Due to my history as an audio engineer and having worked at many studios over the years, I've been exposed to a wide range of DAWs from Pro Tools, Cakewalk, and Nuendo to Reaper, Max/MSP/Jitter, and Processing. (These latter two are not really DAWs, per se, but rather systems …
Logic Pro X is like the big brother to GarageBand - it can do SO much more and has many more attractive features. The workflow and interface are similar enough to make onboarding a little easier if someone has used GarageBand, but the effects and plug-ins of Logic make it a far …
Most DAWs have the same basic features and can get the job done, but Logic Pro X is simply more intuitive and familiar for Mac users. The interface looks very polished and is easy to read whereas competitors look clunky or overwhelming.
I have limited experience with Pro Tools. The breadth of features is probably similar in both platforms. But I find Logic Pro X to have the edge in the effects and virtual instruments it offers out of the box, it's ease-of-use and coherent workflow, and most importantly, it's …
We use several different audio editors, the main reason for this is to have software available to cover most staff experience.
However, we find that a good portion of new staff were familiar with Logic Pro X, meaning that there was reduced training time involved by having the …
Logic Pro X is in that sweet spot between amateur Digital Audio Workstations like GarageBand and high end DAWs like Avid Pro Tools. Logic Pro X is good enough to be used on high end productions for film, TV, commercials and such, while remaining inexpensive and accessible, with …
Logic Pro X is the natural successor to GarageBand. GarageBand is a fantastic app, however, it's fairly rudimentary and doesn't have the robust features that Logic Pro X supports. Pro Tools is more expensive but does similar things to Logic. Thankfully, Logic rests in the …
One of my biggest complaints about Pro Tools is the cost. It's overpriced, in my opinion, and then they force you to pay even more for basic add-ons that you need to do your job. Logic provides all of these right out of the box, and it's much better suited for writing with MIDI …
Each has their strengths in different areas. I would say Logic Pro X is the best for music production and mixing, whereas Audition is good with podcasts and audio for video, and Pro Tools is an all-around powerhouse for big projects.
ACID Pro is great for electronic music, hip hop, and any loop-based music production such as for videogame soundtracks. It is great for audio-forward production, rather than MIDI-forward. If I were running a lot of hardware synthesizers, or even softsynths using MIDI, I would prefer another DAW since they often have better features, for instance in the shuffle department where Ableton Live has hundreds of shuffles to choose from for MIDI instruments. However, I still prefer time-stretching sound quality in ACID Pro, as well as the lack of audio artifacts in looping. To this day, Ableton Live has still not entirely figured out how to prevent clicks and pops at the beginning and end of loops, especially lower frequencies like basslines, without shaving an arbitrary amount of time off each side (.5 ms by default), resulting in lessened attack and audio artifacts during cuts. I feel that ACID Pro has a better audio engine for looping, although for many purposes this is not noticeable. Still, I prefer ACID Pro for wave-based (rather than MIDI-based) music that makes extensive use of loops.
Logic Pro X is excellent for anyone already in the Apple ecosystem because it's based on a similar style of user interface and integrates well with other Apple products (iPad, etc.). It's great for recording live instruments, as well as electronic music production and podcasting, etc.
Audio sequencing: It's great for those who like to work primarily with waveforms, rather than MIDI.
Loop-based sequencing: It's perfect for loop-based music.
Envelopes: It's quite easy to do things like volume fades, crossfades, and other envelope-based audio manipulation of the waveform.
Time-stretch: ACID Pro has nice time-stretch filters.
Multitrack nondestructive sequencing: I like the UI for multitrack, and how easy it is to get back to a previous state through undo history, even copying something from a future state and then undoing a number of steps before pasting in the later content.
MIDI: I don't think it is great for MIDI sequencing. There are much better piano rolls and software step sequencers out there.
Built-in effects: ACID Pro has not kept up with competitors like Ableton Live, who licensed Cytomic's Glue Compression for version 9 of their software, an incredible-sounding plugin that would otherwise cost a pretty penny but is now included for free in Live. That being said, I haven't used it but I see they are making strides in this area, with new versions of ACID Pro including third-party licensed effects like Zynpatic STEM MAKER 2 out of the box for free.
Live performance: ACID Pro still doesn't hold a candle to Ableton Live in this department.
Improvising with loops: Despite recently added features like the ACID Morph Pads, the Chopper, and the revised Beatmapper, which allow MIDI triggering of parts of samples as well as creating new sounds using raw audio as an input, I feel that ACID Pro has a ways to go before they harness the improvisatory power you get with something like Stutter Edit, or the performance features of Ableton Live.
Like every DAW, it takes some time and getting used to, but Logic's tools and interface just make sense to anyone who is familiar with Apple products and music tools.
ACID Pro was the first loop-based DAW I ever used, and I fell in love with it. I was an avid ACID Pro believer for many years, before making the switch to Ableton Live as my primary DAW. Even still, I prefer the sound quality of ACID Pro in many cases. Ableton Live just "sounds" like Ableton, and there are audio artifacts that annoy me. I have been able to work around many of them, but I still have a special place in my arsenal for ACID Pro and use it whenever the chance arises, typically for loop-based wave-heavy music that doesn't need to be performed live and doesn't have a strong reliance on MIDI sequencing.
The user community of Logic Pro X is vibrant, responsive, and lively. There are many great forums out there where you can solve any problem you encounter, whether it's sound card latency, a certain plugin not working, audio routing, multitrack issues, or virtually anything else you run into. The community is so helpful that I'm giving Logic Pro X a 10 in this department, despite having never contacted their official support department. I've never had to, since there is such a great user community.
Due to my history as an audio engineer and having worked at many studios over the years, I've been exposed to a wide range of DAWs from Pro Tools, Cakewalk, and Nuendo to Reaper, Max/MSP/Jitter, and Processing. (These latter two are not really DAWs, per se, but rather systems that can be used for programming audio production — Reaper has features like this as well.) I point this out simply to say that I have experience with a wide range of DAWs and am fairly agnostic about them. I certainly have preferences. If I'm working with an indie rock band or a singer-songwriter, I like Pro Tools, since it is an industry-standard. For hip hop or electronic music, I prefer Ableton Live or ACID Pro, since they make working with loops so much easier, and I believe the sound fidelity is better. I choose ACID Pro specifically for loop-based music which almost entirely comes from waveforms rather than MIDI instruments (real or virtual). I find ACID Pro's MIDI functionality lacking, but the ease of sequencing and working with loops more than makes up for it.
Logic Pro X is like the big brother to GarageBand - it can do SO much more and has many more attractive features. The workflow and interface are similar enough to make onboarding a little easier if someone has used GarageBand, but the effects and plug-ins of Logic make it a far better product in the long run. Logic is able to utilize more of the computer's power, as well, taking full advantage of Apple's processors in bouncing and rendering the final products
Positive: Easy to use. Up and running in minutes. Virtually no learning curve, just drag, and drop.
Negative: Limited in its improvisatory and live performance. This has not made a negative impact on the business per se, but can be a creative block when you are trying to come up with a music bed or interstitial and want to experiment with mixing and matching different loops. There's no easy way to do this on the fly in ACID Pro, as there is with Ableton Live.
Positive: ACID Pro now includes more effects than ever, ameliorating the need to purchase plugins.
Powerful sound tools, centralized in one place for relatively very little money (when we purchased it, it was $200/user for a perpetual license)
Simplified workflow, since we handle all our sound needs in one place
We used to do our sound editing and mixing in Adobe Premiere, right along with the video. Moving sound production to FPX has DRAMATICALLY improved the quality of our soundtracks.
