GarageBand VS Logic Pro X

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GarageBand VS Logic Pro X

Postby Ian Miller » Sun Oct 10, 2021 9:20 am

Hi All,

I would like opinions of GarageBand VS Logic Pro X, pros & cons.

Thanks

Ian
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Re: GarageBand VS Logic Pro X

Postby Iain Purdon » Sun Oct 10, 2021 10:48 am

GarageBand comes free with the Mac OS and if you buy a Mac from an Apple Store they will give you free training with GarageBand. Without that training you may find it difficult to get started.
Logic Pro is paid for and used by many serious musicians. Some of them are on the site so I’m sure they will tell you their views.
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Re: GarageBand VS Logic Pro X

Postby Garystrat » Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:49 am

Hi Ian,

I think it’s pretty straightforward in that it depends on how comfortable you are with DAWs and how you intend to use it, if you’re simply looking for “tape recorder” style functionality with benefit of using plugins for recording guitar to BT, then something like Garage Band will probably suit you.

But if you are looking for a little more functionality and actually working with optimisation of tracks, multiple tracks and shared settings by using buses, the simplicity can often be limiting and quite frustrating.

A lot of people are often put off by what they perceive to be complications of using advanced DAWs, I have never gone along with this concept as all DAWs work pretty much the same at a basic level and with a more advance DAW the opportunities are there to do thing in a more logical way and have better feature sets. Sure, there is a learning curve, but once you start to get to grips with one or two of the basic principals everything starts to make more sense.

A good example is buses, this simply means you can setup tracks with things like FX effects on them and send say the signal from your guitar track to bus track where those effects can blended and returned again to your guitar track. The advantage to this is that you can use those same effects on multiple instrument tracks without needing to put an instance of it in every track (a sort of template track), another advantage is that you can use the slider on the bus track to blend in the level of combined FX effects in the bus track independently. This is just scratching the surface, the power of a really good DAW is an investment if you are serious about the recording side. It’s really not that difficult as there are many tutorial videos on the internet, the biggest challenge can be knowing what you want to do in terms of a recognisable description to be able to look it up.

I would also recommend having a look at Ableton Live “Intro” (about £70.00) this has a really good interactive setup guide on how to get started, I switched to this from Logic Pro and have gone through an upgrade path as I started to use more of the advanced features. These features are mostly there in other DAWs, but I tended not use them because they were implemented in a more complex way and with many there was a fiddle factor. Whilst it does it doesn’t look the same as other DAW layouts, particularly in the way it handles plugins, it’s all very logical in use use and has a good interactive messaging describing what everything does as you hover the mouse over the controls, they also have online tutorials. There is a free demo, so you have little to lose!

Hope that helps.

Best regards

Gary
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Re: GarageBand VS Logic Pro X

Postby petercreasey » Mon Oct 11, 2021 9:35 am

Ian Miller wrote:Hi All,

I would like opinions of GarageBand VS Logic Pro X, pros & cons.

Thanks

Ian


I think that the question here is "what are you intending to use it for?" like you Ian I would like to know what Logic Pro x brings to the party that garageband doesn't, I have been using Garageband for recording for some time now and have found it to be great. I use it to record all the parts of a tune using garageband along with a Fishman connect system to generate instruments , strings, brass, percussion, etc etc etc and actual guitars for lead rhythm and bass. I find that garageband has all that I need( and more) but as the learning progresses I would be interested to hear what Logic has to offer to improve on garageband and indeed do I need it/ am I clever enough to use it?
It would be interesting to hear what users of Logic proX have to say
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Re: GarageBand VS Logic Pro X

Postby dave robinson » Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:24 am

I had the same question back in 2007 but then it was Logic 8.
I heard some of the work that Warren Bennett was doing and asked him for help and he explained that it's something you have to learn and go through yourself to benefit from what Logic has to offer. I took that on board and began the journey and learned at my own pace, eventually graduating through Logic 9 to Logic Pro X.
It isn't a fast track process, I still have tons to learn but I am able to produce decent CDs should I wish. You can go to Apple Store as I did and pay to take a course of the functionality of Logic, but it takes a lot of time and dedication to understand it all.
It's same as playing the guitar, learning about amp sounds and echoes, you get back what you are prepared to put in. Definitely not for the 'fast track merchants who want it on a plate'. What I can tell you is that there's a reason that professional musicians and recording engineers use it - and there is the clue. :)
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Re: GarageBand VS Logic Pro X

Postby petercreasey » Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:47 am

Thanks for that Dave, I have been spending a lot of time on GarageBand and every day learn something more which is a great journey. At the moment I find that I am able to produce what I consider to be good recordings ( and that’s all that matters to me, I am not sharing my music) I suppose my real question would be are the skills gained with GarageBand transferable to Logic Pro x should I in the future find that GarageBand Is not enough for my needs as time progresses.
Thanks for the input
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Re: GarageBand VS Logic Pro X

Postby dave robinson » Mon Oct 11, 2021 5:53 pm

I honestly don't know if I really need Logic Pro X, I just gravitated to it through starting with Logic 8 and moving forward. I paid for my Logic back in 2007 so taking the tutorials at the Apple Store got me going, but TBH they only knew the basics to show me anyway.
I would say hand on heart that if you are making good satisfactory music that is doing it for you, I would keep it that way and save my money, which I very likely would have benefitted from had I given Garage Band a chance. Pior to that I was using Cubase on my PC but was sick of constantly having problems, hence the Mac because I took Warren's advice as he and Brian were set up with Logic and I figured it was a good example. I went with Logic Pro X on Brian's recommendation because of some of the things you can do with the drums, but I don't think I get the use that Brian does, though it's good to have and didn't cost much to upgrade from Logic 8 & 9.
One good thing about Logic is the amount of stuff that is in there for sound processing and it is fast too, a lot faster than me. :)
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Re: GarageBand VS Logic Pro X

Postby petercreasey » Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:09 pm

Ah we have the same reason for changing to Mac. I find that GarageBand is much faster and comprehensive than anything I tried on a PC also so much more stable. I aim to stay with GarageBand until such time as I need something that it hasn’t got although so far it is much more extensive than my requirements and probably will be for the foreseeable future. I am enjoying the process of starting with a blank screen and ending up with a compete recording having arranged produced and played everything myself. It’s filling the gap left from when I stopped live performances.
Take care
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Re: GarageBand VS Logic Pro X

Postby dave robinson » Mon Oct 11, 2021 9:49 pm

I rarely bother these days unless there's a job needs doing, though I do make bits and pieces to help us as a band when needing rehearsal tracks.
In 1979 when I began recording to make my own backing tracks to work on the clubs, I had a stereo Revox and used to 'jump' tracks to build up multi parts, only drums, bass & rhythm guitar, but that was the start of it. I then got TEAC 3440 four track machine which gave a lot more possibilities for multi-track and I bought a DX7 keyboard along with a TASCAM eight track machine. I move onto hard drive based stuff and eventually computers arrived. All this time I had been making backing tracks for a handful of club artistes and I did work for some of the early Karaoke firms too.
In the nineties I went onto the computer based recording using midi-files and through the PC and onto the Mac.
When I began in 1979 there were no backing tracks, I was one of a handful of acts daring to take it on and was the first as far as I know to play the club circuit backing myself with my own work. The Musicians Union were up in arms and I had a battle for months because they were trying to ban me. Just look where we are today. :lol:
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Re: GarageBand VS Logic Pro X

Postby Ian Miller » Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:53 pm

Thank you all very much for all your very comprehensive replies, very helpful & much appreciated.

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