intend to live for it again -- I was too young and too ignorant to know better when I did. But the quality of my life would be much improved if I were to go back to writing, playing, and singing.
Just for the enjoyment. It doesn't need to be some sort of centerpiece anymore.
Well, I have to work eight night shifts over the next nine nights, beginning this evening. Not really looking forward to this, but it has to be done -- most of this happened to be my idea, not the company's. This will earn me a substantial sum. Don't know if I'll start with the Macbook or the S90. At this point, I'm not sure I care -- either one is going to make me happy...