hehe .. you mention an interesting point. I actually intend to have the full 8 gig of ram in my laptop .. and basically having 2 gig set aside for Logic, OS, and other such things that need space. I have figured that my requirements for running a full orchestra is around the 5-6 gig region. This still leaves an adequate safety zone for running everything else.

I've been producing full orchestral work, with a few hic cups obviously, with only 4 gig of Ram on a 2.4 ghz Macbook Pro. And that has served me pretty well thus far. I now have a 3 ghz Macbook Pro (17 inch) that can take upto 8 gig and so if Logic will play ball then I should actually have everything I want on one machine.

64 bit I think would be icing on the cake, ensuring that the Ram cap is suitably higher. But I can work without it if need be.

Overall I'm not so charged up about Logic 9 as I see no big improvements to the Score editor .. which it seriously needs. Seems that all they've done is incorporate stuff from Garageband into Logic. I'm sure there are some good improvements but I'm thinking it may be time for me to move on to an actual score sequencer and use Logic 8 as an audio multitrack system.

What i'd give for the boys at VSL to produce a sequencer .. man that'd be f**king sweet.

@hetoreyn said:

What i'd give for the boys at VSL to produce a sequencer .. man that'd be f**king sweet.

Yup, I've been saying that for years. But, you know, now that they have an integrated mixing/reverb environment, I'd have to say that an integrated 'scoring environment' would really be the next logical step. I'll believe when I see it, of course, but I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility. With the amount work they've obviously put into MIR I don't think anyone could say that creating a sequencer/scoring package would be "too much work." They seem to be dedicated to making the best possible experience for orchestral composition at the computer. And a score-based sequencer would really complete the picture.

J.

Well I just confirmed you can bounce in place multi-timbral tracks in Logic 9.  You couldn't do this before.  This allows you to know bounce each of your VE3 sessions into one audio file.  This can save massive utilization.  You also have the ability to bounce one part of the multi-timbral instrument allowing you to bounce all 16 seperately to their own individual track.

Maestro2be

Another few things to note.  The spread of CPU load for people who have 4-8 cores is significantly better.  It is well distributed now.

One of my personal favorites is that the system overload messages have disappeared when hitting play the first time on a track.  That always pissed me off.  Even with 1 track of a solo violin it would crash and system overload the first time hitting play.  That doesn't happen now.

Most people are claiming that they don't even experience system overload messages at all anymore.  It has only been a few days but some of us have been purposely trying to reproduce the problems logic 8 had.  So far it has been wonderful.  Sure it has some bugs to be worked out and probably more when Snow Leopard comes out, but for now it is running better then 8 did.  Unless of course you were one of the users that never used any of the features in Logic 8 that had a bug.

*Additional note - getting lots of positive feedback that 9 is curing sluggish plug-in responses (such as gui loading times etc).  However there are some plug-ins that are not working with it at the moment.

Maestro2be

Is the score editor any better? ... if it's still the same crap as in Logic 8 then it ain't worth the upgrade for me.

Same Crap.  The only thing I see upgraded for that is guitar tabletures.  They really focused on Guitar players for this upgrade (as far as extras were concerned).

The performance and being able to bounce multi-timbral tracks are nice.  So is the imrpoved stability (so far).  I also like being able to completely import my channel/track settings from another project.  I haven't tried using varispeed yet but that could be extremely helpful for live recording really tough parts.  That let's you slow down or speed up the entire mix temporarily while you record in a live performance.  Might be good for those super tough passages and give you time to wiggle all your controllers.

For what it's worth, the score looks prettier, but the functionality seems completely the same.  I am comparing the two manuals (8 and 9) at the moment to see if there really is any improvements.  They definitely didn't post any improvements to it.

I'm really wondering whether to bother updating.... The odd feature stands out but alot of it's updating features logic already has

Varispeed. You could do some of this before in L8 with "follow tempo". It's just a bit easier now. (still no graphical pitch fixing! crazy)

BTW You can already bounce VE tracks or instances into L8.(I use multi-instrument) Using Solo/mute and then bounce. Even offline.

The overload message and false starts are annoying and if it balances out CPU cores, on C2D?, that would be useful.

Thanks for the info cgernaey.

Paul

Actually the way it bounces multi's in Logic 8 isn't qutie the same.  Here is what I mean.

The Export All Tracks As Audio command is not as elegant as Bounce In Place.  It will allow you to bounce the multi outs to separate files but you'll have to manually drag them back into the project. Choose the "One File Per Channel Strip" option. It will produce a separate file for each multi-out.  That is fine and dandy but here is what bounce in place will do.

Bounce in place is a neat way of doing all this in one keystroke for a specific region, or the whole track. - render effects, copy sends, create new track, mute old region/trac, paste/drag new file to track at correct place.  I would suggest that soloing each aux then pressing "bounce in place" is quicker.  An option from within Bounce in Place to do it automatically would of course be golden.

I am starting a request to get the ability to be able to bounce all 16 seperately with one click and have it bounce all 16 at one time seperately and drop them into your mix.

Maestro2be

Yes.

I was working with Logic 9 this morning to do the bouncing one track at a time.  I have a couple of pieces with no more than 10 instruments each, and it was very nice to use.  I started with notating in Sib. 6, transferred to Logic 9, set up the Vienna instruments and/or Ensemble 3, and bounced from MIDI to Audio.  All of my dynamics are in place from Sibelius, and now I have nice Audio tracks to work with.  Enhancing the tracks with Logic's good reverb, and doing other mixing things is just great for me in Logic anyway.  I dumped all the MIDI tracks and saved as 'bounced' file.  I also saved just the MIDI version first, in case I need to deal with that.  It's so easy to use now.  In Logic 8 I never could do this kind of bounce, only the 'real-time' version would work for me. 

I'm pretty new at any kind of bouncing of tracks, but it's very appealing to just open the music now, without having to open VE3 or VI first, after I've got the basic tracks they way I want.

I'm appreciating some of the 'little' things, like change of placement for menu items that makes more sense to me, and the new white outline to tell me what area is selected.

Well base on what I've heard so far I think I'll skip this upgrade. Logic 9 doesn't do anything that Logic 8 doesn't already for me .. and it contains no new, or interesting features that I'd use.

I suppose Logic X (as I imagine they'll call it :P), will be the next port of call for me.

Well one thing you can be certain will happen, is that once Snow Leopard comes out you can expect some type of change over to 64-bit which might change your mind lol.  As they may not do one for 8.

Maestro2be

Oh I've no doubt about that .. any 64 bit functionality will no doubt be aimed at logic 9.1 .. and I say 9.1 cos I'm also use we can expect to pay an extra $20 for a minor upgrade to activate the 64 bit layer of Logic within OS 10.6

In anycase I've actually been fairly happy with my virtual orchestra with the limitations that I have. Of course I'm looking forward to the 64 bit lift just so that one can use more RAM .. which is really all I need. But I can manage in the meantime if I have to.

It does annoy me though that Windows is proving to be more effective for musicians seeing as how MIR cannot work for OS.X .. and that we can only run so much RAM in Logic .. and apple have been bragging about being 64 bit since 2004 (Or since the G5 came out anyways). I guess I just like the Mac platform and I'm disappointed to see it out performed by Windows.

: sigh : .. what can one do eh!

Yup.  And now with Windows 7 coming out it's just another kick in the face because that OS is just amazing.  XP was the best they ever wrote in my opinion.  7 will be the death of XP.  It will also be the OS that will restore faith in MS's OS's and bring some people back to the platform.  Hell think about it.  You can build a machine with Windows 7 that can smoke a MacPro for 1/3 of the cost.  Run MIR on it and every other sequencer minus Logic.

That's a blessing for Cubase users, and a thorn in my side (being Logic).  If I wasn't so attached to Logic I would abandon MAC at this point.  I just don't feel like starting all over again with other sequencers etc.  And honestly as you've been saying.  Logic 8 still has 99% of everything most anyone needs.  9 has some updates and new things but for us midi people it's not a big update.  I won't lie, so far I haven't really used many of the new options from 9 other then bounce in place.  Other then that I realized I could do all the other things in 8, just had to do them differently or a few additional steps.  Same results though.

I use mine with VE3 anyway so my MacBook Pro is still plenty for me.  All my horsepower requirements are done by my Windows machine so thankfully I won't need a Mac Pro until my laptop dies completely.

Maestro2be

> You can build a machine with Windows 7 that can smoke a MacPro for 1/3 of the cost

You are going to cry, when you see the CPU cost of Window 7, just sitting there doing nothing !

I hope that M.S. has improve that, that it is not like VISTA (1/3 of the CPU of the 2 proc of a 2 Ghz computer)

A few month ago I saw a video of Windows 7 on Youtube it was not promising, but it was a beta !

Best

Cyril

 P.S. If you want to get a good price on a Macpro you watch the "refurb" at Apple store just before a new model comes out, I bought my 8 core 3 ghz MACPRO at 2 K€ instead of 3 k€

Indeed, it seems the Apple are gonna have to get the lead out if they're going to survive. Mind you .. this is apple we're talking about. And if there's one thing they do well, it's doing their typical .. 'as soon as everyone else looks better', they put out some amazing new piece of hardware or software.

I love the Mac platform .. the computer itself is better than any PC hardware I've ever seen. The OS is very friendly and reliable. Whereas I can always count on Windows to throw up some ridiculous error message (Okay I'm talking about XP at the moment.). On the other hand one can have the best of both worlds. One could install the new windows on a MacPro .. or Macbook Pro and take the full advantage of the hardware. So that at least is something.

But I'm seriously thinking of getting either the new pro-tools (With it's score edit, and midi edit stuff that looks good), or working from Finale .. assuming I can find the info I need on that. If finale really is the 'hot' sh*t they say it is then I may use this for my writing in the future. It's funny but years of working with VI and logic has actually taught me what I need to actually write score properly. IT's like learning how to write .. but the wrong way round :P

I have cubase 4 but frankly don't want to upgrade that unless version 5 has something better to it. I still find cubase a pain in the arse to work with cos you have to learn all of their symbology.

Bah! ... that's all you can say about tech these days. Bah!

I see what you're saying friend, but i would be very cautious about MS, 

well, I have been using Windows 7 release candidate for a while now, and you are right about one thing, it is as stable as XP was.  wanna know why?  because it is Windows XP with a new skin, it sure kicks Vista's $%^^, but it is basically XP.  same functionality, same need for drivers, same strange disappearing of hard drive space over time and same slowing down in operation over time.  All of these issues were strange in every windows release and they continue to be so...

you can download it free and try it for yourself !

Apple are no saints either, and sure there Logic release isn't exactly anything to write home about, and they know it to cause they haven't been pushing it marketing wise as they have done in the past, but one thing I know that is good enough for me.  Every time I turn on my mac it behaves exactly as I left last time, if there were bugs they are there and I can usually figure them out and avoid their causes.  In short, the system is far more predictable than windows, and a predictable system the most important thing for me as a composer.

good luck to you

David

David! 

Hey, it's James Maxwell, here. So funny to see your name pop up on this forum - I'm an old timer around here (though I haven't posted much recently). Have you got into VSL stuff lately? I'm assuming so. It's pretty amazing, as I'm sure you've noticed. This forum can get totally addictive, too, so you better watch out! ;-)

We should get together for a beer, and maybe talk about some RC... and VSL too!

cheers,

J.

@davidmesiha said:

you can download it free and try it for yourself !