… although, once again, it seems Apple have been watching Live’s Session View developments closely (Image credit: Future) With that new-found dualism in mind, this one comes down to whether or not you prioritise (Live’s) transparency and lightning-fast workflow over (Logic’s) sheer editing power but to our minds, Logic takes the audio handling crown. With Logic Pro now boasting its own well thought-out and tightly integrated take on the same concept in the shape of the Live Loops Grid, however, that edge has been blunted. Multitrack recording and punching in/out are obvious givens for both DAWs, but when you’ve got those clips on the page, Logic affords greater control over them, whether you’re applying natural-sounding pitch correction with the excellent Flex Pitch, or building the perfect vocal take with swipe comping.Īnd, of course, prior to Logic Pro 10.5, Live had a unique and compelling selling point in the ability to record loops in the Session View for non-linear jamming and experimentation. … but now with its own take, Logic wins the audio crown (Image credit: Future)Īs with the MIDI side of things, though, Logic’s long development history and more expansive architecture yield a wider range of audio recording and editing bells and whistles than you’ll find in Live, and if your recording needs are of the more demanding kind – ie, a full band, or even just guitar and vocals – it definitely does the ‘virtual recording studio’ thing rather better. Winner: Logic Pro Audio recording and editing In fact, it’s only been added to over the years with a raft of worthy new MIDI features, the most notable being Logic Pro 10.5’s superb Step Sequencer.

Defying the popular assumption that their buying of original Logic developer Emagic in 2002 would lead to a dumbing down, the fruity tech Goliath hasn’t removed a single MIDI-related feature – it’s all still there, from the Environment and Transform module to the Dynamics, Gate Time and ‘Q’ settings in the Inspector. On the other hand, Apple are to be equally commended for maintaining the formidable complexity for which Logic’s MIDI architecture has always been known. Very rarely do we find ourselves wishing for any specific MIDI editing feature in Live that can’t easily be worked around – with the possible exception of an event list, as being able to filter and alter MIDI data numerically would be hugely useful. Indeed, Ableton have done a sterling job of keeping this fundamental part of the system free of clutter. … whereas Logic treats users to an increasingly full selection of composition options (Image credit: Future)įor most Live users, however, none of that matters – the MIDI programming paradigm, and the contemporary producer’s technical expectations, have changed a lot since the 90s, and most won’t even be aware of the things that their DAW is ‘missing’. That also introduces the complication of Max For Live – a Suite-only add-on to which Logic has no counter attack, but that any prospective Suite buyer may not actually want or need – and can’t fail to have a bearing when we get to the ‘Value for money’ section, as Live 10 Suite costs over two and a half times as much as Logic Pro.

Explore the best studio monitors for your studioįirst, in the interest of parity, we have to put forward the Suite edition of Live 10 for the ’Instruments’ and ‘Effects’ rounds, as the Standard edition doesn’t make for a fair comparison with Logic, shipping with far fewer virtual instruments and effects.

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Go mobile with our pick of the best laptops for music production.Before we start, though, a few points of note… So to help you decide which is most deserving of your hard-earned cash, over the next few pages we’ll pit them against each other in an eight-round, no-holds-barred battle. Once upon a time we knew where we stood with these two qualitatively individual music software heavyweights, but now the similarities are enough to make the undecided DAW buyer’s head spin. Not only that, but Logic Pro 10.5’s new Sampler and Quick Sampler plugins are positively brazen in their similarity with Ableton’s Sampler and Simpler devices, while the remade Drum Machine Designer is more than a little reminiscent of Ableton’s Drum Rack. Before the release of Logic Pro 10.5, Live’s Session View gave it a creative angle all its own, but with the promotion of the Live Loops Grid from GarageBand iOS to Logic, that differential has been flattened.

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