Blau. Worked a lot today in Logic on Allison’s film project.
I ran into some funky problems with my Apple Airport Extreme, probably also as a function of running Snow Leopard, now. The way that the files are linked together is such that it does not work properly when I attach the drive locally. I’m not entirely sure how the system stores the references: the files have the same names and even had maintained the same mount point (under /Volumes/), yet the links all seem to blow up when switching from networked to local. Due to some stupidity on my part, I also managed to put my project files in some funky state whereby the system said the links didn’t work and the files were not found, yet I was able to see and play everything after clicking a dialogue box for every of the 100+ WAVs. Here’s to wanting to puke on my keyboard and living to tell the tale.
If the Airport woes weren’t enough, I’ve also had a reasonable number of crashes with Logic, which was something I’d never experienced before. I am tossing together more files than normal for what would be a single music track, so I’m sure that’s part of the problem: I have somewhere on the order of 1.5GB of audio on a twenty minute timeline with a number of tracks and some not too complex routes, all working at 96kHz/24bit. This is all within the technical specs of the app, however. Another fun tidbit is that each time I open the project, Logic reads through all of the audio files in order to re-generate overview files, even if it made them on the previous instance. Ergo, to start work I now either get up and take a walk or spend even more time on the Internets, something I certainly don’t need. When it’s a wait because I’ve just experienced a crash, too, that makes it even a bit harder to take. Some of it is just the scope of the project for a stock music DAW.. but the other side is that I’m hitting limits much before they should start to crop up.
Don’t even get me started on Soundtrack Pro, the app that is supposed to be working on all of these sorts of functions. If you’ve seen it or heard about it or thought about using it, run the other way unless it has anything more to do than doing processing on a file or two. Disasters, disasters, and more.
To those who haven’t heard me rave of Logic before, I should note that on the whole I’ve grown really fond of Logic in the last 2.5 years that I’ve used it. The default plugins and stock audio libraries that it comes with is really rather fantastic. Lately, however, I can’t help but feel that I’d be better off with some other system, and I think once I’m done with this project I might be moving to something else, for film sound if for nothing else. Innerfuze has been a long time fan of Sonar by Cakewalk, and it’s been sounding more tempting as a more complete solution.
Also, one funky thing about all of this is that for Allison’s film, she’s using Apple’s video software, Final Cut Pro. I’m on the other end with Apple’s audio software. The two should be able to talk together much more fluidly than they do. Currently, there’s essentially no benefit in choosing these two, because in the end it’s been WAV files shot back and forth, lined up precariously and tediously to the image. I do understand that the new version of Logic Studio that came out earlier this year probably does take care of some of this problem, since the import and export seems to be enhanced somewhat in certain degrees. At this stage, though, I’m done and will move on before I upgrade.
With all of that said, at some level I probably am asking a bit too much, in that I am looking for both a sound solution for film sound that also works great for music production. As a person heavily invested in sound who is currently spanning both spheres, it’s disappointing to not see the two quite as tied together as they should, especially when it comes in a package by the name of “Logic.”