Sweet Spot for Affordable High End DAW on Mac OS X
March 11, 2020

Sweet Spot for Affordable High End DAW on Mac OS X

Jonah Dempcy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Logic Pro X

I use Logic Pro X as a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for multitrack recording and music production. It is my preferred DAW on Mac OS X and I use it on-the-go on my MacBook Pro laptop when I am traveling or on-site at various studios. I'm able to quickly throw together songs that are used as music beds for commercials, product demos, instructional videos, and rich media EPUB 3 ebooks.

Pros

  • Interface - I find the Logic Pro X user interface intuitive and easy to use.
  • Mixing - The mixer bay of Logic Pro X is excellent and allows you to see at an instant what levels everything is playing at. I much prefer it to some of its competitors who make it difficult to see the whole mixer all at once. Logic Pro X emulates analog mixing and does as great job at it.
  • Soft-Synth and MIDI Sequencing - I love the MIDI sequencer in Logic Pro X. I've struggled with a number of "piano roll" features, or step sequencers, but Logic Pro X has an intuitive and straightforward way of recording and sequencing MIDI notes that works quite well for me.

Cons

  • PC Support - Logic Pro X is Mac-only and that prevents me from using it in conjunction with PC software.
  • Window Configuration - Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the different windows and wish it were easier to navigate. There are screensets that you can toggle between, which is a step in the right direction, but I can't help but feel some of the UI is unnecessarily cluttered.
  • Automation - There is a long-standing bug where you have to start playback where an envelope begins, in certain cases, for the automation to work. If you start in the middle, the automated plugin will have the wrong value.
  • Positive - Quickly put together music beds for various materials (instructional videos, product demos, etc).
  • Positive - Record, arrange, sequence and finalize tracks on the fly on a MacBook Pro laptop.
  • Positive - Not a CPU hog. Works well on older machines.
  • Negative - Learning curve could be a little easier in places, particularly some of the window management.
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 a vibrant user community and many tutorials and educational materials for learning tricks of the trade.
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.

Do you think Logic Pro X delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Logic Pro X's feature set?

Yes

Did Logic Pro X live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Logic Pro X go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Logic Pro X again?

Yes

Logic Pro X is a must for Mac-based music production, recording, and mixing environments. It's great for on-the-fly recording and arrangement, such as when traveling or on-site with a Mac laptop. It's also great when you need to quickly arrange music for any number of applications, or compose a new song using VST plugins or MIDI instruments.

Logic Pro X is impossible to use in a PC environment, so I would not recommend trying to use it on a Mac as a secondary computer in any music studio that is PC-based.

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