The Entire History of Logic Pro 

CORRECTION: The original dongle for the log3 was not USB as it had not been invented yet. C-lab was also purchased by emagic later on, my mistake! If you guys see any errors in my videos, please let me know! I always try my best to research but we are human and bound to get things wrong or missing some context. Thanks for watching! Join the squash discord: discord.gg/gpbTJJBRQG Resources to read about Logic Pro's History: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_Pro en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emagic macprovideo.com/article/audio-software/a-brief-history-of-logic-from-emagic-to-apple happymag.tv/logic-pro/ www.apple.com/logic-pro/

Thanks from the Logic team for your nice video about the history of Notator Logic. We really enjoyed it.

Possibly worth mentioning that in the Logic Pro X/Logic Pro era all updates have been free to existing owners. So there has no need for any Logic user to pay for any updates (of which there have been many) since 2013. This is one of its biggest features IMO

It’s history goes back even further than Emagic. Gerhard Lengling created a program called “super track”, and was available on the Commodore 64. He called the company “C-Lab”, and was based in Hamburg, Germany. That was my first sequencing program - I bought it in 1988. Not too long after, it migrated to Notator/Creator under a new company called “Emagic” (on the Atari). If you wanted only sequencing, you purchased “creator”. If you wanted notation as well, you would purchase notator.

I'm never gonna forget how Apple bought out Camel Audio and made Alchemy a Mac exclusive right before I was able to buy the original plug-in

Thank you for your post. Being close to 70 myself, I using Logic from its inception. Some things that are important to point out that it actually started from a program from C-Lab called Creator. It was first available for the Atari ST which was attractive because it had built in MIDI ports. Later other platforms were supported. The large dongle attached directly to the computer because USB was not available at the time. I never heard of the Log 3 however C-Lab offered the Unitor with three separate MIDI outs and two MIDI ins. At the time an extra MIDI in was a very valuable and a scarce option. This piece of plastic ,which replaced the dongle, was about $750 additional to the cost of Notator. Much later, when USB was available, the interface switched. C-Lab's early distributors of this magnificent program was only available through Ensoniq and then later Digidesign, which is now known as Avid. Back in the early 80s, if you were to buy Logic and Unitor you were looking at about $1200. You can purchase logic pro for $199 today which is less than the price of each update from C-Lab and Emagic. Talk about "bang for the buck".

11:19 Actually, Logic Pro 8 in box with all DVDs was $999, then it drops to $499… and then they drop it again to $199

Apple didn't "introduce" Alchemy. They bought Camel Audio, who created Alchemy and both SpaceFX and PhatFX (previously CamelPhat and CamelSpace). They were available long before 10.2

your content is too underrated. Keep pushing

That’s it, can’t take it anymore, subbed! This is an assault of quality content. Having watched the history of Ableton, FL, now this. Great work!

This was a great little look back! One thing that I’d like to mention (that’s probably already been said) is that the X in “Logic Pro X” is actually a roman numeral 10. It was still/already “Logic Pro 10” when it launched, just stylized a little differently.

You left out Emagic Logic Audio. That’s what it was called in 2000 (version 4.5) Grammy winning songs were recorded in GarageBand Regarding plugins… all the Logic plugins are great.

I've owned Logic since version 7 but have used it before since 5.5 Platinum (On Windows). It has so much history and so much functionality built in. One of the most common things I used to see on the interwebz was someone asking for a feature in Logic only for someone else to respond that it was already there.

Logic Pro is like the top 1 recording software in the Gospel and church community. This is very informative content

The OG dongle wasn't USB it was ADB if my memory isn't failing me.

Wow. I just purchased Logic. Been a Cubase user since the late 80s. I've always been a Mac, Apple user. Got tired of paying for Cubase upgrades.i knew of Emagic in the 90's. I had one if their soundcards. I love Logic and knew about it long ago. Was a Steinberg hardhead. Wish I switched to Logic long ago. Not many folks know about Apple purchasing Emagic, s gem of a program. Thanks for message!

Thank you for the video. Small details: First came Creator by C-Lab, not by "Emagic", then Notator, still by C-Lab. Then "Notator Logic" by Emagic. At 0:50 Notator Logic didn't run with an "USB dongle", there was a dongle but not an USB one as there was no USB on the Atari. Actualy there was no USB on our planet yet in this time. 😉

Hardly "The Entire History of Logic Pro" here, you missed out the whole Emagic Logic mac/PC development bit in the 90's. As an early user and adopter of Logic ( from Notator onwards ) this to me is the most important piece of the history as it's actually the beginning of virtual instruments and third party plugins which at the time were a massive industry game changer. Effectively the beginning of mixing in the box and the transition from sequencer to DAW.

why doesn’t this have at least a million views what keep making content this is so fucking good

Damn bro. I don't use Logic or even remotely interested in switching DAWs and still sat through the entire video. Great job. Just gained a sub.

You leapt from 1993 to 2004 - a period of HUGE development! I feel like most of Logic's significant development took place before version 5.5...

C-Lab Creator was the company's first brand and product.

Just FYI, the Notator prefix was dropped when the Atari ST became obsolete. The creator/notator moniker prior to Notator Logic was developed exclusively for the Atari ST, because the ST, unlike the Amiga, came shipped with midi ports. Creator, Notator, Notator Logic and a few other lesser known ST clones like Dr. T’s Tiger Cub(Used by Aphex Twin) Are MIDI data exclusive sequencers. Ie. incapable of audio processing. All the applied dynamic effects you mentioned were merely midi value setting command data. They didn’t affect the original signal, because there were no signals to affect. Only MIDI note data. Once the Atari was obsolete, they dropped the Notator, and by the late 90’s, Logic Audio was available with Audio signal processing for G3 and up Macs. And a dongle was required to launch Logic audio for every version up until the Apple buy out. My first set up was powered by a G4 Mac tower, an 8x8 Emagic Unitor rack mounted midi interface and a copied version of Logic I ripped from my mates copy cuz I couldn’t afford the software after the G4($5000) and unitor($1000). So the software was legit, but I had to run a dongle crack which was the only pirated element. Come 2004 I’d started using Ableton, and my early naughties broke ass never upgraded my ripped 2001 copy of Logic so I never used logic again post Apple buy out….

keep making these history videos dude! you're about to blow

I started with (a loan first...) Opcode Vision... then did a competitive crossgrade to Logic in the mid 90's... synced it up to an ADAT... HOo Boy!

Great video! Great history lesson! I wouldn't call the 90s weird though, they were just in their technological infancy. Looking back with today's perspective, it is beyond be how they created all those albums on these early computers. I cut my teeth on naughtie's movie technology and the "rendering" process was a nightmare. There were so many coffee and cigarette breaks back then... one break because of adding an effect and another one because of "undo". Maybe that's why many bad effects were kept. Yet great stuff has been created.

Great video. With regard to the price drop, Apple did the same thing with Final Cut Pro. It used to be like $1000 I think? Something like that. Then there was final cut express. They got rid of express and just made the Pro version cheap.

Actually Notator(also Creator) was made by C-Lab on the Atari ST before Emagic bought them

such a high quality and informative video! you did an amazing job, and you deserve a lot more attention

Great video, great research, great overview! Thank you for publishing this 😘

Excellent video! I'm 4 years new to Logic, so it's very helpful to gain an appreciation of it's earlier origins and history. Absolutely loved your informative and unbiased approach to this video.

Logic Remote is amazing. I use it for key commands. I customized the most commonly used key commands into one page.

Master Tracks Pro 1992, was the best, great memories.

Hey, thanks for this. One thing I noticed is missing from your history is mentioning when recording digital audio was first introduced into Logic. I remember when this first happened. Up until then, Logic (like every other sequencing program) was midi only. I don’t know the exact date it was first introduced, but I remember upgrading to version 3 in 1997, and this was my first version with audio recording. I have an image of v3.5 in my mind. I remember the year, because I’d just moved back from the UK to Australia. As well as that big move, I upgraded to v3 (3.5?)…..and switched from a Mac (Color Classic) to a Windows machine for the first time. Which crashed more in that first week than my Mac had crashed in the last year :( But moving from midi only to audio was a HUGE change which deserves to be in your history.

Great video! Joined the Apple ecosystem bc Logic visually makes sense to my brain.

I loved Logic pro X for the time I used it but the Mac I had was just not powerful enough. (2015 MacBook Pro). Nice to know I'll have a licence with Apple if I ever get a better Mac but now I use a PC, which is much much more powerful, (Ableton 11 on my PC). I bought guitar rig pro last year and the MacBook just crapped itself so had to upgrade.

I started out in FL Studio, but since 2022, I have mostly been using Ableton and Logic. I have thought about giving Cubase a try as well.

BRO i had no idea there were so many versions of this program, really extensive look at Logic Pro!

I've being using it a lot lately and I love it. Thanks for all the info.

Usb wasn't a thing back then, it was a serial port. I still have my chunky dongle from the emagic era

I am a huge Logic Pro fan and admirer. I have a dedicated list of suggestions to send to Apple, I can´t wait for the upcoming updates!

I feel you since my first primary DAW is Logic. it's a history. Thank you.

I’d have liked to see a bit more on the earlier history; was a bit taken aback when it went straight from it being MIDI sequencing/notating to being brought by Apple… I feel like a lot more radical changes were happening in music tech generally in those years. Maybe I just wanted to scratch the nostalgia itch from the brief period I used it around 2000-2002.

There's so much stuff I never knew about logic, it has gone through so many changes but is still top of the DAWS in my opinion.

I was into Amiga trackers in the 80's/90's, and my first Logic was version 4 running in Mac OS 9. One thing distracts me here. To many viewers the 90's was just another decade in life. Perhaps make it less about your own age perspective and more about the subject. It could improve longevity :) Besides that, very cool concept.

This channel is a gem thanks!!!

creator/notator was around in the eighties. that was the original version of logic and might have only run on atari computers.

You dope ass hell dude I binge watch these

Love the vid and channel, I'll add a few thoughts. The Logic "environment" page use a to be a big deal, the concealed it in recent versions. It was also too complicated for the average user. It was a bit like programming the daw and mixer for specific aspirations. Track Stacks was a huge deal in recent versions because it made the idea of the bus channel architecture much easier to use right on the arranging page. The key point of Logic over the others is it is less "clunky" and more elegant. Cubase has always had a few more features where Logic would implement them over time where applicable. The more recent versions are much more stable. The song folder structure was changed so that everything is included in one folder instead of having a separate folder for audio and a separate folder for the project files. The EXS (now called sampler) was also critical to Logics stronghold, it could also import GIGA files which where the first format to introduce "disk streaming" which made very large instruments possible utilizing a hard disk. Now with SSD hard disks the very large sample libraries load much faster and you can have many more. Processing power use to be a huge issue (overload messages). On the more speculative side, for me the DAWS summing engine was always a little bit ahead of the others because it doesn't clip like cubase when you bounce down files. The 64bit engine for Logic was also another major milestone because of the improved memory capabilities (power). They don't use "VST" anymore but I think there are wrappers. Yes dropping windows support was a huge problem. It makes sense the notation system was part of the origin because it has always operated a bit more smoothly than others and had more graphical eye candy to produce scores. Logic uses a slick automation lane system that you can engage for all tracks or disable as needed. They also recently introduced some new views and windows as well as midi effects on tracks. I've been using logic for about 20 years. It's got more features than I could ever get to.

Very good video, deserves more views and likes fr :)

I would love to see this kind of content on studio one also.. But I guess it's history is fairly new apart from presonus buying it out from the original creators of Kristel audio .

Interesting video - Pro 9 was where I started after a Boss 8 track - best move I made 👍😊

Love the series man

I started out on Notator in hopes of not having to copy charts. Hah! I could always write faster by hand. The sequencing was dorky but the flavor of the era. The Atari computer was a great music computer. That went the way of the dodo. Still with Logic.

Delay Designer and Logic’s other advanced instruments and effects in 8 were insanely good for the time

I started out on some watered down version of 3

I got my hands on “Creator”, the program preceding “Notator” in the late 80’s. The company then was called “C-Lab” which later turned into Emagic. My point being: I am old AF.

Love it. How about a throwback to Sonic Foundry’s Acid?

I started with Emagic Creator on the Atari-ST with the multi-port dongle. By the time Logic was ported over to the Mac, I was making a bit more money, and could finally afford a Mac! I got a Centris 650 and Emagic Logic (v3 I think) and it's been my primary Sequencer & DAW ever since. Logic Rules!!!

1998, I worked as a FFF producer at the "Metra Studios Cologne". My Boss, Constantin Ende, was a good Friend of Mr. Lengeling. So we got to Beta Test every new Version, when Logic was still Emagic and running on PC too. And now, I will tell you the last Thing Lengeling said in private to our team about "Logic" before his Company "Emagic" went 100% to apple: "FINALLY I CAN FINISH THE SONG I INVENTED LOGIC FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE!" no kidding!

I will the one person here who has used Netscape

There was also Creator which was a cutdown version of Notator, just without the notation functionally. I bought it in 1992 to use with my Atari STE. Think it cost be about £300.

90s weren't weird dude. It is called invention, development, evolution and progression - like every single thing with staying power ever made. The year MIDI was introduced (1983) to us bands pounding away in funky house jam spaces was glorious. Meant we could expand the creative process with less people and in smaller spaces with big sound. The DAW has all but pretty much killed off big industry studios minus the last legacy & label studios hanging by a thread staying alive almost exclusively on movie scoring, commercial voice over and high paid mainstream recording artists. But it is coming to an end soon. Bedroom bangers and large scale professional 'home' studios are casted in stone for the future. As a guitarist, all of this tech last 40+ years has been awesome. I have used so much of it and the DAWS are fantastic. Been a Garageband, Logic Pro and now a REAPER fanatic due to the customization ability. Love all this stuff!! Enjoying your videos - keep them coming 🤘

Wow this just skipped from "here's the most basic beginning of the thing" (which you spent an unnecessary amount of time on) to "Ok now it's the thing you know about." The 5 years you skipped are actually the most interesting part. The Emagic story is way better than "Apple came along and did what they always do." As a music producer from that time period I can tell you, they changed everything as a small independent German company. They were far beyond all competitors and truly innovated the industry. Pro Tools users had the great hardware but I can tell you, they were jealous of Logic. The sale to Apple ended all of that. I was actually able to use Logic 5 (pre Apple) until 2006 as a working producer before I felt like anybody truly caught up to it, including the subsequent Apple releases. The truth is, in those years they stripped out features for the Mac users and focused heavily on Garageband integration. They were focused on making it standard with the MAC OS as a value add. I could do things in logic 5 that Apple removed from Logic 6 and so on. They kind of let Logic drift for years with superficial updates. I can also tell you that the conversion rate from PC to MAC did not work in their favor. There was a reason why we were all using PC's, and Apple once again gave us reasons to keep it that way. Apple took Logic from being the one and only industry leader, to being just another DAW. A good one, but just one of many and nowhere near innovative or interesting enough to change an entire workflow and hardware over. Their proprietary elitist mindset is the death of all their products. Logic was an opportunity for them to change that and they doubled down.

Forgot to mention all things camel audio

One highlight you forgot to mention is Logic 4 in 1999. Logic 4 introduced a whopping 34 processing plugins, including: Ensemble Fat EQ Silver EQ DJ EQ Parametric EQ High Shelf Filter Low Shelf Filter High Cut Filter Low Cut Filter Low Pass Filter High Pass Filter Compressor Silver Compressor Expander Noise Gate Silver Gate Distortion Overdrive Bitcrusher Oscillator AutoFilter Spectral Gate Tape Delay Modulation Delay Chorus Flanger Phaser Pitch Shifter Platinumverb Goldverb Silververb Enverb Volume Dither

Thanks for this! Not many people know of Emagic Logic before Apple. It was the first DAW I saw but never used. But several people had it running on Windows. I actually started in GarageBand and later upgraded to Ableton Live and only years later when I couldn’t afford Live’s upgrade price tag did I buy Logic Pro X … and no I didn’t find it intuitive. I’ve been using Mac OS full time since 2003 and Logic was the only Apple product I never understood. I switched to SeratoStudio when it came 3 years ago. Much better for producing.

This video is awesome. Thank you! I remember buying Logic 8 at guitar center for like $599 or so lol yikes 😳 And it took all day to install. It was so many cds lol

Just here to say I remember Netscape…. Also great video!

Solid. I've been on Logic since around v4 ('99-ish). physical manual with obvious German-as-a-first-language editing problems. LOL.

Thanks for your hard work. This video is awesome!

You forgot buying camel audio, who are responsible for alchemy.

First version i purchased was Logic 8.. i believe it was the "basic" version, because the one with all the samples was extremely expensive and here i am, still using Logic! not version 8 thankfully 😅 Edit -> the videos says it, Logic Express!

Can you so history of MainStage plz, I would like for you to educate us on that plz and thank you God bless

Fantastic video dude hats off!! Thanks for the great info

Just found you and subbed. Thanks so much for your hard work! Will you do a complete study of Garage Band?

I started on MicroLogic back in '96. Been a Logic user ever since. It really is the best DAW to this day. Why fool yourself otherwise?

the score editor is a disnossaur, they have to go back to roots and update it

13:47 yes, Alchemy is great, but it has nothing to do with Apple, it was made by Camel Audio and I bought that Alchemy VST year before Camel Audio was bought by Apple and closed leaving me with no updates for my 200$ synth.

I just trying to use Logic, because 4/5 gigs of ableton are to much for my intel macbook. And... you can feel the legacy. For example the UI of the ES synths.

Thanks! Great work 🎉… I started with Logic 2.5 . Still going strong ( and far cheaper today )

4:50 I make music on Garagband iOS (on iPad) and it is super capable.

I miss Logic Pro 6 and 7 😢 😢.

Nice video ;) All though I think the back story of how Apple got the Alchemy synth into Logic would have been nice. Story of Alchemy: Apple bought Camel Audio and got Alchemy. Step FX and Phat FX also comes from Camel Audio. They are all great and they were a great edition to Logics instruments and effects.

Protools video would be great!

I assumed everyone knew that 'X' is the Roman numeral for 10. Therefore, Logic Pro 9 gave way to Logic Pro X in the same way Mac OS9 became Mac OSX.

9:50 Logic Pro is more like a combination of Ableton, FL, Cubase and Protools. There is nothing like it on the market for the price. 🙃

6:00 that’s a windows calendar

Wait… you went straight from notator logic to apple’s acquisition without ever mentioning the blue dongle!

This guys is good

Great video

Great video , thanks

please do cakewalk next

interesting but it seems you totally left out the evolution from the first edition and up to edition 5.5? 🤨

It's an intimidating program to use, for me, indeed. Since it was a PC app by Emagic. I never can accomplish myself to use it properly. Maybe it's me. However, I silently feel that Logic sounds better than other DAW's sounds. Maybe I'm wrong and of course I have no solid explanation about it. But that's what I (silently) feel.

Excellent video, I am still rocking 10.2. advice to anyone who wants, keep your machine off-line. Well that is if you don't import audio like splice.

Great video!

90s are weird? You shoul try the 80s! Notator/Creator on an Atari ST. Primitive but crash free! 🙂

5:38 wow I had no idea the last of us was being adapted

Before Apple purchased Emagic, it wasn't named Notator Logic, it was already named Logic Platinum.. so you're wrong, Apple didn't buy "Notator Logic"