LOGIC 11 - What just happened?! 

DAW School: How To Use Logic Pro - our latest course is now available - check it out! Fully supporting the new features in Logic Pro 11 thinkspace.ac.uk/courses/daw-school-how-to-use-logic-pro/

Without mentioning all the various issues with AI. I just don't think this needed to be a full numbered release

To adapt a quote... I want AI to do the washing up so I have time to write bass parts, I don't want AI to write bass parts so I have time to do the washing up

Every company is jumping on the Ai bandwagon as they think its todays rubik cube , the trouble is the consumers don’t even want it. We use logic because we enjoy making music , whats the point if the computer does it for you 🤦‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️

This A.I. b*ll*cks reminds me of those cheesy home organs you could get in the 1970s with their ‘Bossa Nova II’ rhythms and autochord accompaniments. Even in those days you thought “ok, but what’s the point of it?”

Having numerous ¼" stereo tapes of songs and other music that we recorded back in the 80s, and all of the 16- and 24-track masters long since gone, the stem splitter actually works really well for those. So far I've only digitized one tape with 3 songs on it, all featuring drums, bass, piano, rhythm guitar, and lead guitar fills, plus of course, vocal. Imported the stereo audio into Logic Pro 11, applied Stem Splitter, and got some very usable stems that were better than I expected. Re-mastered using some modern tools such as Smooth Operator, a couple of Sonible's smart: range of plugins, and APU Adaptive Loudness Compressor, and hey presto - brought them bang up to date. They actually sound surprisingly good. Now THAT is what I would use the Stem Splitter for - not pirating samples from Taylor Swift or whoever. By the way - v11.0.1 was released today, fixing a whole raft of early-reported bugs.

The AI piano track seemed to emulate early Elton John. Overall, what it creates is mundane, pedestrian, trite, etc. I think it's a big step backwards.

Just to be clear, the Mastering Assistant does work on Intel macs (I have one from 2020) but you only get the Clean preset.

I started recording in 1992 using the Tascam PortaStudio's, then the only real choice for newbies of the day back then. I had a 424 4 Track and later the last great cassette PortaStudio the 488mkII 8 track machine. After years with ADATS, desktop DAW's and then on laptop, I began to use the iPad & iOS music production apps exclusively in my home studio since 2015. I love the tactile feel and the ability to record anywhere. I was a little taken by surprise when Guy dismissed Apple's description of what the Stem Splitter could do with old demos etc. watch @ 10:31 . I had many songs that were stereo submixes from my PortaStudio days that I've recorded new parts to. Some turned out nice while others didn't because the stereo rhythm tracks were glued together and made mixing problematic. If the drums just weren't happening, short of compression there wasn't much to do. Stem Splitter is great for instances like that and while I see Guy's point I personally think using some Taylor Swift, et al. track to nab a drum part or backing vox will get old quite quickly. Making old bits & demos into complete songs will prove to be longer lasting.

I really appreciate your insights and approach! Stay charming and bonkers.

Excellent? Diving right in to Daw School. Plus I have one of those Baskervilles....

Having been a professional classic musician, composer, conductor, singer, for four decades now, I have decided to give a try to digital composing, a bit for the fun and a bit for the, why not, chances of opening a new market for my music making. Your channel is one of my favorite learning sources because not only of your amazing knowledge but also because it is clear that for you expertise and boredom don’t forcedly have to walk together. Thanks, Guy, for the knowledge and for the fun!

Absolutely loved the dog part! Happiness all round.

So it's basically Band in a Box?

It's been really bugging me how much people are treating the AI tools as if they're the death of creativity, when they're just additional tools that aren't much more than what was there already. And also yeah, why do people keep on not realizing that Logic had a chord track for versions 7-9? I guess most current Logic users only started with version 10 or something so they'd not have known it was there before Apple removed it for unknown reasons. The stem splitter is super useful for making karaoke tracks and I'll definitely be using it for that. It's not terribly useful for the stated purposes. Chroma Glow is something I haven't played with yet but I need to give it a try. I also like the new Session Bass instrument, which IMO is better than NI's Scarbee Bass (due to its incredibly rich and detailed articulations with piano roll articulation integration), although the Session Piano instrument is still a far cry from the NI Piano Collection. And the AI mastering assistant came out in the last 10.x release and I find it super useful for my fast turnaround music production. I've been using it heavily for a while.

You are a very honest person, Guy. I'm on PC so this does not apply to me, but I did enjoy the review.

What a fun pup! 💚 unconditional love!

Excellent video - informative and entertaining as well. Thanks a lot! Good to know that all the AI functionality will not work for me right now on my 2020 MB Air. Concerning the "DAW School" course: I hope that it will also be helpful for me (being on Logic X) as well, right?

I think it would be good to remember that these new AI featured are more aimed at the new generation of music creators. We can’t expect logic to not implement AI tech whilst other DAWS do so. Apple need sales, if they didn’t add these updates, the DAW sales would largely increase for FL studio and largely decrease for Logic. Ultimately I think these updates are a good thing. Being able to split stems from a splice sample and make even more unique sample based hip hop or electronic music. Being able to have Logics AI to generate a chord progression and melody that can be transported to a completely different sound and flipped into something completely different. With all that said, this update is clearly aimed more at the producers of the hip hop/electronic realms as opposed to that of a music composer. And that’s absolutely fine! There’s a place for all of it.

The stems splitter is pretty mindblowing! I used online services for this and it is quite a bit slower to process, may be because of the queue I'm not sure, but the possibility to do it this fast, locally is really great

I'm from the school of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'. I'm sticking with Logic 10, I can't see anything in 11 that would change what I do or my enjoyment in writing. But a fascinating and honest review, thanks Guy.

We just shouldn't be using AI technology to do things that humans are already good at. It's a waste of time and resources. Computers should be directed toward doing things that computers are better at so humans can spend more time doing things that humans are good at.

Aww. What a beautiful dog!

So was band in a box circa 1990 AI?

Just purchased the course. Looking forward to taking it! Thanks for the video, Guy!

Super thank you Guy. I met one of the people that created the original drummer tracks for Apple. Super clever stuff. It seemed intended for people who could not play drums to begin with from what he was saying such as PD users of logic. Can anyone remember the harp gliss that guy recommends ?

So is the classic virtual drummer interface feature gone for good? is there anyway of accessing it?

He's such a great presenter - always good energy and pacing.

I used the keyboard player on arpeggio mode to come up with a passable background harp section. Needed some tweaking, but it was a quick hack that saved me time.

Cool!

Quite pleased to have the new session players; been exactly what I was looking for in plugins and now I've got it right there in Logic alongside drummer. Brilliant.

Your dog is hilarious 😂

In defence of the Stem Splitter - I've found it quite informative to split out the stems to get a clearer listen to the drums - there's a lot of little programming tricks I hadn't noticed in the full mix. So it's been quite educational - and I'm hoping as time goes by they expand it to be able to pull out more isolated instruments... But I can also see me ripping an acapella for stuff lol.

Oh my word! I didn't think I could love you any more than I already do, and then you go and show the footage of you and the dog.

The puppy hyper like you, full of LIFE!!

The stem-splitter is awesome, especially if you are a DJ and want to play with a song or remove vocals for re-singing it yourself. It works really well.

Not sure about the whole chord, play along AI thing, but I AM loving the acoustic bass instrument by itself (no AI required)

In a couple of years you just have to type in "car chase", "first kiss" or "grandma dies" and you get your cue.

Ugh, I have to choose a DAW and was leaning towards Logic Pro as I have a Macbook Air, however apparently my OS is already too old to run this program. Any other suggestions? If I have to fork out the money for a DAW I will definitely not have enough money to buy another computer. On top of that I would have also liked to take this course but now it seems I won't be needing it. GarageBand and Ableton Live Lite are just not cutting it for me anymore - what should I do??

i love all your videos and your amazing skills and having established Thinkspace Ed! I feel you didn't explore the session players feature more as per other 'tubers one of which showed how you can drop an audio loop in there and the players will groove to it- Also if you convert your audio loop to Midi there are even more changeable options avail....plus the players styles are very tweakable in terms of the intensity , patterns riffs chord and hand positions etc

I would use a different preset on the Grand Piano session track. Sad you didn’t try it out and made some adjustments in general, or tried to use the follow function against other piano or keyboard performances 👍 But you may have tried it out and didn’t find anything to show. Anyway, I found a massive amount of possibilities, and not least together with other software instruments.

You’ve got this so right Guy. I have had a very long creative career here in NZ, my first computer DAW was the awfully ambitious Total Music on my 128k Mac thru Notator and every version of Logic including scoring movies in Logic running locked to Pro Tools when Logic’s TDM implementation was pretty dodgy but Logic 11 really is taking the piss. It’s a step up from Band In A Box……but only a small and unnecessary step up. It will bring Logic to the masses of amateur dabblers but the only way Composers/Producers who do this for a living will use these supposed AI session musicians is likely to be in desperation or if they use them in ways totally different from which they were intended. Tim Cook is basically announcing to the world that Apple is giving up on the professional world. The fact that the program doesn’t utilise the power of the more recent Apple CPUs and in actual fact runs slower on an M4 than an M1 is telling us that the basic EMagic code behind the DAW is never likely to be updated is telling us that audio-wise Apple is the new Digidesign. Time to have another go at Studio One even for a 70 year old semi-retiree! Love your work Guy.

The trouble with AI is that it is never going to write the song that you would have written with your own Musical identity. I feel that even though it will be acceptable it is never going to blow you away, as if you had written it in the way you wanted it to sound.

I’ve talked with a few who are still on an old trash can Mac Pro who are using Logic Pro 11… just updated their system to Mac OS 13. Right now I’m on Mac OS Monterey because it’s a stable system for all the software I use… I believe that soon enough I’ll try to move to 13 and see what happens.

I've just bought Cubase 13 after having been a Logic user for about 15 years. Is there a DAW school for Cubase, or is one coming soon? Many thanks, Greg

Thanks for possibly the most astute, accurate and objective review of this DAW. Unfortunately Logic (similar to all other DAWs I'm sure) has a large and dedicated fan club who are more than happy to mindlessly dive head first into Apple's rabbit hole of highly controlled bling. Ooh-Aah-ing all over the useless and pointless trinkets. I was similarly afflicted (a bit at least) - until I discovered REAPER!

Some interesting features but definitely not what I expected 11 to be. I’m more interested in comparing the Mastering Assistant to Ozone (though I’m assuming there’s a clear winner there)

I’m a mediocre keyboard player, so I can see how the auto pianist could be quite handy in a non-featured rôle. I’m, actually a pretty good bassist but I had a lot of fun with the Session Bassist too - it came up with fills and licks I wouldn’t have considered, so it’s a good way to breaking yourself out of compositional ruts. I didn’t immediately take to the removal of the handy little percussion loops that I used to use all the time, you can still sort of get to them through Session Drummer but they don\t seem, for now at least, as immediately useful as they once were. The splitter is handy for, as you say, cannibalising records to get at little elements to steal. The kin of music I make has been doing stuff like that since Grandmaster Flash. Other musicians have been composing variations on other composers’ ideas since the Baroque era, so I’m not as exercised about that as some people seem to be. It’s just a better tool for doing an old job. Chromaglow is nice. I can see it becoming a cliché before long, then spending a few years in the long grass before finding its proper place - like the wah-wah pedal or the D50. But what I REALLY came to say is: That ‘It’s Not Unusual’ pastiche is spot-on. So well-observed and executed. You should send it to Sir Tom!

I’m one minute in and I suspect Barbara Woodhouse has gone into a spin cycle in her grave. 🤣 Fantastic channel!

Hi, Guy. On a bit of a tangent. I've run out of memory in my laptop and was wondering, what brand of mass storage device do you use for music production ? I know it's got to have ultra-fast transfer rate and that obviously limits the choice, so I thought I'd best ask the maestro. Cheers !

I have totally used stem splitter for demo recovery!! But…. I can see how some people would use it for piracy related stuff.

For the Stem Splitter I would have to disagree on the piracy concerns… I mean there will be those who abuse it but for me it’s great news bc I’ve a bunch of old tracks which I bounced and as I learned music production, they don’t sound this good to me anymore. And since all of them I lost the access to due to hard drive failure, this feature allows me to remaster the tracks without having to record everything from scratch. Even though it’s a very particular case, I know some people who could make use of it in a similar way! 11:26

It's my song Tim's mixing in the course! (Shameless Plug) lol

Guy, I think your dog really just wants to get on with using Logic!!🤣🤣

I have an old song that I lost files too and I remember getting soo mad since I have an old demo This update is defiantly gonna be massive to me cause Ill have to use the stem splitter

So what are the things you wanted to see Logic phase into Logic 11? Curious minds. Sorry if you answered this in another vid...I'm new to your channel. Love the big pup.

If the original logic ‘drummer’ is also considered ai, then I’ve used it as a tool on a song and released it. I’d like to add that I’ve also used melody sauce 2 on a couple of songs, yet I don’t consider myself a lazy producer. 🎹♥️

I wanted SO BADLY to see what happens when you up the Complexity slider at 2:53 from its paltry 1/3 setting! And perhaps even the Feel and Humanize (sic) knobs also. Perhaps the AI accompaniment wouldn't sound so dreary and plodding? Just a thought, Guy!

ok i not gonna comment on logic.. you had me with the dog O.... My boy has a massive Great Dane that loves to play and blacked my eye with his tail. LOL.. God vide.. man. be safe...

I updated it. As I had a client who did a project in Ligick 11. It is absolute bloatware. I am so glad I switched DAW's.

Hey Guy, I just noticed recently that Dolby has something called Atmos. Has that been incorporated into Logic yet?

What a cute cat!

Surely writing a chord track choosing the variations and instruments is more creative than just using loops?

I'm not a logic user...Cubase FTW! ..... I'd like to think folk will break this...creatively....and I'm thinking on the lines of say, Brian Eno and a DX7 or other artists who perhaps use instruments in a way that is not intended .... fascinating stuff :)

Can Logic 11 be setup to look and function exactly as 10? That is, can you pick and choose what of the new components you have to see or deal with? Or do some of these AI features gum up the screen no matter what? And even if they don't, they still reside in and create extra bulk for the program, right?

Hi Guy, I would never use AI with my composing. I do not like AI. I truly know that composing music and being creative belongs to me, not some algorithm. It's fun that Apple put so much work into an AI model for Logic, but again. I'll make sure I compose in the style of "Me". :) Thanks for showing this. It's great that they have a free upgrade, but I'll stay with Cubase.

The A.I. Thing is just like most of the buzz words of the 2000s, which of course were mostly for marketing.

It’s odd that they haven’t seemed to have updated the score editor in any way.

My two English cream golden retrievers are exactly the same.

I really need a decent score editor in Logic. Because what they give us is abysmal. I am sick and tired of having to wrestle with it - only to eventually export a midi file and edit that in Sibelius or MuseScore...

Hei Guy, long time no see :) greetz from 🇨🇭🇨🇭🇨🇭🇨🇭🇨🇭🇨🇭🇨🇭🇨🇭

AI is overwhelming I can't handle it anymore

It seems Logic Pro is entering the realm of FL Studio.

I can see helping me come up with ideas but why would I want anything to create music for me!?

Thank you. I really appreciate you rummaging through this stuff because I’ll never use it. I’m just stuck in my ways and I’m not engaging this future landscape.

Well said! Not sold! Sounds a worse upgrade than Cubase 13! More dog please 😊

Guitarist who doesn't play keys or drums here. My first impression of the new bits was that the session players were pretty crap out of the box. After a bit of mucking around though I find that with quite a lot of tweaking (not really how one tends to think of A.I.) the drums and keys at least can get you decent results - especially if you use them to play other samples. The bandmate function in EZdrummer 3 is far more "A.I" I would say in that you feed it a couple of bars of something and it analyses the tempo/style and presents you with a range of song part beats that will work. I do love the mastering and saturation plugins and as you say its all free.

Can’t use it on my intel iMac because it won’t work with the Score Editor open! Just becomes so slow and sticky it is unusable. I have been on to Support but no joy.

I am actually using it to split old demos out.

Never clicked so fast on a video

So it basicly does sounds like any arranger keyboard since the 90ies. That is progress :)

Guy can we get a new video on daw control surfaces and fader controllers? Last one you made was two years old

Great observations! Arpeggiators & sequencers have been around for decades, the first attempts at algorythmic generative sequencing in Garageband were even talked about by Brian Eno. If used as inspirational tools, like breaking writer's block they can be fun and useful. Yes, the hype with AI is a bit too much, but it's the same old game of developing generative sequencing. Creative artists just have to balance machines and one's own creative musical voice. Lazy dabblers will always be pooping sonic garbage, like a lot of the the banal stuff that has come out since machines came into the studios. Synths & drum machines can do wonders, some people don't even edit the presets, what to speak of coming up with new sounds or rhythms! True artists will always be curious and find a way to use an old guitar as well as the most advanced machines or software.

I can't go beyond 10.7.9 as I'm stuck on Monterey with my trash can Mac Pro. I don't see any reason to upgrade my computer for this. I'm still waiting for them to allow us to colour tracks White or Black, like I can in Ableton! Am assuming Logic 11 still doesn't allow that. (While sceptical about AI and agree with many of the comments on here, the new AI Remove tool in Adobe Lightroom is absolutely incredible and works really well. It can have its uses.)

That’s it. I’m going to get philosophical. I see where this is all going. Not just in music, but with society. Everyone knows something ain’t right. It’s not. Please forgive me Guy for changing topic, but this is too important. For a second, please go big picture with me. Forget about Logic Pro 11 or AI. The real problem is greater and it’s holistic in nature. The core question we will be haunted by in the 21st century will force us to look inward, not “forward”. The question: WHAT IS MY WORTH AS A LIVING BEING? As distinct from all the present and future breathtaking technological advances for example? The answer is your worth is immeasurable because your essence is not dead matter like our bodies are. Or like tech is. We are of a different energy. Living Force. We never die, just our bodies do. We aren’t our bodies. And knowing this truth is only the beginning. It’s so fundamental, but modern society has forgotten who we are. Not such an easy hole in the damn to plug with our little fingers. Consider, when a stranger takes a baby from its mother, if the stranger tries offering the baby all the money in the world to stop the baby from crying, all the toys in the world, anything at all.. You will witness that the actual value of all riches in the world amount to nothing in seconds, and the relationship of love and protection wins without question. I’m old enough to remember hearing stories in grade school that would convey such meanings as well as other basic truths that help a society function. We had the golden rule, boy who cried wolf, tortoise and the hare. These were part of our fabric. They ended up forming how we acted and treated each other. What do we got now? You know what. You all see it. If you were born into it you might be inclined to not think any differently. I appeal to you all that our situation is even more dire than the child’s. We have just learned to settle for as little of the real stuff as we possibly can, and that is all coming to a head now. This problem has festered in our hearts for too long. Look at the zombies walking around. Or as sir Paul once sang so bittersweetly “all the lonely people…where do they all come from?” Anyone think maybe we got a big problem that isn’t going away? As long as there is a host willing to be fed upon, the parasite will continue to grow, and the host will continue to deteriorate. Whether the parasites do it for money or ill intent, doesn’t really matter. What matters is who are we? Social media is answering that question for young girls at the moment. They’re more depressed than ever thinking they have no worth unless…they strive to be some particular way. What real help is anybody giving them? No! Their value is intrinsic! Our value is intrinsic, just as the baby’s value to the mother cannot be estimated. It’s too great. My heart breaks that they think this, and it breaks again that no one tells them the truth. Social media is simply poisoning them, but they can do something about it. They can choose to give it the middle finger. Dog excrement can be very unsettling but you don’t spend your life trying to please it or conform your life to it. You see it for what it is, and quickly move on to better things. But as a society we are not moving on to better things because we were told the excrement is what we need to focus on. We escape the dark confines of our prison-like minds, by reaching out deep within ourselves to rest like a baby in the arms of that perfect loving protector who loves unconditionally. Then we, our true selves, are beyond any poisonous influence. We can be free. Love to you all out there.

Try converting the session player track to midi, then trashing it to get rid of all that nasty muzac feel.

The fact I didn’t even know there was a Logic 11…

Actualy, on my side, it's far quicker for me to play music with my un-artificial human fingers than to "program" chord progressions. And if I want a bass line or a piano, it's the same, I play it like I did since almost 50 years. I guess this feature is aimed toward to those who can't play (people with disabilities, drummers, toddlers, guitar players, etc...) More generaly, about this version for a DAW I use since...well...since when it was named Creator/Notator, my feeling is it's more a 10.9 version than a v11. I'll wait for V15 to get a plugin search engine. 😁 The stem splitter. I'm not sure it's better than Ultimate Vocal Remover (which doesn't need M ships, is free and does more than just than taking care of vocals bit also demix drums, bass and "others", like Logic). When a stem splitter will be abble to extract violins, cor anglais, taikos, male voices and castagnets, without artifacts, maybe it will be realy useful. The mastering assistant: It's not a v11 new thing, it's there since the 10.8 version. In my opinion I think the Izoptope Ozone things which offer such feature give more controls. The Logic's mastering assistant is a "black box", you put things in it and you cant' control almost nothing. The aesthetic of the new plugins like Chromaglow: Is it just me to find it terribly kitsch? Orange-yellow, purple and fancy osciloscopy things... It looks like an Eurovision contest. Just wait and we'll get glittering fur texturing.

The problem with music created on a computer is that the music can sound repetitive and mechanical if you’re not careful.😊

A.I. is like social media, It’s only as good as the culture that uses it and from everything social media has demonstrated, A.I. will be a net negative addition to music.

I had Logic 9, which was pretty costly, but Apple didn’t offer any discount when X came out, so I went away. I thought I might try Eleven, but now I’m safely staying away. I really want this to be the DAW just because it has no dongle or subscription, but they’re going more toward non musicians (beginners). I guess if you’re just starting out, this may be okay, but please we don’t need robots to write more bad songs.

Aaaar Jim Lad! 😂

I would have preferred they fix the bugs to be honest. A lot of the time, there will be bugs sitting there for years without being fixed. But this is why I use multiple DAWs.

A lot of it feels like tools for non musicians to be honest. Which is fair enough. It still works basically the same as X which is perfectly fine for me.

I'm watching Logic 11 saying, "Oh cool," proceeds to use the garage band 😂

Reaper, for when you know how to play your instruments and just want to get things done without crashing... For everything else there's Logic 😁

is that a Golden retriever or Great Pyranese>?

I am happy with my Monterey OS so will not change my entire OS just for Logic Pro.

How do I start with logic?

This Logic update sums up why I left Apple years ago. They are not interested in serious software updates for professionals. A quality review by Guy, nonetheless.