lookatthisguy

I've been reading with a ton of enthusiasm, and I'm looking forward to picking up a CS12. For years I had my eyes on the Avid Artist Control, and I actually just snagged a hell of a deal on the Avid Artist Mix so I thought, what the hell. I wanted a control surface with an array of faders for mixing, and always thought I'd pair it with the Control for obvious reasons. Is there anyone that's used both that can speak to what they like between the two/how they compare? I don't think there's any good reason to pick the Artist Control over the CS12 at this point besides maybe the times I have to jump over to Pro Tools, but that's not often enough to be a concern for me (not yet, anyway)… still, I'd love to hear some comparisons so I don't feel tempted to cheap out on the price if such a deal comes along.

I'd just use Composer Cloud. Pretty decent subscription for what you get, and then you have the option of downloading individual instruments as you need them. Frees you up from sitting around for a week.

So then all we have to do is go back in time and affect things so that media composers always own their own work, WFH agreements never exist, and producers never have the option to sell those rights to make a quick buck off our labor on the promise (or hope) that they'll cut another share out of the budget entirely. Easy! Granted, there's a lot of anonymity in the forum, but I do feel a sense of divide in people's comments between who I presume are hobbyists vs. professionals and/or people whom understand the nature of media scoring vs. those who don't. I'm with @jmob here, especially with the added layer of my journey thus far (moved across the country during COVID to attend grad school for this field, so I'm very new and without any career wins yet really) — what chance does someone in my shoes have? Sure, AI aiding my workflow sounds exciting, but there's a food chain effect here, and line items are inherently prey in this field. Those whom control the purse strings will be in charge of this, in this specific field. Those "cookie-cutter" gigs are what pay the bills for a lot of people in this field, and I would argue that they can be "a way to live". You've heard of vocaloids, right? Even then, this may be the case when the music is the focus… but the focus in media scoring is rarely on the music. (And let's be honest: it isn't even always on the story. It's on the profit.)

Sure, but what facts or specs? Nothing has been discussed here besides the fact that successive Pro processors seem to be weighting toward more efficiency cores and fewer performance cores. I haven't delved much into what I saw on those videos, where the efficiency cores were simply not being used by Logic, but coming from an 8-core Intel, I wouldn't want to see those cores at 0%. More anecdotes here, but my degree is in screen scoring, and several of my classmates and professors came to me to discuss their Mac Studio purchases (because until my career takes off (fingers crossed), my day job is selling Macs), and none of them went for less than 64 GB. The ones that did only did so because that's what they could afford at the time. I simply don't agree that "64 -96g ram should be more than enough for anything on a modern mac"— in most cases, yes, absolutely. But for the type of work we're doing, I'd rather not concern myself with concerns of a potential bottleneck down the road. Of course, one could argue that by the time you're maxing out that computer, you ought to be flush enough with work to be able to afford buying a new one. It's a nice thought… not inherently as true as it may have once been, but I digress. I would definitely agree that unless OP is (already) an orchestral mockup wunderkind, this build is likely to run fantastically for a long time to come.

Not for film scoring. During the creative phase, we deal almost entirely with sample libraries. As impressive as the output gains are in Apple silicon, the workflow is still the same—a ton of samples are loading into the RAM. The more you’ve got, the more instruments you can use, the better (as in more realistic) your MIDI mockup can be. There have been several videos on YouTube at this point. They’re all anecdotal tests, but the balance of performance cores vs. efficiency cores has shifted over the three generations, and it seems that not all DAWs (including Logic) are all that good at balancing the workload across the types of cores. In the tests I’ve seen, people are able to run more simultaneous tracks on M1-series chips than M3. Again, anecdotal, and it may only be a handful of tracks, but it’s still something on my radar.

Ah, that makes much more sense! And means there’s less concern about fraud. 😆

That’s decent. It’s entirely the RAM you need to be concerning yourself with for film scoring these days, which will most always push us into buying the Max processors. I have an Intel Mac that’s maxed out at 64 GB; my next purchase will have 128, maybe 192 depending on my financial situation when I’m ready to purchase. Depending on the sizes of your sessions, 96 GB is pretty good. I’ve only recently become aware of the effect that M2 and M3 processors have for audio in Logic—with fewer performance cores and more efficiency cores, I’m hearing that the older the processor, the slightly more capable it is. That may also factor into your decision.

So, no you didn’t. Or if you did, you need to check your credit cards. Because all macOS updates for at least a decade at this point have been free. Honestly, based on what I’ve been reading here, I wouldn’t even bother with Logic yet. Start with GarageBand, which is free, and perfect to learn the basics of digital audio workstations. Once you feel comfortable in that environment, then you can dive into Logic for more advanced capabilities.

As I recall/understand it, no, Apple did not create Thunderbolt, though they did popularize it. Also as I recall/understand it, the limitations are linked to the change in processor architecture. (At least, that's what I hope—it would be a totally foot-shootingly stupid idea if it were a manufactured limitation.) But yes, you'll need to use the Thunderbolt ports to connect four screens. With any luck, those can be pushed through HDMI adapters if that's what you need, though this page doesn't share any more detail. https://support.apple.com/en-us/101910

Oh, hmm. I thought I remembered compatibility shifting earlier than the norm, for some reason.

It was either 10.7.8 or 10.7.9 that shifted to requiring macOS 13, but I forget which one it was.

Not many companies even go seven years. In fact, Apple promises support for five years after they stop selling a product. And then for a handful of years after that, they'll offer support for old platforms. But to answer your question, no, those demo computers are locked to use their demo Apple IDs.

There's also the angle of the marketing. "New to version 10.8.1: all these wonderful new features! (And fixes.)" to then be followed by "Sorry, you can't have these." Wouldn't be surprised if they don't want to (1) leave a bad taste in one's mouth or (2) point people toward older versions of software when one of the points of successive versions is bug fixes. Apple's also in a bit of a unique situation—they have the platform where the software is purchased, and we know for fact that they host older versions of the software on that platform. I don't know of many (if any) other companies that sell their old versions alongside their current versions. Of course, other developers have their software sold through third parties, and those third parties have an easier time selling old versions. Which brings me to point (3): those third parties also realize they can't sell older versions for the same price as the current stuff. Apple probably don't want to deal with that. Their line has been buy it once, and all the updates are free; those two positions would likely conflict for a lot of customers.

It’s a proper noun—Time Machine—no need for the air quotes around it.. 😆😉

Late to the game here, but… That's just Logic's protocol. Pressing stop twice always resets to 1 1 1 1. I routinely use that with my Korg nanoKontrol2.