Thursday, December 13, 2007

GAH! My Wallet! It screams! It screams!

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

5 comments:

  1. I have no idea what this has to do with a mother a child under a tree starving to death. But whatever.

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  2. You 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
    slightly 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!

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  3. 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.

    I 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...)

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  4. 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.

    One 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).

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  5. 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.)

    The 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...

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