Logic Pro is just fine. Henry Jackman uses it. John Powell uses it. David Arnold too I think.

They're all good in their own ways and yes, they don't all do the same things. (I'm mainly talking about DP, Cubase, and Logic) It all comes down to what really works for you.

I spent years wondering the same thing and after trying many different DAWs and working with lots of professionals that use different DAWs, I came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter as long as you like the workflow of that particular DAW.

Honestly, I don't think as many people use DP as people have made it sound in these forums. I worked at Remote Control Productions for some time and everyone uses Cubase or Logic.

That doens't mean that DP is bad btw. There are features that I really wish Logic or Cubase would steal from DP.

A lot of the guys on DP are on DP because that's what they started using decades ago, and a lot of them don't want to change because... why should they if it works for them?

It's true that DP has some awesome features for film scoring. Multiple chunks (ie you can have multiple cues per project). You can make your click behave exactly how you want it regardless of what your tempo is set to (which is the same with Pro Tools). I'm sure there are more.

Cubase is in my opinion the best for midi mockup work. The possibilities that you can have with its logical editor are amazing. You can select every 2nd 16th notes and do specific things to those (that's just a small example of the power behind Cubase). You can see multiple controller lanes all at once (and not on top of each other in the annoying way like DP does it - someone correct me if I'm wrong) There are many more but I'm too lazy to write them down...

Logic has the logical editor, where you can do some crazy routing between things as well as midi transformations like Cubase. I remember liking the default plugins.

Yes, a lot of the big guys use Protools but only for routing all the audio there. It makes it easier when you have lots of slave machines that don't necessarily use VEP and/or when you need to give all the mockup stems to mixers (that use PT 99% of the time) Almost no one uses Protools for midi because it's still not as good even though it has improved dramatically in the last couple updates. (I don't use protools much either way so someone can probably expand on protools' midi capabilities)

To summarize, just try them all, find out what you'd rather use composing everyday. Find out which DAW allows you to get your job done in the most efficient way for your particular workflow.

Please don't feel like an infinitesimal insignificant mollusc for using Logic Pro. If that's the DAW that works for you, then that's what works for you.

In the end, no top professional is going to care what DAW you use as long as you get the job done.

However, I do think that having at least an intermediate grasp of all DAWs is very useful. Not only does it make you versatile but it'll allow you to know exactly why you picked your favorite DAW.

Also... there are some composer who like to switch DAWs every once in a while because they get bored...

Hi everyone,

I was wondering which concert toms were recorded for the Special Edition package.

I'm guessing 12",14", and 16"?

Thanks,

Sebastien

Logic supports many frame rates including 23.98

How does Search not work?

Thanks Herb

Will it work in the regular Vienna Ensemble?

Thanks,

Sebastien

I don't have VE Pro so I'm not sure if this will help, but when I updated Kontakt 4 I could not see its 64bit version in Logic (64bit). If I remember correctly, I had to open Kontakt in standalone mode first for the 64bit plugin to show up in Logic. It might be the same with VE Pro.

Hey David,

I agree with Herb on this. My template is about 10 gigs big and having to reload entire projects would be a major hassle. One thing however, is that I do not use VEpro to load my entire template. I thought about spending the money on it but on a one machine setup, using the VE2 (which is free) is perfect.

Back when I was trying to find a way to use multiple instances of VE2 (standalone) with Logic, I found a program called Jackpilot (which is free and now 64bit compatible). With Jackpilot you can route any audio from any program to any other program. So in my setup I have jackpilot running in the background, Logic opened, and 3 instances of VE2 opened. In Jackpilot I route all my audio outs from each VE2 instance to inputs in Logic.  To connect the midi from Logic to the multiple instances of VE2, I use apple's IAC busses (which you can activate in MacOS's Audio Midi Preferences), they're basically virtual midi channels. I know that you wanted a simple explanation but with this setup I've been able to run everything smoothly without having to spend money on VEpro.

This way I never have to worry about disconnecting VEpro from Logic or anything like that when I switch logic projects. Logic is fully separated from any instance of VE2 and if one crashes, it does not affect the other. The only thing that would compromise this would be if Jackpilot crashed, but that has NEVER happened to me before.

The one great thing about VEpro is that it's 64bit, which means that I could load my entire template in once instance of VEpro. And even then, I would still use Jackpilot and route the audio from VEpro to logic, as I do not want Logic to be connected to VEpro via an Audio Instrument plugin. Also with VE2, you can't load other virtual instruments like Kontakt. But I'd just load those in Logic anyway. 

However, if I was to use multiple computers, I would definitely get VEpro.

Sorry for the technical stuff,

Hope this helps

Sebastien

Actually EQuing out very high frequencies seems to help a lot.

Hi all,

I've been working on this films score, which is now done except that as I was bouncing everything, I noticed that when using the sustain pedal with the Bosendorfer piano from VI SE, a lot of noise accumulates.  In other words, the noise present in the samples gets amplified.  You can't notice any of it if the volumes are low, and I normally wouldn't care except that if anything gets played loudly in a theater...that noise could very well be heard. I tried a denoiser but to no avail.

Sigh.

Hey Peter,

I personally love using both.  Velocity-xfade is great but sometimes the end of notes can still be a little harsh, which using the expression controller really helps fixing.  Also sometimes you might want to retain the particular timbre at a specific dynamic level, yet changing the actual volume, which the expression control would be perfect for.

My legato and sustain lines definitely sounded a lot more realistic since I started using both.

Sebastien

Hey strav100,

Doing a good mockup in Sibelius would be pretty much impossible in my opinion.  The amount of control that you'd have in a DAW is ultimately what you'd want for an actual mockup.  So yes, doing the notes in Sibelius and then importing in Sonar would be a good idea. To have a good mockup you would have to adjust note lengths so that they are more realistic, use velocity crossfades as well as expression automation, etc, which would indeed be nerve wracking to do in Sibelius.

I personally find composing directly in the DAW to be much more efficient.  What I end up doing is the opposite, I export the midi from Logic and then import it into Sibelius for notation.

Hm true.

I guess in the case of using VE it wouldn't make sense indeed.  But what about with VI, wouldn't loading a lot of instances of VIs in logic benefit from a 64 bit host?  or are instances of VI connected to each other other than through the host?  I guess they'd have to make Logic 64bit able to open 32bit plugins....

I think I'm overreacting because I expected a lot more from this new version of Logic.

snajand

I might be overreacting a little, that is true, but isn't Mac OS 10.5 already 64 bit capable, hence the possibility of having 32gb of ram?

The fact that it's probably still a 32 bit app is completely unacceptable!  I'm starting to lose a faith a little in Logic.  With this new update, I'm not too happy with the direction that Apple seems to be going for...

Now Cubase 5 is starting to interest me a little...

I was quite excited when I received the news by RSS feed, but I have to say that I am not as impressed as I thought I would be.  No articulation mapping, which is unfortunate but excusable since only Cubase seems to have it.  No audio pitch correction tool on the track (or whatever that's called), unlike DP and Cubase......sigh.  It looks like most of the new stuff regards audio tracks, which is fine and all, but I wanted to see new things on the midi side.

Logic 9 better be a 64 bit application ...

Looking at it again, it's not bad.  Very nice new audio stuff but still....  

I just hope it's 64 bit and that I won't be upgrading to a new version that only has new stuff that I wouldn't really use...

Hi guys, I thought i'd say something.

This might not be the actual problem or might be irrelevant, but in case it is:

I know that when i used GS i would have one articulation per midi channel.  Things were fine.  When I switched to using Vienna Instruments, it allowed me to have a bunch of articulations per midi channel, which is great.  I tried to make different templates, and one of them was a recreation of my older GS template, which meant one articulation per midi channel.  Even though I have an 8-core Mac Pro, this template turned out to be sooo CPU intensive.

It seems like the more instances of VIs loaded in VE, the more CPU intensive even if there is only 1 articulation in each VI.

So basically, you could load all of Vienna Special Edition using the default presets and be fine.  But if you were to load the same amount of articulations but each of those articulations in a dedicated instance of VI, then your computer would pretty much die.

Sebastian, I am not sure if you are trying to recreate your GS template by having one articulation per instance of VI, but if you are then this might be the problem.

I personally think it's worth upgrading to Vienna Instruments, but that would require one to change his working habits.

Snajand

Hm maybe, but for some reason I doubt it, my external drive will go to sleep after a while, but it never causes the IAC buses to cut out.  Have you been able to connect your midi keyboard to logic?

In logic's environment in "clicks & ports", you should have an object called Physical input.  This is where the SUM cable should have come from. In this object you should see all your midi ports that are available.  Your IAC Buses should be there as well as your MIDI interface's ports.  Just find where on your midi interface your keyboard is connected to and route that to the sequencer input.

I suggest having a "monitor" object and/or a "keyboard" object (they should already be there by default; they are renamed "Input View" and "Input Notes" respectively) between the physical input and the sequencer input, so that you can monitor the midi activity.  If you connected the right port, you should see activity in the "input view" and "input notes" object.

Hey Harry,

I pretty much have the same setup that you have but my IAC busses work.  I will describe my setup to you so you can see if there are differences or things that you might want to add to your setup:

In the Audio/Midi preferences on mac os, I have the IAC bus active, which has 8 ports activated in itself.

In the VE instances, all 8 IAC bus ports are chosen in the preferences.  I have noticed that configuring one copy of a VE instance will duplicate its preferences in another VE instance.

In the environment window of logic, in click & ports, I have the sum cable removed and instead I directly routed my midi controller to "Input Notes", which then goes through a monitor and then to the sequencer input, though I'm sure that my midi controller could go directly to my sequencer input.      **The reason I have disabled the sum cable is because I have encountered midi loop issues, and so far removing that sum cable has been great.**

Now, still in the environment window, in MIDI Instr.  I have 8 multi-instruments, each assigned to each IAC Bus.  Make sure each of their channels isn't crossed out by click on each of them.

That's pretty much it on the midi side.  No midi loops whatsoever, which are I think due to the disabled Sum cable.

On the audio side, I use JackPilot (free software) to route my VEs to Logic.  A lot of people talk about using Soundflower, but after trying both extensively, JackPilot is much more efficient, versatile, and useful.

In JackPilot you can pretty much reroute audio from any software to any other software.  Of course those programs have to use JackPilot as a sound device.  You can assign an almost unlimited amount of inputs and outputs to applications.  So I basically route each output from the VE's to the inputs in Logic.  Performance is flawless and you can save your routing environment in JackPilot.

In Logic you can then create audio tracks and assign those inputs to them, or use Aux tracks, whichever you prefer.

This is basically my setup for Logic and standalone instances of VE.  I run 3 instances but have run more in the past without a problem.

Oh, one thing about VE's midi preferences.  Even though I have read that VE can only use a max of 8 midi ports, you can technically select a lot more in the preferences.  The problem is, if more than 8 ports are chosen, the ports won't appear in order when you try to select them in your VI's.  But that's only a minor thing.

I'm guessing that your problem lies in still having the Sum cable attached to the sequencer input in Logic.

Hope this helps,

Sebastien

Wow, brilliant work!!!

Did you by any chance tune the samples to 442 instead of 440?

I've been remaking my template and comparing instruments to a few recordings, star wars being one of them, and I've noticed that the LSO seems to be tuned to 442.  If not, then the VSL samples at 440 sound kinda...."sad".  So when I tuned them to 442, everything became good.

I have been making midi mockups of Star Wars' The Imperial March with both VSL Opus 1 and EWQLSO and basically comparing the two.

Throughout the process I began noticing that some of the brass samples in EWQLSO are sometimes slightly sharper than they should technically be, but for some reason when mixed in the orchestra, it sounds great.  However, I find the EWQLSO samples a little too thin.

So I did the same thign with VSL, was happy about the thickness of the sound, but was sorta annoyed by the "perfection" of the tuning.

Maybe developing a way to automatically vary the tuning of notes could be nice (maybe).  I'm talking about very small changes in tuning.

For example putting a note 0.20 cents sharper sometimes etc.

I put the trumpets of the main melody of the Imperial March, slightly sharper than usual, and it sounded better....

i dunno, what do you guys think?

Hi everyone,

I think that I am almost about to purchase the Special Edition Bundle, but I have a few questions.

Regarding the Epic Horns, are the 0'3s and 0'5s short samples included? or just the staccato?

I have Opus 1 and 2, what are the main differences between those two and the Special Edition Bundle, other than the VI interface?

Thank you all,

Sebastien

 I did follow all instructions in the readme.

Even though it takes a long time for the samples to load, I can load pretty much all of Opus 1 and 2 in one machine using only 1.05 gigs of ram, and the performance is impeccable! 

Hi everyone,

I used to use EWQL Symphonic Gold library with Kontakt 2.  I was able to load at a max of 1.4 gigs.  The samples loaded fast and everything was good.

With Opus1, it's another story.  I can still load up to 1.4gigs, but it takes SOOO long.  The other weird thing is it also takes time to free up the RAM when i close my project.  This never happened with ewql samples.

Is there a way to save my vsl opus1 kontakt patches so that they loast faster or something?