hah good strategy.
I am so deep in the plugin hole 
Yeah Valhalla’s free stuff is good. Supermassive is awesome if a bit… massive 
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Logic Pro 11.0 is out now and includes stem splitting and new AI “musicians” for piano and bass(!) - now there is a whole band to jam with.
Apparently, the splitter works really well (haven’t tried it myself yet).
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Cool, I was wondering when that would happen. I think after their Mastering Assistant it was a given - iZotope put their track isolation in Ozone. (also in RX, which is post-mastering).
That’s great because it means I won’t need to buy RipX
I’ll have to check if they upped the game with the Drummers too to be full AI.
Hmm, have a new cover idea and was gonna use Reaper but maybe I’ll do it in Logic. Problem is I need to finish my guitar for it and I am still waiting for parts. I’ll just do the other instruments first I guess.
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I probably shouldn’t expect the stem splitting to come to garageband anytime soon, eh? I’d much rather use something I kinda sorta own vs doing it through a website. I’ll be interested to see how well it works in Logic. I’m due for a new mini / studio this year. I may have to bundle it when the M4 Studio comes out.
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I have a real Love/Hate thing with Logic (see above in the thread) but it is 100% worth the money, especially if you like GarageBand. It will feel very natural to you.
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I need to dive more into that. I guess it would be nice to see how any of the AI musicians can track/follow an existing pre-recorded track.
I briefly tried the splitter on a bass-drums-keys tune (with the bass using the entire fretboard) and that worked like a charm. Now, I am glad I didn’t spring for one of the other splitters yet…
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The new Logic Pro 11 is impressive. I’m still exploring it, but I’ve had a day to spend with the new AI Session Players.
Some initial impressions:
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I was able to crank out the rough sketch of the instrumentals for a song in an hour this morning with the AI Session Players (drummer, bass, keyboard AI players). The song is basic and predictable, but a solid starting point for crafting it into something that sounds like me. It’s more like a rough demo, but with more iterations it can become a polished song.
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The interface to control and manipulate the session players is easy and relatively intuitive. There are a LOT of features that will eventually find its way into YouTube how-to tutorials. But for now, the Logic Pro 11 user manual is the best place to discover those features .
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The creation order that tends to yield the best results in my (very limited) experience is Drummer first, then Bass Player, then Keyboard Player. This way, the Bass Player can build its bass line from the rhythms created by the Drummer, and the Keyboard Player can leverage the chord progression generated by the Bass Player. I’ve tried other orders and haven’t been as impressed with the results. But that’s just my short experience so far.
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The Bass Player tends to create parts that are way too busy, with too many fills, slides, and ghost notes, even when you adjust for complexity and intensity. But there’s no denying that the bass lines are musical and melodic and totally useable, even unaltered.
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The parts created by the AI session players can be converted to MIDI and customized/edited/modified as you wish. That gives you a lot of creative flexibility, including exporting the MIDI and bringing it in a notation program like Guitar Pro, MuseScore, Dorico, Sibelius, Finale to share with others.
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The Keyboard Player is good at generating basic melody and harmony parts. In one song, I used a harmony riff created by the Keyboard Player to create a riff for a horns section. It sounded amazing!
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You can also save bass lines you create with the Bass Session Player (or other musical ideas created by the Session Players) as Apple Loops for future use.
The point of these tools is to give you something to immediately react to so that you can get past “blank page” syndrome and get to creating faster. I can audition dozens of ideas until I find one that resonates and inspires me. The AI Session Players force me to start making creative decisions immediately (“I like that!” or “nah, that’s not great, let’s generate something new”) and get past decision paralysis. That’s a big win in my book.
Overall, I’m excited for the possibilities. Apple implemented these tools very well, and I’ll definitely be using them to help create my music going forward.
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Maybe not so surprising as this is the order I have always done things too; lay down the drums first, then bass, then everything else, which is usually keys for me and guitar for my bandmate. Vocals last.
I feel seen
…and now I have impostor syndrome to an AI
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Your review makes me wanna buy a Mac!
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Have you had a chance to try out the stem splitting yet? That’s going to be the feature to push me from garageband on over to Logic if they nail that. I don’t have a reliable one now that gaudio went subscription.
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I’ll try it tonight, I started working on something last night and it currently has a reference track in it.
I also love being able to just load tracks in your iTunes library.
Well on the song I tried, it did not isolate the bass well at all, it isolated the vocals and drums perfectly, but everything else was dumped in the “Other” stem while the bass track remained mostly unseparated from the rest.
However the bass in this song is chorused and the lowest note is G2 (open G string or 5th fret on the D) so maybe not so surprising, it probably thought it was a guitar.
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Didn’t pass the Hooky test 
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Exactly. Defeated by Hooky.
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Perhaps it is comes equipped with a Hook-Not filter (trademark pending)? 
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He does this on purpose, to be the lead instrument and punch through. So can’t really fault Apple here
RipX can’t handle him either.
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I’m back to regretting buying Logic. Not because of anything wrong with Logic, but it’s basically got huge overlap with Reaper as both are general purpose DAWs. It’s kind of like Reaper with a nicer UI, but less stable, supporting far fewer plugin formats, and with less flexible routing.
On the other hand it comes with a lot of stuff - samples (which I won’t use), builtin effects (which I will), builtin instruments (which I probably won’t but only because I already have better options), etc etc. Reaper does as well but they are far less polished.
Overall it’s a great choice for someone who doesn’t already have a capable DAW, it was just a kind of poor purchase for me.
This is mostly coming up because I am, on the other hand, very Bitwig-curious. And it is a very different approach than Reaper so would actually complement it well. But I find myself unwilling to invest in yet another DAW, because I have Logic
Ok it’s just psychological I know and I should just accept the loss, but whatever.
I got it on iPad (just got one of the 13" M4 pros a few weeks ago). As a DAW, it does double duty with Garageband on my macbook. Because I try to keep my effects physical, I don’t have to care about plugins and what’s compatible with what. I mainly picked it up as a stem splitter and I prefer Logic to Moises or any of the alternatives I’ve tried for that.
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Logic is an outstanding DAW and while not as fully capable as Reaper or Pro Tools, it’s still more than capable enough to produce professional recordings. It’s cool that it added a stem splitter, very interesting that was the selling point for you
The only reason I am regretting it is I am already proficient in another DAW with a whole lot of overlap with Logic, and one that has things I prefer about it.
On the other hand, Logic has the most Mac-like UI of any DAW and is very easy to use. I would highly recommend it for Mac users for their first DAW as its general purpose nature will cover a lot of ground.
Additionally for bass players with no desire to branch out, you really want to go with a DAW focused on recording and mixing audio tracks - Logic, Reaper, Pro Tools, etc - over one centered on performance of loops (Ableton Live) or synth music production (Bitwig, Ableton, FL).
For me, having both Reaper and Logic is what makes little sense. They cover the same ground and are very parallel in features and capability. As someone actually as much or more in to synthesizers as I am in to bass, for a second DAW something like Bitwig, Ableton, or FL makes more sense. Ableton isn’t really my bag (and I have worked with it a bit to know this) but the newer full versions of Bitwig have some truly innovative things going on around modulation, automation, and so on. And then there’s The Grid.
For me this looks like tons of fun. Actually @DaveT might be interested as well.
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