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Music Software Product Reviews
Doc's Music Blog
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FL Studio 8 - Market Share vs. Mind Share
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We recently released a new training course FL Studio 8 - Know It All! as well as Version 10 of our Digital Audio Workstation Shootout which was updated to include FL Studio 8. Over the past several years, FL Studio has steadily gained ground in the market and now consistently ranks in the top 5 in our Music Software Popularity Survey. In this blog I’m going to review some of the strengths and weaknesses in FL Studio as well as offer a few observations about it’s roll in the market as a Digital Audio Workstation. (more…)
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Digital Audio Workstation Shootout 10 - What the Numbers Mean
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We recently released Version 10 of our Digital Audio Workstation Shootout. This latest update adds FL Studio 8 to the comparison. I have already addressed the most common questions that come up about the shootout in a previous blog. Thus here I’m going to talk about the conclusions we can draw from the results of the shootout. I plan to post a separate blog later to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of FL Studio and its ratings in the shootout. (more…)
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Ableton Live 7 - Filling in the Gaps
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Ableton Live has taken the Digital Audio Workstation software market by storm in recent years, primarily because of its unique features such as the Session View and the Instrument and Effects Racks. However, as shown in our DAW Shootout it still has a few gaps when compared to the Big Dogs. Live 7 fills in some of those holes and also manages to add a couple of unique features. We recently released a new tutorial on Ableton Live 7 and updated the DAW Shootout as well. This blog discusses some of the more notable new featues. (more…)
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Cubase 4 Wins on Functionality - Pro Tools 7 Wins on Value
We have recently released Version 8 of our Digital Audio Workstation Shootout. This analysis rates 6 of the most popular DAW’s — Cubase, Pro Tools, Sonar, Acid Pro, Live, and Logic Pro — on 130 different factors. There are two different overall measures, a combined functional rating (5 being the highest) and a value rating which is the functional rating divided by the price. The main change in this analysis is the addition of Apple Logic Pro. The ratings of the other products have all been published before, although in this case we did make several minor changes to Cubase based on some discussions with representatives at Yamaha. Ableton Live is still Version 6.0.7 even though Version 7 has been released. You can expect to see an updated shootout which incorporates Live 7 in a month or so. Since this is Logic Pro’s first appearance in the analysis, I do have a few comments on some issues in constructing a value rating for Logic. Also, every time this analysis is published, I get a few of the same questions which I’m going to address here, namely: (1) “Since Pro Tools is the industry leader, why does it rank low in functionality?” (2) “Your analysis doesn’t include Product X-Y-Z. I don’t understand how this analysis could be considered representative without that product.” (more…)
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Logic Pro 8 - Great Bundle Value & Some MIDI Gotchas
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Several months ago, Apple released Logic Studio which includes the new Logic Pro 8 as well as a ton of other goodies–for example Soundtrack Pro as well as four of the Apple loop Jam Packs–for the jaw dropping price of $499.
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We recently decided to produce a training course on Logic Pro. In the past we have had a number of requests to create a Logic Pro tutorial as well as comments suggesting that Logic Pro be included in our DAW Shootout. I have been cool to this idea previously mainly because Logic usually did not rank in the top ten of our Music Software Popularity Survey. However, Logic Pro has jumped up significantly in the survey recently. Thus the change in popularity ranking as well as the introduction of Logic Pro 8 and Apple’s new pricing strategy caused us to reconsider the idea and not only produce a training course but also add Logic Pro to our DAW Shootout. In this blog I’m going to point out what I think are some of the best features in Logic Pro as well as some MIDI gotchas that I find annoying. (more…)
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Sonar 7 - Something for Everyone
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You can almost set your clock by Sonar updates. Each year around this time Cakewalk trots out a long list of new functions for Sonar. While there are no blockbusters in this year’s crop of updates, there is a well-balanced list of features with something for just about any musical persuasion. I’m going to review the most significant ones here: step sequencing, loudness maximizing, web publishing, sidechaining, and the Dimension LE synthesizer. (more…)
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GarageBand ‘08 — Apple is Listening
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Another year, another upgrade — that’s the way it works with most Digital Audio Workstations, and Apple GarageBand is no exception. Each year we sift though what’s new for a number of different products, and it’s always interesting to see what choices DAW manufacturers make. Unfortunately, all too many times it appears that the new features are designed to please the techie faithful for a product rather than real improvements to help people produce music. Happily that is not the case with GarageBand ‘08, the successor to GarageBand 3. There is nothing revolutionary in GarageBand ‘08 that many DAW’s don’t already have. Yet all of the improvements seem well thought out and consistent with the philosophy of GarageBand — a simple, but smart way to make music. (more…)
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This blog has been superceded by the latest blog on our Digital Audio Workstaton Shootout. You can find the new one here.
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Move Over Akai MPC
For the past two decades, the Akai MPC has set the standard for beat making in Hip Hop and Electronica. Enter GURU, a drum sampler and pattern sequencer from Fxpansion, which is yet another example of how music production is moving steadily from hardware to software. To be sure, if tapping out rhythms is the main way you make beats, then you’ll still also need a MIDI pad controller like the M-Audio Trigger Finger. And you’ll also need to do any sample recording and editing with your DAW. However, you can do everything else better in GURU, and once you get the hang of the pattern sequencer you may wind up stashing your pad controller in the closet. (more…)
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The Sonic Delights of Hypersampled Steinway Grands
The Combinator in Propellerheads Reason has become an extremely successful device. It seems to have taken a life of its own and third-party companies now successfully market Combinator presets. Basically the Combinator allows you to bundle other devices in Reason — synths, samplers and FX — into a single device, much like you can with Ableton Live’s Instrument & FX Rack. Propellerheads has also come up with some very inventive uses for the Combinator. I think one of most interesting is the Reason Pianos. To create this product, several pianos were sampled, not only with the usual multisamples for pitch and velocity, but also for a number of different microphone placements. (more…)
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