bt12

ttoxique, awesome advice and thorough explanation of hardware v. software (one not being better but better suited for different tasks). I also thought id share this link http://www.musicradar.com/news/dj/in-pictures-boys-noize-and-his-hardware-packed-studio-527235/2 a tour of boys noize studio. Hardware galore.

Ski, again, a most excellent and helpful response! Thanks, this is exactly the kind of advice I was looking for. I am an Ableton user and have produced many songs with ableton. I have found that ableton is great for sketching ideas, and most importantly play live but Logic, I feel, sounds better when it comes down to mixing, producing, and bouncing. The advice about the synths is exactly what I was looking for. I really need to try out some of these other synths b/c I can get solid sounds out of ES2 and ESM and the other Logic synths but not quite as rich as I want, even with plenty of careful processing (EQ, compression, Exciter, etc). Here is another post I recently wrote asking for advice, comparing my track to a Brodinski one that I like and asking why mine might lack the clarity and depth that the brodinski track has. http://logicprohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=81092 This may help give perspective on what I'm talking about. I'm really ready to grind out those hours to get my production to next level and can't wait to try some of these new synths. Any plugins you think I should explore, too? Thanks again for the help! Much appreciated.

Ski, thanks for the response and tips on synths. Don't worry I want to and love working hard, I just want to avoid wasting that hard work and effort trying to make a tool do a job it can't do. I've already invested hundreds of hours into logic as a DAW and want to make sure it's smart to invest another ton of hours w/o it being in vien. I like the approach of "of course try other stuff" That makes it easy. I tend to be very black and white w/little grey. I really appreciate the help!

I am wondering what others think about this, at least within the realm of producing electro house/dance music. Do you think that all the tools that come with Logic are good enough to make professional sounding and successful tracks? Or do you think that the use of some third party synths and plugins may be needed to get your track to that top shelf level? I would like to think Logic is good enough, but sometimes wonder if I am working harder than I need to, trying to get sounds that Logic's synths and plugins may not be able to make, or might be more efficiently created w/other third party tools. Thoughts? When I say professional I am thinking of cats like: Boys Noize, Deadmau5, Afrojack, Tommy Trash, etc

Gotcha, thanks for the advice! no disappointment here. Always good to learn.

Thanks for the reply. I did "master" it myself, which is something I am not an expert at nor have the facilities for. When I "master" one of my tracks I am focused on getting the levels up and a little EQ. Again, I don't have the equip or room to do professional level mastering. You think that might be the real difference?

I am pretty good at mixing but am noticing that when I compare my tracks to other, more professional, tracks two things stand out, mine sound a little dull (not as crisp) and a little flat (not as deep). Perhaps the answer is as easy as boost the highs and use more/better reverb but I suspect there is more to it than that. If you have a sec to A/B my track vs. another, please do and give me your two cents on how to achieve a mix that is brighter and has more space to it. A single I recently released [soundcloud] [/soundcloud] A song that I think is far better with less going on [soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/brodinskiofficial/gesaffelstein-viol-brodinski[/soundcloud]

This is great getting everybody's insights. Keep em coming!

I think it's clear that you made the right choice! ahahahahahaha

we'll see. I bought the interface from djdeals.com and it is far outside of their return policy. I will be curious to see how focusrite handles it from here. And I'll keep everyone posted. Nightmare indeed.

The issue is still unresolved and this has been going on for over a month now. The initial diagnostic from my Focusrite tech rep was that the unit was broken and I should ship it to their US repair facility. I had to pay for that, even though the product was only six months old. I hear from the repair facility two-weeks later that they can not find anything wrong with the interface and are shipping it back to be. I respond politely letting them know my frustration with having to have a) pay for shipping something that isn't broken and b) still no resolution. At that point someone very nice from Focusrite UK took over and began trying to trouble shoot. That was almost a week ago and with one email a day back and forth, two delete and clean OS installs, and a multitude of trouble shooting the issue is still not fixed. I had to let Focusrite know that this has gone on too long and at this point I need to buy a new interface that can work with my computer. Love the product. Not satisfied with customer service.

I am just curious to learn more about how many people are making their living from creating music? If so, what do you do? How did you get there? and any advice for a 27yr old trying to plan a path to get there? If not, what do you do? How much time do you still make for creating music? Was there a time you thought you would make your living from music?

yeah, I will. Unfortunately, as I ran updates to leopard even 96k became crunchy, too. As I decrease the sample rate it just gets worse until at 44.1 it is full on dropping out. Tomorrow I'll have my snow leopard disk back and be able to upgrade back to that and go from there.

That was a great question to ask! I went into the Saffire software and 96k and 88.2 seem to work fine. 48k and 44.1 do not! Good call.

Unfortunately, I do not have another firewire interface to test BUT I have tested a firewire hard drive and it worked fine (mounted and transfered data).