Logic or FL or Your suggestion, I need your help...

[YoshiBlade]

SO FL 12 is coming to Mac(?) and I have been waiting to get my grubby little hands on that for sometime now, I've fiddled with the Beta version, it's not very Mac-ish yet, so I had a wee-bit-o trouble with some of the finer points and hotkeys, but felt awesome. Everything sounds so ready to go out of the box, the loop based nature makes me feel like I'm handling really big projects one step at a time, price tag looks nice, the piano roll felt like something I could learn. When it was suggested by none other than the Mad Scientist himself, flexstyle, I should look at Logic before I drop the cash. I've worked with Garageband, before anything else, the loops felt good, the setup for made me feel like the preset VST were great. I do have Cubase and I middy regret the purchase, when I got to working with it. There is no demo for Logic so this is the part where it's "door number 1 or door number 2" or maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way...share some wisdom. 

 

What I'm aiming for 

I rarely use live instruments

I prefer Presets, as opposed to ground up synth making

I've used Reason most of my career, and I love it

Cubase was very difficult for me to use

Mixing is my weakest point 

 

[DarkeSword]

Threads like this belong in the Workshop, not in Community. Please make sure you're posting threads in the right place. Moved.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Based on what you're aiming for, I'd vote for FL Studio.

[Jorito]

I don't have any experience with FL, but I bought Logic Pro X when it came out, and it just clicked with me (unlike Logic 8/9, which confused me). That doesn't help much in your choice maybe, but in the end I suggest go with the program that feels best to you. If you like FL based on their demo, go with that. If you feel good about Garageband, well, Logic Pro is a much more advanced version with a lot of cool instruments and effects.

At the end of the day you can music with either one of them, pick the one that matches your brain and workflow best

Also want to point out that you can demo Logic in an Apple Store (prolly your best option since no demo).

[Flexstyle]

Based on what you're aiming for, I'd vote for FL Studio.

 

Honestly, I'd personally recommend Logic. There are so many usable presets built into that program, both for instruments and for channel strips, that you'll be able to find something usable without ever having to build something from scratch, just by what's included in the program. Plus, it's a much more mature piece of software on the Mac platform, and it's actually originally built for the Mac OS, rather than ported over. The piano roll in FL Studio is probably superior, but Logic has much nicer quantization and recording capabilities. Plus, Logic supports the mod wheel (essential for getting good expression out of many synth patches) out of the box on a MIDI keyboard, whereas good luck getting it to work in FL if you don't want to do a ton of tweaking. 

 

FL is fantastic, but it is going to be spotty on Mac at first, and you should really wait a couple years while they figure it all out on that platform.

 

Finally, you'll be able to import all your old GarageBand files and keep editing them with Logic's toolset, since that's a fun feature that Logic has.

 

Either way, go out and purchase Native Instruments Komplete 10 if you have the cash along with whichever one you pick.

[Garrett Williamson]

I haven't used FL Studio so I can't say but I'm a Logic Pro 9 user and have loved it to death since day 1. I started with GarageBand so if you're familiar with GarageBand, it makes Logic Pro way easier to figure out. Also, Logic has plenty of fantastic presets, though I encourage practicing creating synths from scratch if you are into synthesizer sounds a lot. If that's not your thing, then don't worry about it.

 

Also, live instruments built-in to Logic Pro are really nice as well. The pianos are pretty good, and the electric piano, clav, and organ plugins are absolutely amazing. The orchestral stuff is acceptable and you can easily get away with it in a lot of cases, though it can't pull off some of the stuff that a super high-tech third-party plugin could. But if you learn how to get around it, you can still get some good sounding orchestral stuff.

 

Also, FL Studio is coming to Mac? Like Flexstyle said, that's gonna be a little iffy to touch if it's gonna be a newcomer to Mac. Probably gonna be pretty buggy and will take them some time to fix it all up.

 

Since it looks like you've been working with GarageBand, I cannot express enough that Logic Pro is the way you wanna go. It is absolutely the best decision. The industry standard is Pro Tools but Logic comes close behind and Pro Tools is mainly used for engineering in bigger studios and stuff; I personally don't prefer it in probably 80% of my circumstances. Especially since you're saying you rarely use live instruments, Pro Tools' MIDI interface is not nearly as good as Logic's, but that may just be because I've learned Logic's and am so much more familiar with it that every time I need to use Pro Tools it's just frustrating.

 

TL;DR, Logic Pro. Definitely Logic Pro. I haven't touched FL Studio but just hearing what your needs are, especially with the note that you've been using GarageBand, Logic Pro is the way to go. And like someone else brought up, go to any Apple store and you can mess around on Logic Pro on one of their computers for free for a long time. They didn't kick me off of it for like an entire hour one time. I don't know when they would, other then when they would have been closing down. Haha!

[SonicThHedgog]

I'd try both in demo. I use a combination of two Daws I love very much which are Cubase and Ableton. Different DAWs have strong points and weaknesses depending on your preferences. Give'em both a try. If you have and you are bent on buying a full copy of either one, I say buy the one that you feel you have the best time with work flow.

[Jorito]

Plus, Logic supports the mod wheel (essential for getting good expression out of many synth patches) out of the box on a MIDI keyboard, whereas good luck getting it to work in FL if you don't want to do a ton of tweaking. 

Wow, really? This seems such basic functionality to me (all DAWs I tried support this) that this really surprised me.

Also, wanted to point out the modwheel isn't only useful for synth expression, lots of Kontakt (orchestral) instruments use it for dynamics too. Depending on your genre that might be a dealbreaker (unless you like drawing in everything with the mouse).

[timaeus222]

? It didn't take that much work to get the modwheel working on FL for me (Windows, but still). I guess I'm careful or something.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Wow, really? This seems such basic functionality to me (all DAWs I tried support this) that this really surprised me.

Also, wanted to point out the modwheel isn't only useful for synth expression, lots of Kontakt (orchestral) instruments use it for dynamics too. Depending on your genre that might be a dealbreaker (unless you like drawing in everything with the mouse).

 

It is kinda stupid, but not nearly as stupid as no legit time signature changing. 

[Garrett Williamson]

Again, I'm no FL Studio user, but since you started with GarageBand and FL Studio is just now coming to Mac (making it fairly unstable), it only seems reasonable that you get Logic Pro.

[Coaltergeist]

I've used Logic, Reason, and FL pretty heavily, and for what it's worth, FL is my favorite. If you buy the Producer Version, it will come with Sytrus and Maximus, 2 AMAZING plugins that you will love when it comes to presets. Maximus for mixing (well, mastering, but helps with mixing) and Sytrus for instrumentation, both are amazing. I'm loving FL12 right now, but some people prefer 11. It's personal preference.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Yeah, lack of mod wheel support in FL is not a dealbreaker for me, but it is a huge pain in the ass.

 

I use Studio One if I'm doing orchestral stuff or scoring stuff; it's so much better in terms of MIDI functionality. Automation is freely moveable, cut-able, paste-able, scalable, etc. You can also control multiple MIDI channels at the same time by simply highlighting them. Additionally, you can pull up a small checklist on the side in the piano roll where you can simultaneously view and/or edit multiple tracks at the same time, while still keeping everything in separate tracks in the arrangement view.

 

So yeah, it's completely selective editable ghost notes available for the entire project tracklist. So if I'm writing 4-part string counterpoint, I can just enable the four string tracks and edit away easily being able to plainly spot counterpoint or voicing errors or whatever, without having to switch patterns or collapse all the data into one pattern (I can also just view them, I don't have to have them toggled to be editable). Studio One completely annihilates FL in this one little feature that ends up being a huge workflow advantage. In FL, to pull this off, I have to put all the stuff in one pattern, write my stuff, then expand it back out to separate patterns. Annoying.

 

 

 

I use FL for everything else, though, electronic, band genres (metal/rock etc.), jazz, or even sound-oriented ("epic") cinematic stuff because I need better note control (I'm a mouse clicker) control and mixing (S1 is a standard style DAW, so I'm not a big fan of the mixer console design), and FL's piano roll is king (except for the inferior ghost notes).

 

So if you like a powerful mixer and a good piano roll, go FL and don't mind learning the pattern system. It's great for electronic or any other contemporary genre stuff, which is based on repeating sections/clips and standard # measure forms. If you want better audio and MIDI recording/editing functionality, skip FL and go something linear like Studio One, or since you pose Logic as your other option, go Logic.