Philip Robinson

This is such great advice. So, I'll try out the default instruments with Logic and see what I use a lot and what's passable and decide what to do from there. I don't want to cause any big life regrets for myself! Lol.

Ack! More to think about! And I'm really not sure about some of these things, like what sort of sound quality I'll like best. I'll be sure to check out kvraudio though.

Logic definitely seems like the, um, logical choice for me but it sounds like settling on an instrument library will be much more difficult

Wow, lot of good stuff here. Now I gotta go look them all up lol. Thanks for the input, guys!

What are some recommended sample libraries then? Regardless of what DAW I go with, sounds like I'll need some anyway. Might as well know what I'm getting into lol. I've heard people mention the Vienna Symphonic Library...?

After spending about 10 years with Garage Band, someone gave me Reason Essentials last year and I was very excited to try it out. But most of the things I like to write are orchestral or at least have an orchestral backbone and Reason was not very good for that (just trying to find a place to buy the Miroslav Refill was overly difficult). So I'm looking to start fresh with a new DAW that will fit my needs better. Since I use a MacBook Pro and have experience with Garage Band, I'm leaning towards Logic Pro. I hear it's orchestral stuff is pretty good and the $200 price point doesn't hurt. But I wanted to get some opinions from the community here first. Is Logic Pro good for orchestral writing or should I check out something else?

I'll give that a try. Thanks!

Well poop Was not aware of Reason's closed box nature. Hmm. I'll check out Miroslav at least. Thanks for the info.

Hey, everybody. I've been using GarageBand for upwards of ten years but I recently got Reason Essentials and would just like a little help or advice. I've messed around with it a bunch (especially the drum machine!) but I'm still lost on the finer points, and none of the tutorials I've watched online have been that helpful. If anyone knows a good set to watch, I'd love to know. The big thing that is thwarting me right now is I can't figure out how to dynamically change tempo, volume, or panning. If someone could impart that bit of knowledge to me, I'd really appreciate it. The other thing I wanted to ask about is instruments. I prefer to do orchestral things and the included orchestral instruments are unsurprisingly awful. But I don't know if I need instrument libraries or sound fonts or patches or what. I'm willing to pay for nice stuff, so let me know what's the best. (Depending on how expensive things are, it might be good to know about some free options as a stopgap measure. I just don't know.) I'm looking forward to getting to know Reason better and eventually submitting some stuff here on OCR. Thanks for any help you guys can give.