After completing my first full project with Logic Studio 9 I was going to write up a review. After some thought, it occurred to me that what Logic did best was stay out of my way. Its highest virtue is what it is not rather than what it is. Logic is not needy and it does not crave my constant attention. For the way that I work, that’s a blessing.
I should also say that the presets to their guitar sounds and any of the mastering settings are well thought out and require minor “to taste” tweaking. Having played in some really great spaces, I have low expectations of what can be simulated. Logic takes it from acceptable to pretty darned good. I’d still prefer to have a good amp mic’d up in a great hall, but in lieu of that I’ll take some factory plug-ins. The work I’m doing now is all acoustic and a little more demanding on that front. I wonder what my opinion will be when that’s over.
The coolest new features in Logic are supposed to be the way you can beat up audio tracks and adjust them to perfection in minute detail. I have two problems with this. One, perfection is really, really boring and completely flat. Two, if you practice you don’t need to tweak things anyway.
I have a really bad cold right now. Probably the flu. It’s hard to say. With that in mind, I beg the reader’s pardon for any half-baked invective that may follow.
I’m sick to death of pitch correction. More so of tweaking rhythms and the quantization of audio. Here’s the deal: if you can’t play in tune or in time you should practice until you can. This goes for people who have been playing for a year or fifty years. The idea of saving something in the mix or removing an imperfection is ridiculous.
Before I go too far, I will wholly embrace the idea of a sound recording as more than a document. If the subject of the recording isn’t a live performance (which should never be altered save to iron out defects in the method of collection) then any kind of alteration could be fair game. There is a lot of art that is made by tending to the nuances. With that out of the way, I’m speaking more to the person who puts a mic in front of an instrument or plugs it in with the aim of recording a part.
I don’t splice my takes. I give them three tries and that’s it for the night. Given that I stick to my one hour per night ritual, it can be painful to screw something up and have to move on to something else. But if I can’t do it right with three tries at this stage in my life I’m either not practicing regularly or don’t know the part well enough to merit recording. It comes down to the following decision: would I rather do it right in one take within the confines of the time imposed by the song (real time) or potentially spend hours making a quilt out of bits and pieces from multiple takes?
In my studio I play many roles. I’m a composer, performer, engineer, and designer. Sometimes I’m a luthier or an acoustician. I’m pretty good at most of those but what I enjoy is playing an instrument. It frees my mind and gives me a sense of peace. When it works, it’s one of the most beautiful sensations. And when it doesn’t, well, it still beats sitting in front of a monitor, splicing up waveforms, and hoping that the judicious application of various effects will hide the scars. So I tend to practice. It’s easier.
Read that again: it’s easier to do it right the first time. This applies to almost every endeavor.
So I may never use some of the more highly touted features of most DAWs and in fact my needs could likely be met by a simple multitrack recorder if I had infinite synthesizers and effects processors. And if all of this equipment were small enough to fit in my bag, that’d be great too. I’ll stick with Logic. And practicing.
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