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Why the 3rd Party Plugins hype?


SomeMusicKid44

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The first thing I really don't expect is my sequencer of choice being sold for peanuts. And hence being partially treated like peanuts.

I'd be a lot happier if they ditched all content, fixed the zoom, beatmapping, part handling, "capture last take..." and whatever issues and sell Logic for 400 (or even more). And yes, I would happily pay for updates in case things would be adressed the way they should be adressed.

 

This. Stop adding Alchemy presets and Apple Loops and bring EXS into 2019.

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Absolutely. However, this heavily clashes with Apple's interest to sell Macs to as many folks as possible.

 

Otoh, if they still have plans to present their computers as "state of the art", they'd possibly achieve some better advertising effect by developing a bunch of "state of the art" software. But then, for the last number of years, "state of the art" only seems to be relevant for Apples mobile gadget business.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It really isn't :wink: Logic's 'Drummer' is a very convenient way to lay down a drum track, with some really cool features for providing variety etc. However, it doesn't come close to 3rd party drum sample libraries on the scale of SD3, BFD3, or even EZdrumme, with regard to detailed dynamics, round-robin and articulation sampling. These make a huge difference when it comes down to how real a kit will sound.

 

It's exactly the same for pretty much all plugins coming with Logic:

Bread'n'Butter? Yes, pretty much everything covered rather well.

Anything beyond? No, not really.

Obviously with the odd exception such as Alchemy.

 

I don't have any problem with that, because, well, I can buy 3rd party stuff exactly tailored for my needs. Sure, things are getting more expensive then, but let's be honest, all that stuff is so cheap these days, really doesn't matter much in case you're taking things a little serious.

As said, I would much prefer if the Logic team concentrated on the core sequencing functionalities - Logic is really falling quite short in that aspect. Plus, bugs are hardly fixed anymore, features are broken and/or removed and not re-introduced. The greatest plugin suite in the world is no replacement for Logics excellent zoom functions which they completely f***ed up in LPX (it's still driving me mad almost every single minute).

 

And then, if they intend to keep delivering "content" - why not really make us "wow" for once? Give me a kind of "deeply embedded sampling suite". Allowing me to drag and drop samples from anywhere to anywhere else. Allowing me to slice, dice, re-order, map and mangle to my hearts content. Throw in a mix of synthesis (a la Alchemy) and sampling. In addition, what about a modular "sub-enviroment" for audio? Why can't I use plugins parallely (track stacks are not even remotely the same)? Why isn't is possible to switch between audio routings via MIDI CCs or other modifiers (such as LFOs) - and no, what the environment has on offer isn't even close.

These are the things making sense to be tied to a sequencer. Adding yet some more plugins and content is just an excuse for not taking care of the core technology.

 

I think the included Logic plugins and effects are great, and would have no problem if i had to work with nothing but Logic. For me, the only exception is the drummer. Clearly it works for a lot of people, in a lot of situations, but I prefer much more detailed sampling for certain things. I don't expect that they should be able to compete with the top, dedicate libraries so it's not really a shortcoming.

 

With regard to the better sampler functionality, it's surely coming at some point. Not only do they have Camel Audio's main man, but also the guy from Redmatica whom they've yet to really exploit. The potential for an EXS uber-update is huge!!

 

I do agree with the idea of addressing core functionality before adding features, but this seems to be a user-request that is echoed for all daw's, if not all types of software.

 

Personally, I've just started to fall out of love with Logic. It's an extremely capable piece of software, but just feels a bit too clunky when compared to certain competitors. It's understandable, given it's traditional, linear 'tape'- like design, which definitely has it's own advantages. However, that being it's core design makes it hard for new features to feel part of the architecture, rather than bolted-on as they do now.

 

Ultimately, at the price (especially when considering it's update cycle), it's hard not to justify having a copy of Logic hanging around, especially for mixing, years of backlogged projects etc. However, for everything else I can really imagine I'm going to be looking elsewhere.

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I just find it funny what people expect from a professional software product that’s only 199.

 

Not to be that guy, but it's only 199 because we need to buy over-priced hardware to use it :wink:

 

Anyway, to clarify: I think Logic Pro represents tremendous value, and think it's a great product. The included plugins and content are great, overall. Where I take issue is when users claim that the included samples can stand alongside dedicated, 3rd-party sample libraries. Drummer has a great workflow, but the level of detail in the sampling just can't compete with SD or BFD etc. It can't, anymore than the included strings are gonna cause VSL to panic. It's not a criticism of the included content, per se. No one should expect Logic to include world class sampled libraries, regardless of price.

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No one should expect Logic to include world class sampled libraries, regardless of price.

 

Right, I'm all with you here. But then, instead of trying to slap something in which will never really satisfy anyone (such as DKD, DMD and the Studio instruments), they should've rather offered a few improved EXS patches, call it a day and concentrate on improving the serious aspects of the program, namely its core sequencing functionality. If you look what Steinberg has done with Cubase 10, it's almost frustrating to be a Logic user - and it's not even much more expensive anymore, especially not these days with their 30y anniversary offers. Even in terms of content and plugins, Cubase 10 can possibly hold a candle against Logic.

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Right, I'm all with you here. But then, instead of trying to slap something in which will never really satisfy anyone (such as DKD, DMD and the Studio instruments), they should've rather offered a few improved EXS patches, call it a day and concentrate on improving the serious aspects of the program, namely its core sequencing functionality.

+1
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I think we a re fortunate with the fact that the Logic Dev Team has put quite a deal of emphasis on making the best quality plugins they can while making them ultra efficient. There is usually a trade off when you do this, but I think they manage to get away with it. I think it's largely due to having an influence in how the lower level audio features of the Mac develop. They have a unique opportunity they can exploit where other developers don't.

 

There are certainly improvements they can make. The obvious is updating the rest of their contingency. EXS will most likely be ousted some time in the not to distant future. I believe Alchemy is the new EXS. All they need to do is make everything 100% compatible with Alchemy, including the Convert To Sampler function and Drum Replacement feature. Then there's the unknown. What kind of plugins will we see in the future. A Loop Slicer/Manipulator is one thing many people have been calling out for. They could really do well there with direct integration into their Loop Library, making it even simpler to save our own custom stuff there too.

 

That said, there's always gaps in Logic's arsenal. Plugins like Vocal Rider, or Vitamin or the CLA Mixub is are just handy tools to have, amount many, Logic has absolutely nothing that really does the same thing. It would be nice to see a very fast implementation of their own MixHub bucket style workflow, but they just don't have one. Something like Smart Controls could work well here, but you need something specifically design for mixing that you can quickly and easy process many tracks side by side without the need to open and close so many windows.

 

There will always be gaps in Logic's arsenal so it does tend to make alot of these cheap sales prices quite advantageous.

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I believe Alchemy is the new EXS.

 

I seriously hope that this won't happen - unless Alchemys engine and UI see a massive overhaul. IMO Alchemy is a good example about how to make several trivial things a rather complicated affair. And in addition, it's a CPU hog.

 

Alchemy is powerful indeed, but workflow is not it's strong point.

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I'm a 3rd party plugin developer, so I'm not sure how to take your question about why anyone would buy a 3rd party plugin :). But, I think there are as many answers to that question as there are 3rd party plugins. DAW makers realized long ago that they couldn't possibly anticipate, let alone implement, all the tools creative musicians would want. So they've left plugin development largely to 3rd parties. If you look at the plugin landscape today, you'll see that's proven to be the right strategy. Innovative new 3rd party plugins continue to appear year after year. DAW makers are adding to their built-in plugin arsenals all the time, but they are followers. The innovation largely comes from 3rd parties.
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I'm a 3rd party plugin developer, so I'm not sure how to take your question about why anyone would buy a 3rd party plugin :). But, I think there are as many answers to that question as there are 3rd party plugins. DAW makers realized long ago that they couldn't possibly anticipate, let alone implement, all the tools creative musicians would want. So they've left plugin development largely to 3rd parties. If you look at the plugin landscape today, you'll see that's proven to be the right strategy. Innovative new 3rd party plugins continue to appear year after year. DAW makers are adding to their built-in plugin arsenals all the time, but they are followers. The innovation largely comes from 3rd parties.

 

amen 8-)

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The innovation largely comes from 3rd parties.

 

Another amen from me. I'd even make that "almost exclusively" instead of largely. The rare exceptions probably being a handful of plugins that are integrated on a somewhat deeper level, such as Steinbergs Groove Agent and, uhm, Logics EXS (even if Apple is missing out on so much great potential options...). IMO that's an area where sequencers could set themselves apart from the competition, now that the basic (and even more advanced) core functionalities are covered. I think Bitwig might be heading into the right direction with things such as their new modular environment.

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I believe Alchemy is the new EXS.

 

I seriously hope that this won't happen - unless Alchemys engine and UI see a massive overhaul. IMO Alchemy is a good example about how to make several trivial things a rather complicated affair. And in addition, it's a CPU hog.

 

Alchemy is powerful indeed, but workflow is not it's strong point.

 

All things can be improved. The more people comment about this to Apple the more it will see changes. The thing is, with practically every release Alchemy has seen a lot of improvements, its clearly a large part of Apple's priority for Logic, whereas EXS clearly isn't. So I don't see why this couldn't happen.

 

So what are people finding a problem with Alchemy that's easier in EXS. Personally, as a dyslexic, I find looking EXS' spreadsheet style editor hard to work with for prolonged periods of times. So I welcome the UI change, even if Alchemy is a bit of an overkill. Turning off the oscillators and the effects you're not using should help to some degree, providing it's been optimised that way. Usually, that is Apple's modus operandi, but Alchemy was acquired, so who knows. But it's easy enough to test.

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  • 3 weeks later...
1. Overloud TH-U is also a "terrible joke". But the real joke? None of the amp sims sound like a real guitar amp. By the time you spend all the money comparing amp sims, you could have purchased a real guitar amp lol. Better of using Logic's if you have to use a sim.

2. Adaptive Limiter can compete with most high end 3rd party limiters. This is from experience.

3. Yes Drum Kit Designer in Logic pro X sounds as good in the mix as Superior Drummer 3. I know, $400 for drum software should absolutely demolish logics little drum kit in the sound department, but it doesn't. The retro rock kit holds up well against any of my drum software including SD3 and AD2 which I own.

 

Our ego can sometimes fool us and the marketing companies do a good job stroking our ego with the wording of the products so they pull you in. Who wouldn't buy a plugin claiming to give you the classic sound of Pink Floyd, The Beatles or Rolling Stones?

 

Again, I'm not saying it's bad to own 3rd party software as I do myself, but my thing is how much is enough? These are the things you come up with as thought experiments when you spend all day every day recording and making records lol.

 

Love it!

 

You love it? You love blatant misinformation being shared as if it's gospel? That TH-U isn't miles and miles ahead of Amp Designer? That Adlimiter isn't borderline worthless compared to FabFilter L2? That depth, function and versatility of Superior Drummer 3 is the reason the base product (before all the extras you can get) fetches $400, twice the cost of the daw itself? I never said there wasn't a use for the Logic's internal things -- I've used them a ton since I bought Platinum in at version 4.7.2 and continue to today. But anyone encouraging this kind of misinformation should be ashamed. Logic is literally the best value DAW ever, by a long shot, ever since Apple re-packaged it from Emagic. And the value keeps growing with each new version. But I refuse to let misinformation like the things SomeMusicKid44 says be championed, he's borderline trolling and should be ignored.

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You love it? You love blatant misinformation being shared as if it's gospel?

 

Why do you add things that I didn't say?

 

So now I cannot just say "I love it" anymore?

 

Apparently one cannot enjoy discussions anymore, and other people start putting words in your mouth...

 

Go figure.

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There’s nothing wrong with the Logic FX and of course you can make great sounding music with them.

 

That said if you open up the Logic Vintage EQ that models the Neve 1073 and the UAD version there’s a difference, not night and day, but it’s there. And the UAD Multiband Compressor is just better than the Multipressor, sonically and controlwise. And on the UAD platform there are many that Logic has no equivalent for, none that even come close, that help me get to the sound I want far more quickly.

 

Horses for courses.

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Well, I just got my Komplete Ultimate bundle - and there's HEAPS of things that the Logic plugins don't even come remotely close to. Sure, it's mainly the sample libraries - but the differences are really night and day.

 

So, my take would still be that they should deliver a few basic sounds and plugins, improve on the things that could benefit from deeper integration on a whole number of levels (namely the EXS and Ultrabeat) and otherwise call it a day in favour of concentrating on the core functionality.

As said before, I can purchase pretty as good (in most cases even better) plugins additionally - but I can't purchase a 3rd party fix for Logic issues. And adressing those is what I expect Apple to do. Anything else is just icing on the cake.

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Well, I just got my Komplete Ultimate bundle - and there's HEAPS of things that the Logic plugins don't even come remotely close to. Sure, it's mainly the sample libraries - but the differences are really night and day.

 

So, my take would still be that they should deliver a few basic sounds and plugins, improve on the things that could benefit from deeper integration on a whole number of levels (namely the EXS and Ultrabeat) and otherwise call it a day in favour of concentrating on the core functionality.

As said before, I can purchase pretty as good (in most cases even better) plugins additionally - but I can't purchase a 3rd party fix for Logic issues. And adressing those is what I expect Apple to do. Anything else is just icing on the cake.

 

Sascha, here is what you may not be understanding, and I say this wearing my Logic Trainer hat, not my professional musician hat.

 

A lot users who come to Logic Pro are not using it to make a living, they are hobbyists, newbies, young people, or singer-songwriters who play guitar and sing and do not play an instrument well. And they doin not have the dough to invest in third party stuff. What they need is a set of sounds they can use that sound pretty good, and Logic gives them that. Logic gives them excellent FX, very good electric pianos, basses, synths, an organ, drums, etc.

 

They are not looking to create believable orchestral reproduction with samples. Professionals obviously will have moire demanding needs and therefore will turn to third party stuff.

 

With the exception of orchestral reproduction, if you cannot make great sounding music with what comes with Logic, you will not be able to with a bunch of third party stuff. Some of my students have blown me away with what they have created solely with Logic sounds.

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Jay, that is all fine and dandy - but for these people, advanced things such as Alchemy and what not aren't needed. And none of them needs a set of orchestral sounds that don't sound decent out of the box (which the Logic ones don't). They also don't need DKD with all its options. And they don't need DMD, either, simply because nobody does. Code a decent drum/sampling engine instead of coming up with yet some more strange wrappers. They're serving zero purposes.
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Jay, that is all fine and dandy - but for these people, advanced things such as Alchemy and what not aren't needed. And none of them needs a set of orchestral sounds that don't sound decent out of the box (which the Logic ones don't). They also don't need DKD with all its options. And they don't need DMD, either, simply because nobody does. Code a decent drum/sampling engine instead of coming up with yet some more strange wrappers. They're serving zero purposes.

 

You are of course entitled to your opinion but I can tell you this empirically:

 

1. The EDM people who take my class flip over Alchemy and Drum Machine Designer. Just go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over them.

 

2. The singer-songwiters who take my class have no idea what a real drummer plays, not a clue, and the fact that they can have an entire song with realistic drums parts for intro, verses, choruses, bridges, outros etc, in a bunch of genres with customizable kits is exciting for them and maybe the single MOST important included instrument for them. Plus, it teaches them what a real drummer plays.

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Yeah what you're missing with Alchemy, Sasha, is the mass of presets it's got, and it's quick controls give it such immediacy for users.

 

It's very well designed to be as complicated/advanced as you like... I almost see it as a 3 tier plugin:-

 

1. Presets only

2. Presets + Basic X/Y/Smart control control

and..

3. Oh crap where's my weekend gone?

 

lol :)

 

I'm like you in that i need to see how things work under the hood and when faced with such an instrument cannot separate myself to just use what it's got, so i go on a missino to find out what it's capable of (i.e. 'geeking out'). A young EDM student is gonna flick through presets, find a knob that makes them go 'wow' and make a cracking tune. Probably not even aware of what Alchemy 'is' as they're too focused on this mad sound that's given them inspiration - and Logic's packed full with gems like that. You're immediately able to tweak from the library presets.

 

Meanwhile we're still spending the next week working out what -EXACTLY- is the filter being used in this here plugin, and is it really as authentic to a moog as they claim lol! ;) :)

 

I'm really tempted by Komplete, especially with the deals on the 88 key keyboard as i just had to return my Yamaha MODX8 for re-occuring faults, i'm thinking whether Komplete+S88 would replace that. But i just hate the idea of wrapping everything in their plugin. :(

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1. The EDM people who take my class flip over Alchemy and Drum Machine Designer. Just go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over them.

 

Again, all fine. But let me show them Battery and they know what a really nice drum sampler looks and feels like. DMD is just a mockup. And an incredible CPU hungry one at that (at least when you start out with the factory presets).

 

2. The singer-songwiters who take my class have no idea what a real drummer plays, not a clue, and the fact that they can have an entire song with realistic drums parts for intro, verses, choruses, bridges, outros etc, in a bunch of genres with customizable kits is exciting for them and maybe the single MOST important included instrument for them. Plus, it teaches them what a real drummer plays.

 

I like Drummer - and never said anything against it (in fact, it's one of the things actually profiting from being built straight into your sequencer of choice). Yet, DKD is just another mockup and could've been done *way* more elegantly if they finally decided to either combine the EXS and Ultrabeast or come up with something new and decent - along the lines of a Battery/Geist mixture on stereoids. That would certainly impress folks even more.

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1. The EDM people who take my class flip over Alchemy and Drum Machine Designer. Just go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over them.

 

Again, all fine. But let me show them Battery and they know what a really nice drum sampler looks and feels like. DMD is just a mockup. And an incredible CPU hungry one at that (at least when you start out with the factory presets).

 

2. The singer-songwiters who take my class have no idea what a real drummer plays, not a clue, and the fact that they can have an entire song with realistic drums parts for intro, verses, choruses, bridges, outros etc, in a bunch of genres with customizable kits is exciting for them and maybe the single MOST important included instrument for them. Plus, it teaches them what a real drummer plays.

 

I like Drummer - and never said anything against it (in fact, it's one of the things actually profiting from being built straight into your sequencer of choice). Yet, DKD is just another mockup and could've been done *way* more elegantly if they finally decided to either combine the EXS and Ultrabeast or come up with something new and decent - along the lines of a Battery/Geist mixture on stereoids. That would certainly impress folks even more.

 

Ok, you must be right Sascha, after all, you would know.

 

Nothing flows through a clogged pipe so I'm done with this guy, folks.

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Well Jay, I know you just love Apple. That's fine. But trying to defend what is really qualifying as some of the most stupid ideas the Logic coders ever had (namely wrapping something up that they apparently couldn't improve from the ground up) and then getting all passive agressive is - well, "special".

 

And you have been urinating on logic on multiple forums for years. Why don't you do yourself and everybody else a favor and migrate to Cubase or DP or Reaper ?

 

OK, now I really am done with you. You are just not worth my time and energy.

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