Today I took possession of 17" 2.16 ghz MacBookPro notebook computer. I also bought a MOTU Ultralite, which has two mic pres, 10 (I think) 1/4" inputs, Firewire, midi, headphone jack and other stuff. I also got a wireless mouse.

This is the core of my new portable studio for the summer of 2006. With a couple of mics, my Motif ES and Logic (coming tomorrow), I will be able to do some experimental sequencing, recording, and editing, and basically get my feet wet down in Mexico.

If Logic proves to be too daunting over the summer, as some have warned, I know I'll still learn a lot from working with it. In September. I can always switch to DP (the other program I was leaning towards). And since I bought the academic package of Logic (same features and occasional updates but no major upgrades), my financial risk is half of what it might have been.

Tonight I set up the preferences on my MacBook Pro (MBP). I had just done this on Glenda's new iMac so the process was identical. I was very rpoud of myself for not letting the guy install the extra RAM I'd ordered, but when I went to install it the screws they use are microscopic! I don't even think the tiniest eyeglass screwdrivers will work--I've got to get a jewelers' Phillips screwdriver size--honest--.00!

oh, well--I had more than enough RAM in there right now to have a huge blast recording some video of myself and then warping it with a very cool library of effects.

The computer wasn't working very hard, but it is surprisingly silent. Makes my 2480 sound like Blue Cheer. We'll see what happens when it starts crunching some Jazzoootunes.

The built-in speakers are small but pretty good sounding--enough to have a little fun with on the road but nothing more than that.

By the way, if you buy a Mac, I hope you're using your home studio business to get the 'business discount.' All I had to do was give them my company name, address and phone # and I got $140 off the 'puter, $15 off the RAM and also a nice discount on the Apple Care.

I will update this post as things progress. Sadly, I will get almost no work done this weekend as Glenda's mom is coming tomorrow. And on Monday, I'm heading up to The Fender Museum where Kelly is going to engineer some guitar overdubs by none other than Little Feat's Paul Barrere on a project I'm producing. Fun times!

Awesome! at last, hey?

good luck with it Doug, I have had nothing but a great experience with my old iMac

T

Great Doug. I bet that thing'll smoke! I got my two 'puters right here, Dual 2.7 and PB 1.67 and I'm still a little jealous.

Henry, Emerson said that envy is ignorance. I wouldn't turn green just yet--at least you know how to make sound with your gear!

The MBP is lovely--the backlit keyboard really surprised me in low light. I've got it hooked up to my MOTU ULtralite and Logic.

Now what?

You have a firewire hard drive? By the time you want to start recording a bunch of audio I'd, if I were you, get one and a PCMCIA firewire card to run it on. Not really necessary unless you're doing high track counts, but still it gives you an extra firewire bus therefore keeping the throughput independent.

I have the backlight on my 1.67 PB. It's pretty cool.

I'd just get to know Logic. Read the manual with the computer on a Logic booted. Get on a Logic Forum and figure out the thing.

You have a nice little setup. The only thing that could've been an improvement would be Metric Halo ULN-2 (or 2882) over Motu UltraLite.

Have fun!

"You have a firewire hard drive? By the time you want to start recording a bunch of audio I'd, if I were you, get one and a PCMCIA firewire card to run it on. "

Yes, it's been my plan for the Fall to keep all my audio on a Firewire 800 drive. For the summer, I'm just sticking with the internal, as I won't be doing any recording with massive track counts. I already have Firewire on my 'puter--you're saying to buy a card to give me another FW slot? I don't even know if my MBP has a PCMCIA slot yet!

First impressions about Logic:

Wow. This is really, really weird. Very unmusical language (I found this to be true to some degree of all software programs). I'm glad I'm starting from scratch and not unlearning any more than I have to. I understand the claims of it not being intuitive, but so far it hasn't been much of a roadblock. I've been messing with the Tutorial song, moving regions around, muting and unmuting, transposing, etc. It sure seems like Logic is a sequencer first and a recorder second, but that's just a first impression. I'm looking forward to doing some sequencing down the road.

The tiny type size is terrible. Same problem with DP. I just can't believe that there aren't more people complaining about it. The only way to make it larger is to mess up the resolution on my beautiful screen.

I do a lot of live remote recording, so 18 tracks at a time is pretty standard for me. I often record to the internal drive, but I've partitioned the PB internal drive into two parts: one with the system and another with the audio. Audio eats up, or rather fragments, drives something terrible. So this way I can reformat the audio partition painlessly.

But I also have a little firewire drive with the PCMCIA card. Without it the external drive could never keep up. That is if I daisy chained the interface and the drive. That's what you want to avoid.

quote:

It sure seems like Logic is a sequencer first and a recorder second, but that's just a first impression.

Does it count as a "first impression" if you just didn't listen to me? It is VERY MUCH a sequencer first.

Consider this the first I told you so. There will no doubt be more.

"Consider this the first I told you so. There will no doubt be more."

What a pleasant thing to say. I know you're half kidding, but think about it for a second. I've been looking forward to this for two months, just spent $4K to do it. Of course it's challenging, but I'm having a good time. You just haven't noticed how many times I've said I look forward to doing some sequencing work.

I'll be happy to tune you out if you're going to gloat every time I have a problem.

"Well, I also can't believe that you can quit DP w/o it asking for confirmation that you're taking the correct action. See, "command + S" (save) is very close to "command + Q" (quit)"

That does seem awfully close together for such different commands!

quote:

What a pleasant thing to say. I know you're half kidding, but think about it for a second.

Dude...I wasn't just HALF kidding. Totally kidding. Sorry. Not enough ?? Carry on.

Yes...ProTools is audio first. SAW is audio...only? There are a very few apps that were made for audio. Most are MIDI sequencers that have been "enhanced". Steinberg and Cakewalk and even DP did far better than Logic at making the conversion, IMO. They actually had cut over points where they went "the focus is audio now". Logic never had that point. It has "seamlessly" integrated audio into it's sequencer over the years.

It'll do what you need it to. Don't worry.

Good Luck, Doug...Pretty cool little setup.

I just came back from a session where the guy wanted me to use his Logic but didn't buy the instructional DVD as I asked, months ago, and didn't even load up the Tutorial song..He threw me the manual and the 798 pgs kinda turned me off of it..lol

I go back tomorrow. He has a controller or me now at least, but I've been trying to impress upon him that I don't want to look like an a/hole, lame-o farting around with Logic,learning it, when I can just track to my VS (for now) until we can work out some advanced run time on Logic, w/o having to do it on the client's dime.

It looks very powerful for sure and just a matter of getting a song or 2 under the belt I think.

But man, I just loaded out a bunch of stuff into Nuendo and it sure is a lot easier to get around..but I have spent loads of hours on it now, so not fair to compare.

"It looks very powerful for sure and just a matter of getting a song or 2 under the belt I think. "

Well, the one thing that I can say with utter certainty is that you can't just feel your way around on Logic and eventually stumble across the right answer. It definitely wasn't set up for you to run without the manual on your lap at first. Hopefully your previous Nuendo experience will help, but even the terminology is pretty different from anything I've seen when researching other programs.

I'm getting around ok right now, but I still might buy DP later this week just to take with me to Mexico (if I do that, I can upgrade to the universal binary version for free when it comes out--it's in beta right now). I'll be down there for 3 months this time. I'd rather keep it tucked away, unopened just in case I decide to bail on Logic, than to not have it with me should that day come. I think I'm smart enough to figure it out, and I am pretty infatuated with the bundle of software that came with it. But still, I can see myself getting comfortable with it and then trying out a different setup to compare before I make my final decision.

I keep thinking that if I say it enough, someone will do something about it: the tiny type is ridiculous. It has to do with how it looks on a Mac (AOL is the same). The sign on box for AOL is 7" x 9" on my 15" PC monitor. On the 17" Mac, it's 4.5" x 5" or very close to that. You can't enlarge it without lowering your resolution, which is a shame. I did eventually give in on Logic and lowered my resolution so I can clearly see what the hell I'm not understanding.

Doug, remember to hit me up if you have any issues with Logic, the "sequencer first app"

quote:

Yes...ProTools is audio first. SAW is audio...only? There are a very few apps that were made for audio. Most are MIDI sequencers that have been "enhanced". Steinberg and Cakewalk and even DP did far better than Logic at making the conversion, IMO. They actually had cut over points where they went "the focus is audio now". Logic never had that point. It has "seamlessly" integrated audio into it's sequencer over the years.

The sequencer first stuff is bullshit. It's a friggin recording program. It does both, and both well. All these audio programs do basically the same damn things and you can get great results with most of them. I've used logic "sequencer" program for almost 6 years and have recorded 95% live audio. I could tell you I've used Pro Tools the whole time and you wouldn't be able to argue with me. Editing is pretty much the difference between the apps. Pro Tools being the best audio editor. BUT, the other programs can do the same edits, for the most part, with a few "workarounds" that make it less than ideal.

Doug you made a good decision in both the MBP and Logic. Both will treat you well.

quote:

Originally posted by Jazzooo:
The tiny type size is terrible. Same problem with DP. I just can't believe that there aren't more people complaining about it. The only way to make it larger is to mess up the resolution on my beautiful screen.

I hate the small type too. If need be check out international access (systems pref's). There should be a zoom function w/ key commands.

T

Thanks, Blue Room. Can you email me your anme and #? I won't call too often, but it would be great to have a resource like you.

"I hate the small type too. If need be check out international access (systems pref's). There should be a zoom function w/ key commands."

Tonio, I do know how to zoom in, but when I do it and then move the mouse, everytyhing squiggles around on screen. Does that happen to you? In other words, I can zoom in, but I can't really work with the program effectively while zoomed.

your email doesn't work, but you can get all my info on my website

Thanks for the heads up about the email on my account! It's Jazzooo@aol.com, and I've edited it so it should work now.

Got yer info from your site, thanks--where is Discovery Bay, CA? I used to think I was familiar with Southern CA, having grown up in San Diego!

that's because it's in Northern Cal

Those southern Californians! They think everything's in SoCal!