Which Is Better: Logic Or Fl Studio

[alextheDJ]

Hey guys! Just want to get your opinion. Which do YOU think is better : Logic or FL Studio?

[kelwynshade]

At 6/5/08 01:45 AM, alextheDJ wrote: Hey guys! Just want to get your opinion. Which do YOU think is better : Logic or FL Studio?

I've been personally using Fruity Loops for an ungodly amount of years, so I'm clearly biased, however, just try them both out and prepare for confusion.

Programs like FL are intimidating if you've never used them before. I suggest getting Fruity Loops, grab some popcorn, and search for Fruity Loops Tutorials all over Youtube.

[joshhunsaker]

Logic has better included synths/fx no contest. FL is a little more user friendly and nothing beats FL's piano roll. I mean nothing. Of special note (and importance) - you can't freeze tracks/clips in FL like you can do in Logic. There are some "big boy" type functions that FL just won't duplicate on that level. I mean Madonna's music would have a 1000% percent higher chance of being mixed on Logic than on FL Studio for instance. There are good reasons for it (hardware integration, batch edits, editing period, notation view, etc. - stuff like that).

If you don't plan on making a career out of music anytime soon and want to save money - FL is a fine choice.

[Cryoma]

I just got FL and I got to say it's great for beginners, very easy to fool around with, very straight forward.
You can't do much with it though, it's completely based off external .wav files (as far as I can tell) and thus has limited resources.
Logic is just... Put simply it's not for anybody who's looking to make a career in music, maybe if you just want to play with it or maybe make a track or two, but it's horrible compared to pro standards.
Once you really get deep into it you should take a gander at Reason as it is simply the best I've ever come across and I refuse to use anything else seriously.
Even better than Pro Tools.
It's the hardest to learn though.
From what I've heard.
Took me an hour or two to learn it, and I knew NOTHING of music production beforehand.
I just leaped in and started making shit.
ANYWAY, each one is geared towards different stuff so it depends on your own personal taste, so go ahead and ignore what I just said.
:\

[HaniiPuppy]

To put it simply, FL is intermediate on the same level as Garageband whereas Logic Express and Logic Studio are professional level.

[joshhunsaker]

mmm...

FL is light years beyond garageband, lol. Ever tried formula controlling, vsts, velocity sensitivity response curves adjustment and other such things in GB? Yeah, right. Garageband is like a children's toy.

[Shenkhar]

FL studio is a good learner program. It can load vsts, samples, live audio - pretty much anything you can throw at it. Logic pro is a more professional program, more features - the UI is a bit clumsy but that is not the point. With logic pro you can program the back end of the software yourself (I.e code your own stuff/change the actual program, fl cannot do this), to get desired result faster and more accurately. Notation view is also a plus (also, you can draw automation curves with a mouse/tablet and logic will recognize the shapes or leave them intact, beats the shit out of FL studios beizer based automation)

Anyway, thats my 2.5 cents.

[HaniiPuppy]

At 6/5/08 02:13 AM, joshhunsaker wrote: mmm...

FL is light years beyond garageband, lol. Ever tried formula controlling, vsts, velocity sensitivity response curves adjustment and other such things in GB? Yeah, right. Garageband is like a children's toy.

GB does support VSTs, touch sensitivity, curves, adjustments, etc. (btw, use commas o.o )

ever tried Musical Typing, vocal transformers, AUs, automatic volume control, visual equalisers, or using your computer as a guitar-amp in fruity loops?

[HaniiPuppy]

At 6/5/08 02:40 AM, HaniiPuppy wrote: GB does support VSTs, touch sensitivity, curves, adjustments, etc. (btw, use commas o.o )

Re-read. I have my keyboard controlling the touch sensitivity, so i've never really looked into touch sensitivity curves in garageband.

[Shenkhar]

You bet, I love all that stuff. Fl studio is awesome and cheap, compare to other packages nowdays.

[xKore]

At 6/5/08 02:40 AM, HaniiPuppy wrote: ever tried Musical Typing, vocal transformers, AUs, automatic volume control, visual equalisers, or using your computer as a guitar-amp in fruity loops?

first, it's fl studio now, not fruityloops.

and second answer, yes, they're pretty much basics. except for AUs which I beleive are Mac native only.

back to the topic, Fl studio is much secksier than any of the sequencers because it has a somewhat new approach to its sequencing. Cubase, Logic and Sonar kind of share a common interface so it's much common that if you was good at that kind of sequencing you could do more in all of their interfaces. You can pretty much do the same in all the DAWs but FLs native plugins don't really extend to a really proffesional level, liek it doesn't have a convo reverb, but the addition of VSTs somewhat breaks that wall and it's all pretty much down to the users preference of interface. Also theirs the rendering engines and stoofs but I'm not so experianced with that.

[joshhunsaker]

At 6/5/08 02:40 AM, HaniiPuppy wrote:

At 6/5/08 02:13 AM, joshhunsaker wrote: mmm...

FL is light years beyond garageband, lol. Ever tried formula controlling, vsts, velocity sensitivity response curves adjustment and other such things in GB? Yeah, right. Garageband is like a children's toy.

GB does support VSTs, touch sensitivity, curves, adjustments, etc. (btw, use commas o.o )

ever tried Musical Typing, vocal transformers, AUs, automatic volume control, visual equalisers, or using your computer as a guitar-amp in fruity loops?

LOL.

Um... no- garageband does not support native vst's at all. You have to pay $80 for the fxpansion AU to VST wrapper. For $10 more you could have bought the FL edition. And yes, you can use the computer keyboard to input midi notes in FL Studio. Um. And yes,FL has a spectrogram (and getting a free vst visualizer isn't exactly rocket science either...), and yes - fruity loop has distortion and waveshaping plugins that come standard. Automatic volume control? Um. Big whoopie there. That probably has about as much use in professional mixing applications as Creative's X-Fi enhancement does.

I take it you've never used fruityloops before?

[joshhunsaker]

Look, I know you may hold garageband dear to your heart and I've heard some amazing stuff people have done with it...but in terms of program capability? It sits right there next to Magix Music Studio (probably the non-deluxe version). It's just not as powerful as Nuendo or a ProTools HD rig no matter how you slice it, period.

[NickPerrin]

At 6/5/08 01:59 AM, Cryoma wrote: Logic is just... Put simply it's not for anybody who's looking to make a career in music, maybe if you just want to play with it or maybe make a track or two, but it's horrible compared to pro standards.
Once you really get deep into it you should take a gander at Reason as it is simply the best I've ever come across and I refuse to use anything else seriously.

WOW. From where did you get this absolutely ludicrous idea?
Logic is considered one of the best DAW platforms available. I know of very many pro composers/producers who use Logic alongside Pro Tools or another DAW and love it. It's more powerful than Fruity Loops, and that's not opinion, it's fact.

And Reason? It doesn't even support VSTs natively yet.

Don't give people uninformed information like this please.

Logic is quite professional-grade, and is actually one of the best if not my favourite DAW. It's also now the most affordable DAW package, comes with tons of stuff for less than any other DAW package, because Apple can afford to sell it at a low price (and wants to attract users to Macs). It used to be on PC, but Apple bought emagic...

[DavidOrr]

There are other alternatives as well, such as;

Consumer Level: Garage band, Sequel, Magix Music Maker, etc. (most of the stuff you'll see on the shelves in consumer electronic stores like Best Buy)

Prosumer Level: FL Studio, "lite" versions of DAW (Cubase LE4, Sonar Home edition)

Professional Level: Sonar 8, Cubase 4, Logic, Magix Sequoia, Pro Tools

I'm sure someone will disagree with something on the list, but this is pretty accepted as how things fall into place. Keep in mind I only mentioned software that can be considered a complete digital audio workstation package (take that with a grain of salt for the consumer level stuff, because it's very hard to find a full package for a low price). Products like Reason, although powerful, are not full-fledged DAW.

[joshhunsaker]

At 6/5/08 03:52 AM, NickPerrin wrote:

At 6/5/08 01:59 AM, Cryoma wrote: Logic is just... Put simply it's not for anybody who's looking to make a career in music

WOW. From where did you get this absolutely ludicrous idea?

oh my gosh! I didn't pick up on that little line until I read your comment nick! Logic is not for anyone looking to make a career in music???? Oh dear. Time for you to pick up a subscription to EQ magazine. Yikes. Come'on people. I thought we were living in the information age.

[joshhunsaker]

At 6/5/08 09:46 AM, DavidOrr wrote: Consumer Level: Garage band, Sequel, Magix Music Maker, etc. (most of the stuff you'll see on the shelves in consumer electronic stores like Best Buy)

Prosumer Level: FL Studio, "lite" versions of DAW (Cubase LE4, Sonar Home edition)

Professional Level: Sonar 8, Cubase 4, Logic, Magix Sequoia, Pro Tools

I'm sure someone will disagree with something on the list, but this is pretty accepted as how things fall into place.

DavidOrr is completely correct. But someone who makes such fricking incredible music would naturally tend to understand such things.

your music rocks...

[Nav]

At 6/5/08 03:52 AM, NickPerrin wrote: And Reason? It doesn't even support VSTs natively yet.

It never will, its not a question of "when." Reason doesn't support VSTs because its trying to emulate a hardware environment. Not trying to be the most powerful it can be, but trying to give you tools to use the hardware to its maximum potential, and getting great sounds. Reason is an excellent learning tool for basic sound design, arrangement, etc. It also works well with ReWire.

At 6/5/08 09:46 AM, DavidOrr wrote: Prosumer Level: FL Studio, "lite" versions of DAW (Cubase LE4, Sonar Home edition)

Professional Level: Sonar 8, Cubase 4, Logic, Magix Sequoia, Pro Tools

I'm sure that there are exceptions, right? Some famous artists (Soulja Boy, Deadmau5) use FL alone, or with something else. FL, like Reason pretty much, is out there as a tool used to get ideas down, not trying to be the amazing superpowerful ultimate music 100000 track studio that the others are trying to be. FL is sort of an enigma, because its designers are not familiar (or WERE not familiar when started) with traditional music production and theory, so they aimed to make it userfriendly, rather than conform to the standards.

And doesn't Protools mix in integer (16-bit)? I think its like the last program to do so. Its used for 2 reasons: the people are familiar with it, and it supports their HD Audio Interfaces. That seems to be the main reason why anyone would use it. The other programs there are definitely powerful, but might not be considered as intuitive as some of the "prosumer" programs mentioned.

[joshhunsaker]

At 6/5/08 03:19 PM, Nav wrote:

At 6/5/08 03:52 AM, NickPerrin wrote: And Reason? It doesn't even support VSTs natively yet.

It never will, its not a question of "when." Reason doesn't support VSTs because its trying to emulate a hardware environment. Not trying to be the most powerful it can be, but trying to give you tools to use the hardware to its maximum potential, and getting great sounds. Reason is an excellent learning tool for basic sound design, arrangement, etc. It also works well with ReWire.

At 6/5/08 09:46 AM, DavidOrr wrote: Prosumer Level: FL Studio, "lite" versions of DAW (Cubase LE4, Sonar Home edition)

Professional Level: Sonar 8, Cubase 4, Logic, Magix Sequoia, Pro Tools

I'm sure that there are exceptions, right? Some famous artists (Soulja Boy, Deadmau5) use FL alone, or with something else. FL, like Reason pretty much, is out there as a tool used to get ideas down, not trying to be the amazing superpowerful ultimate music 100000 track studio that the others are trying to be. FL is sort of an enigma, because its designers are not familiar (or WERE not familiar when started) with traditional music production and theory, so they aimed to make it userfriendly, rather than conform to the standards.

Right, a huge amount of artists use Reason as a "sketchpad". There's nothing that says you aren't allowed to become famous and still only use FL Studio. I'm pretty sure Gol and the rest of the team over there at FL however know their sh** by now. You can hop over to kvraudio.com and talk to those guys in person if you like (or heck, just at the FL Studio forum). Their not the friendliest bunch...but hey, most software designers make for terrible PR reps.

And doesn't Protools mix in integer (16-bit)? I think its like the last program to do so. Its used for 2 reasons: the people are familiar with it, and it supports their HD Audio Interfaces. That seems to be the main reason why anyone would use it. The other programs there are definitely powerful, but might not be considered as intuitive as some of the "prosumer" programs mentioned.

No no no. ProTools used to be (in the early days) a 16 bit system. Now it is actually 48 bit integer format which I've read can be more accurate than 64 bit float. Don't ask me about the math on that one. It gets too hairy to quick for me to want to go there.

[DavidOrr]

Once again Josh hits it right on the money! It's also important to look at the targeted audience of each product. While FL Studio is certainly far more robust than it used to be, it's still targeted to users that are on tighter budgets, which tend to be the prosumer market as opposed to the professional market. Naturally, there are exceptions; I read an article in Sound on Sound magazine a few months ago about an artist who did an entire album in GarageBand, and made it sound quite polished. While the album was pretty simple (as I recall it was just guitar with a few extra instruments here and there), it shows that there will always be some overlap in the level of users using a particular product.

[Nav]

At 6/5/08 03:34 PM, joshhunsaker wrote: Right, a huge amount of artists use Reason as a "sketchpad". There's nothing that says you aren't allowed to become famous and still only use FL Studio. I'm pretty sure Gol and the rest of the team over there at FL however know their sh** by now. You can hop over to kvraudio.com and talk to those guys in person if you like (or heck, just at the FL Studio forum). Their not the friendliest bunch...but hey, most software designers make for terrible PR reps.

Yeah, I've talked to Gol and the like on the FL forum (seen you there too). They're actually pretty funny, but quite unhelpful. Members like Large, who have more selective skills (IE Synthmaker) are much more helpful in the long run.

No no no. ProTools used to be (in the early days) a 16 bit system. Now it is actually 48 bit integer format which I've read can be more accurate than 64 bit float. Don't ask me about the math on that one. It gets too hairy to quick for me to want to go there.

Ah. I was just quoting Gol about the 16 bit thing :P. Magix Samplitude, which is what I used in that course I took the other month, also mixes in 48 bit. However, how would dithering work for that? More or less accurate? I'd need to look into it.

[Cryoma]

Reason doesn't support VST cause it doesn't need any, you can generate pretty much any sound you can imagine inside of the rack.
The only reason (no pun intended) they have external ReFills is cause it makes it a lot easier for people who don't know how to make them themselves in Reason.
Thus Props gets more money.

[NickPerrin]

At 6/5/08 11:01 PM, Cryoma wrote: Reason doesn't support VST cause it doesn't need any, you can generate pretty much any sound you can imagine inside of the rack.

Once again, not true. Nav gave the real answer above.

"cause it doesn't need any" is not justification. Can Reason generate, for example, realistic symphonic samples? No. So why doesn't it support VSTs? As said, the answer is given above by Nav.

[joshhunsaker]

At 6/5/08 11:01 PM, Cryoma wrote: The only reason (no pun intended) they have external ReFills is cause it makes it a lot easier for people who don't know how to make them themselves in Reason.

I dare you to try to sample a piano and have it come out as good as Props $100 piano refill.

[Cryoma]

At 6/5/08 11:22 PM, NickPerrin wrote: Can Reason generate, for example, realistic symphonic samples?

Yes.

At 6/6/08 01:14 AM, joshhunsaker wrote: I dare you to try to sample a piano and have it come out as good as Props $100 piano refill.

I really want to, I have a Kohler and Campbell sitting in my living room, now I just need a boom mic.

[Zooloo75]

FL Studio is basic if you make it sound basic.
But you can make very professional music in there.

FL Studio can do basic things, to professional work that some dance, techno, etc artists actually use today!

[Ambimetric]

I use both.
I'm more used to using FL, but Logic has soooooo much more features (like editing audio in the playlist, and sample editor as well as other places). Fruity Loops can't do that.

As you get used to making music, you'll probably become one to hate preset synth setting, and ready-made loops and samples. FL comes with hardly any of these. Logic comes with plenty.

Some of the dance music I've made in FL is much better that the stuff I've made in Logic. But then some of my other stuff (metal, ambient, downtempo, dnb) has sounded much better coming out of Logic. And you can record straight into Logic. I think this is available in FL, but you need something or other, so it sucks. Ha.

But yeah, there's my unbiased opinion. Logic and FL can produce just as good results as each other, if you know how to use them to a great extent.

[alextheDJ]

Yah I have both too, but i find Logic to have more options and more instruments and other stuff. FL definitely has a more user-friendly program but I think Logic is way more professional.

[Suspended-3rd-Chord]

At 6/6/08 01:21 AM, Cryoma wrote:

At 6/5/08 11:22 PM, NickPerrin wrote: Can Reason generate, for example, realistic symphonic samples?

Yes.

Shut up and quit trying to be so defensive. The symphonic samples are nowhere near as realistic and layered as a sample library like East West.

[Nav]

At 6/6/08 04:18 PM, alextheDJ wrote: Yah I have both too, but i find Logic to have more options and more instruments and other stuff. FL definitely has a more user-friendly program but I think Logic is way more professional.

They both load VSTs, they can both sequence, and they both mix in 16+ bits and 96khz+, so they are both technically usable for whatever you want, since if the native plugins don't exist, then you can load up a VST. I don't see how that makes FL any less professional.