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A Newbie's Impressions Of Logic Pro X
Pro-level audio and video software has always been daunting. While the average computer user knows how to operate them in a general sense (the advent of non-linear editing has essentially changed how we think about what we shoot and record) the addition of pro-level features like effects, mixing boards and MIDI instruments may make Trent Reznor drool but frightens bedroom guitarists.
Apple released Logic Pro X a few weeks ago to what I can only describe as quiet fanfare. The reviews spoke most highly of the built-in virtual drummer that can quickly and easily build backing tracks for your compositions and a remote control iPad app that allows for virtual control of your recordings via the tablet. Professionals lauded Apple, wondering if a new version would ever appear at all. However, I wanted to assess how usable this new software was for someone more accustomed to Garage Band and other simpler editors.
Upon opening the app, the new user will find herself in an environment reminiscent of the old game Adventure — you’re in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The app supports a number of templates, including prepared tracks for electronic music, songwriting and music scoring. Most entry-level users will want songwriting, which supplies eight clean, empty audio tracks or, if you’re the Imagine Dragons type, a pre-set collection of loops, audio and MIDI tracks in the electronic template. To use the app properly, you need a good condenser microphone or a MIDI device like a keyboard. You can also use the iPad app as a sort of mini-keyboard to input MIDI music.
As with any computer program, the old adage “Garbage In, Garbage Out” is true here. If your tracks are difficult to hear or your inputs are too low — that is your microphone isn’t picking up enough audio — you’re going to have a bad track. There are multiple effects and techniques for fixing audio in the app, but good recording technique is important.
There are multiple types of tracks in Logic Pro X, including audio recordings, MIDI and loops. Upon installation the app downloads 2 gigabytes of amazingly useful loops and fills, including music familiar to users of GarageBand, as well as sound effects like ticking clocks, comical horns and crowds. For example, while piecing together a set of audio interviews I was able to create a little transition between speakers by adding a ticking stopwatch and the sound of a crowded bar that matched the sound bed of the interview perfectly. This could have been done quite easily in GarageBand, to be sure, but the speed and feature set of Logic Pro gave me a larger, more expansive palette with which to work.
That, in short, is the biggest difference between entry-level apps and Logic. The sheer number of controls and editor tricks essentially turns this into a portable, professional recording studio for $199. Bouncing tracks to disk — that is, “rendering” them the same way you render video — results in some of the highest-quality recording I’ve ever done on my Mac, and that’s high praise.
What does it sound like? First, please understand that I’m a horrible guitarist and only now getting better. That said, here is a guitar demo of a Squier electric with built-in DSP that outputs directly as a USB device. I started with the bass line — that squawk in the background — and then added a few power chords over it. These were both audio recordings. I then looped the bass line and added a drummer track which quickly “listened” to the music and added applicable rhythms. It was surprisingly simple to record and export the entire song to SoundCloud using the share function. I recorded it on a brand-new iMac, and rendering time for the audio took a few minutes.
Next we have a charming little techno song that I wrote in approximately five minutes. Because the loops can be transposed to any key, I selected a few MIDI and digital recordings and tuned them to C Major. The drums were looped in first then the little techno dance weirdness. The electric piano you here is a MIDI file. One version of the file is played in an instrument called Crystal Pad, and the other one is in Mellow Poly. I offset them slightly and added some strings and a synth to the end. I didn’t have to know the BPM of each drum track — the samples automatically set themselves to the proper speed. It was so surprisingly easy that I couldn’t help but feel a bit pleased with my bad self. I rendered this on a new MacBook Pro and it too took a few minutes.
The app also includes an optional component called MainStage that designed for recording live events which I didn’t get to test this time around. As this is a look at the app from a newbie’s perspective I urge you to visit electronic music sites where actual studio-savvy folks may have more to say. However, Logic Pro X is clearly plenty powerful without being overwhelming.
Should you upgrade? When I first used Logic in about 2009, the app was akin to the cockpit of a fighter jet circa 1990. There were plenty of computer controls and other gewgaws to make things easier on the pilot, but you were still going to crash on take-off if you couldn’t read the dials correctly. I would equate Pro X with the cockpit of the new Dreamliner, all easy-to-use, touchscreen-inspired controls with just enough complexity to please the old timers and a simplicity that will encourage new users to jump right in. Given that I probably couldn’t have created those two bits of music in an earlier version of Logic, I would say that Apple was successful at dumbing things down just enough for idiots like me.
What could Apple do differently? Not much without alienating long-time professional users. The banks of dials and controls are important for serious audio tweakers, and musicians will appreciate the amount of control they have over every instrument. Because the app is so similar to other multi-track audio apps I’ve used, I was able to dive in right away without having to look at a bank of sliders or understand the various icons. A bit of exploration brings up far more customization and therefore beyond my ken, including the ability to control a cleverly designed robotic drummer system that gives each percussionist a charming, hipster name like Aiden, Anders and Max (with an anarchy symbol for the A, naturally). In short, Apple has turned this into an app that will please long-time users while still paving a path for GarageBand converts.
Singers and guitarists will also enjoy the Flex Time recording features like pitch and timing correction. With the right microphones you could record a studio-class album using these tools with little more than a guitar and your rebel spirit. A guitarist friend of mine commented when he saw some of the features that he “wished he’d had these tools in high school.”
“Although,” he added, “I’d probably have never gone to class.”
All is not sunshine and roses in this redesigned app. It is still daunting, and without an understanding of the terminology things can get rough. The small buttons next to each track, M, S, R, and I, stand for Mute, Solo, Record, and Input Monitoring. If you didn’t know that, you’d be at a loss to explain how to mute individual tracks without turning down the volume setting. In addition the ability to create stacks with individual tracks is a bit confusing until you realize stacks are simply containers for a few tracks – say a backing bassline and drum track that you want to use over and over or a large orchestral section over which you want granular control. You can turn these stacks up and down like single tracks and even reuse them in other projects.
Like most other pro-level tools, I’m sure I’ll hear from users who will complain that Logic is overblown or unusable, referring instead to their ability to record 20-piece jazz bands using a Tascam 8-track digital recorder and Sony’s Acid (my musician friend can do this and more using software he hasn’t updated since the early 2000s). That said, I consider tools like Logic to be equivalent to typewriters in the 1960s: You could find a better one if you looked, but sometimes an Olivetti portable with just the right amount of key travel was exactly what you needed, and all of them got the job done.
What advice can I offer the newbie at Logic? Get a good microphone — I have a Blue Microphones Yeti but you can find something similar — and MIDI keyboard. That, in short, is all you need to get started. Then follow the directions to Carnegie Hall, and practice, practice, practice. I’ve decided to move from GarageBand to this version of Logic in order to edit our podcasts and my occasional forays into songwriting, and I would argue that this would have been impossible in the previous version of the app. The complexity was just too daunting and those twisty little passages, all alike, were too dark for my meager lamp to illuminate. Now, by fitful torchlight, I can attempt to use the app the way the pros use it and, most important (and at the risk of mixing games), I’m in no danger of being eaten by a Grue.
Was Promised Flying Cars, But Would Settle For Something Practical
After your laundry has been pressed and folded for you. After you’ve been driven to and fro in black cars, and flown in black jets. After you shopped online for weekends on end.
After you’ve had your house cleaned, and dog walked, and food delivered. After you’ve messaged your friends for the millionth time. After you’ve figured out where the best place to vacation is, and what airline will get you there. After you’ve decided between five-star hotels or staying in a quirky downtown loft. After you’ve boated and biked and hiked and used up all those spa coupons. After you’ve organized and updated your music collection, and checked out all the new releases, and built a hundred playlists. After you’ve streamed all your favorite shows on demand, and filled up your e-reader with titles. After you’ve recorded your steps and breaths and dreams. After you’ve uploaded your dog’s health data into the cloud. After you’ve video-chatted and second-screened. After you’ve tweeted and retweeted. After you’ve posted, reblogged and liked. After you’ve beaten that level.
After you’ve bought another tablet and another phone and a new computer and that thing that’s still in beta.
Will you have any free time to build something for the rest of us?
It’s just so great that a small percentage of people believe that the toughest challenge we face today is that we haven’t figured out how to effectively share our iPhone photos (we have: it’s called email), or we can’t seem to find new art to hang on the walls of our beautiful houses.
But far outside the Valley, there are families who are buying their first computer, and it’s a smartphone. And they didn’t wait in line for it. They walked in the store and got the cheapest one that “has the Internet” and “lets you do email” and “has a few games.”
They walked in the store and got the cheapest one that “has the Internet” and “lets you do email” and “has a few games.”
Some of these are the same people who are trying not to lose their homes, or who are working two or more jobs. They are planning grocery and clothing budgets and fretting over how to pay for bills and college educations. They’re paying off credit cards and student loans. They’re clipping coupons and deal hunting. While technology is no longer inaccessible and unfathomable to them the way it was in the IT-controlled era, it’s also not seen as the answer to every problem.
Mainly because they have problems that technology is still failing to solve.
Do you know what it’s like to apply for jobs right now, for example? It’s a nightmare. You browse through a decent-enough aggregator like Indeed.com, sign up for alerts and save the ones you like. But when you click through to apply, each company’s website has its own complex system requiring manual entry of everything you already have detailed on your resume and cover letter. Sometimes you can upload your resume and it can import some of the times, places and job titles — which it inevitably gets wrong. Other times you click “Next” over and over to correct mistakes, such as the previously unmet password requirements, or selecting the response you had missed from one of the dozens of drop-down boxes, or putting a date or your phone number in their preferred format.
And then, when you finally get through, you’ll find that you’re only one page in out of a 10-page job application process. What hell! As if this is the only company where you’re trying to find work, and not one of a hundred you’ll probably apply to over the next few weeks. (Really, just because Apply with LinkedIn exists doesn’t mean everyone is using it — or even that, eventually, everyone will.)
And hey, did you know that you can actually walk into grocery stores and walk out with free food, but the only people documenting what’s basically a hackable loophole in the couponing system is an assortment of mommy bloggers who have the free time needed to sit at home and clip, print and stack and match coupons? I mean, that seems like something more people would get into if it weren’t so labor-intensive.
Oh, and do you know how tough it is to truly evaluate nearby schools, caregivers, extracurriculars and activities, because it’s all Yelp reviews and flawed rating systems and word-of-mouth? (Nah, probably not — because your Yelp reviews are to die for, aren’t they?)
And did you know that some of those debt-consolidation companies are actually trying to scam people?
Do you have any idea how much gas costs today?
Or mobile data?
I’m thousands of miles from Silicon Valley, and know people who have lost their homes, and who are working two jobs that barely total the income of their previous one. I also know what it’s like to live on a fixed income, where a subscription-based anything is considered luxury.
I know there are people who don’t think that $1,000 or $10,000 or $100,000 or even hundreds of thousands of dollars is a lot of money, but I also know people who don’t even have a bank account. I know people whose entire lives could be changed with someone else’s annual shoe budget.
These aren’t just the working poor, or the homeless guy you step over until he can help you test your new iPhone app beta. They’re regular people. Friends, family, neighbors, employees, colleagues. (Maybe they can’t afford the rent where you live, so you haven’t met them yet?) Some are college graduates with years of experience. Some have industry-specific skills instead. Some are trying to balance raising children and working from home. You can call them the normals if you want, but they’re really just people who are living lives accompanied by technology rather than obsessed by it. And they’ll care when you build something that matters to them.
Another ex-Googler/Facebooker/Appler/Yahooer-backed mobile photo-sharing application is probably not that something.
But whatever, right?
Why build a better way to apply for jobs for the un-LinkedIn? Why worry about how people can get out of debt more quickly, or figure out their student loans? Why solve boring problems like helping companies provide better health insurance for employees? Or helping people find good schools or good doctors? Or help to crowdsource saving for a child’s future? Or help people’s families back home eat? Why worry yourselves with the exorbitant cost of mobile data? Or providing a home for the bullied and sad and scared to find support? Why build cars that don’t crash? Or even work on something harder like launching ships into space or saving lives through data mining?
It would be so much cooler to build the next Facetasnapchatwittergram. After all, you might make a billion dollars anyway just by repurposing the same old social friending/following model for a particular niche (Facebook for X) or iterating on the feature set (but the photos disappear!).
Look, it’s not that everyone has to solve the everyman or everywoman’s problem or, god forbid, change the world. It’s just that some of you can and you choose not to.
Plain vanilla tastes fine, and it’s so much harder to invent new flavors when the world you live in is so inexplicably struggle-free and creamy smooth that you have to invent solutions to the things that aren’t really problems, but just a function of being alive and human, employed and not starving to death. Things like ordering a drink at a bar. Or wearing clean clothes. Or taking a picture with a smartphone and sending it to someone.
The best technology makes computing effortless and accessible to more people. It improves lives and pushes humanity forward the way the invention of the personal computer and web once did. And yeah, maybe sometimes it reminds us of things we read in sci-fi novels or seem to function like magic. It’s not cliché to say that’s what we should aspire to. Technology transforms dated business models and makes things obsolete. It flattens hierarchies and gives people voices. It connects and corrupts and dissolves and erodes the past. At its best, it is a remarkable, world-changing thing. At its worst, it is just another thing.
I was promised flying cars and moon colonies.
Maybe there is only one guy capable of building flying cars (or electromagnetic tube transport, if we’re being specific). But I doubt it.
And if you’re not building something akin to flying cars, then I’d settle for something practical.
Google Rolls Out New “Views” Site For Geotagging And Sharing Your Android Photo Spheres
If you’ve got an Android device running version 4.2 or later, chances are you’ve tried capturing a photo sphere — one of those nifty little 360-degree panoramas that let you spin around to capture your surroundings until vertigo sets in. Instead of just letting those photo spheres languish on your phone or on your Google+ account, though, Google has thought up something awfully keen for them.
You know what I’m getting at (the headline was probably hint enough). Google has fired up a new Views page that lets users tie their photo spheres to specific locations for when static maps and satellite fly-bys just aren’t immersive enough.
The process is simple enough: once you’re logged in to Google+ and mosey over to the Views page, you’re given the option to import all of the photo spheres stored in your Google+ account. Haven’t uploaded them to Google+ yet? That’s fair — you can upload them to Google Maps straight from the stock Android gallery app, too. Google Product Manager Evan Rapoport also confirmed that users who share those photo spheres will also be able to view them from their own Views user page, which looks a little something like this. As you’d expect, you’ve got easy access to a grid of all your photo spheres, but a single click lets you pull out into a wider map view to see where all of those spheres were captured.
It’s all rather neat, but to be quite honest it’s about time Google managed to make the whole photo sphere experience meatier. Sure, they’re easy enough to shoot, and the end results are generally pretty impressive, but users were always fairly limited with what they could do with those photo spheres after the fact. At least now users who have dedicated themselves to creating awesome photo spheres (I’m sure there are more than a few people who fall into that category) have a centralized spot to show off some of their most impressive work. Of course, it’s not hard to see how Google benefits from this.
As intrepid as Google’s crew of drivers and trekkers are, there’s only so much in terms of resources the company can devote to making the world’s varying locales accessible from a web browser. Now that it’s easier for folks to share their photo spheres, Google could theoretically serve up on-the-ground views of any (human-accessible) location by displaying those photo spheres in Google Maps proper. I wouldn’t expect Google to try anything quite that bold until Android 4.2′s adoption figures swell a bit, but it’s certainly something to keep an eye out for.
Rover, A “Dogbnb” Site, Raises $3.5M And Nabs Commercial Promotion From Petco
Rover, the Airbnb of dog sitting, has raised a $3.5 million funding round led by Petco. The pet specialty giant, now one of Rover’s largest investors, will be joining the site’s board of directors. The two are at work on commercial promotion of Rover across Petco’s lines of business.
Rover CEO Aaron Easterly told us that this fundraising is more of an ancillary round than an official series. The important thing, he said, is the strategic relationship with a leading pet supplies retailer.
“When we were in our early stages we talked with people at Petco. We thought we had very similar philosophies on how the pet business was evolving,” Easterly said. “We had similar values, so we agreed to stay in touch. We rekindled that conversation after our Series B, as we were a little more mature and had a lot of growth to point to.”
Easterly said that the site’s biggest growth challenge and greatest opportunity is the 90 percent of dog owners that do not use commercial solutions for housing their dogs while they are away. Easterly derived this stat by looking at the existing market size in the American Pet Products Association National Pet Owner’s Survey and comparing it to an estimate of how big the market would be if all dog owners used a commercial service when they traveled. This is calculated by using Census data on households, the National Pet Owner’s Survey, and U.S. Travel Association.
Most of this 90 percent of people don’t even think to look for a service like Rover, Easterly said, and instead turn to family and friends for dog sitting. It’s a visibility problem that Rover has thus far sought to rectify with mass-media campaigns in TV and radio, and that promotion by Petco could go a long way in alleviating.
Although Rover faces competition from similar sites like DogVacay, Easterly said that their true competitors are those family and friend dog sitters.
Rover’s 150,000-person member base is relatively broad, but it does skew older than one might expect of a startup: Their biggest single demographic group is women aged 35-45. This is the group that sees itself as pet parents rather than pet owners and cares about whether their dog gets to sleep in a bed, Easterly said. These owners may be more likely to spend extra money on their pets, but at an average price of $30 a night, Rover is within most dog owners’ means.
This is Petco’s first investment in an early-stage, offline company, Petco VP of Business Development Ted Root tells us. Working with Rover is an opportunity to grow the service side of their offerings, which already includes in-store grooming and vaccinations.
“We believe that there’s rapid growth opportunity in certain slices of the service segment in the pet specialty arena,” Root says. “There are lots of mature services like grooming and things along those lines but boarding is highly fragmented… We see the opportunity to take advantage of a formalization of this super fragmented market where people have leaned on friends and family for a long time.”
Rover specifically complements Petco’s Pooch Hotels, daycare and boarding locations where dogs can play with each other. Dog owners want variety in their overnight options, and Rover is helping Petco deliver that. The involvement with Rover also provides another online growth avenue to Petco, which is strong in its brick-and-mortar presence.
The commercial evidence of the Petco partnership will become visible in the next few months, Easterly says, although he did not provide specifics on what that will look like beyond Petco offering Rover’s services to its customers.
Although Petco will be its main focus in the coming months, Rover also plans to release its Android app soon, as it is currently only available for iPhone. The mobile apps are primarily focused on keeping pet owners in contact with their pooches while they are away, through photo sharing and text communication.
Rover raised $7 million in Series B funding led by Foundry Group last February after closing a $3.4 million round led by Madrona Venture Group in April 2012.
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