Product Reviews

Emagic's flagship audio/MIDI sequencer, Logic Audio Platinum, has not only been given a cool, moody face-lift, but nineteen new plug-in effects that look good and sound great. This upgrade also reorganises the interface, changing the location of some features and some of the default settings.

Installation involves a CD, an updater floppy and an ADB dongle. The floppy disk is essential to authorise installation, and those with floppy-less Macs can get a disk image from Emagic's Web site. iMacs and USB PowerBooks will need a USB-to-ADB adaptor. For the dongle, the Griffin iMate (Reviews, Vol 15 No 14, p42) worked fine on the iMac. If you're updating an earlier version of Logic Audio Platinum, the new key commands will not overwrite your existing settings. Should you wish to, go to the Key Commands window under the revamped Options menu to initialise all key commands.

The new look doesn't impress initially, but after a while we came to appreciate its low-contrast, undemanding appearance. Die-hards will be pleased to know that you can change it back to the 3.x style, and the new plug-ins can toggle between Editor and Controls for the old and new appearance.

In addition to its main menus, Logic Audio Platinum has many 'local' sub-menus that have never shown the keyboard shortcut that's associated with the listed function, and this has always been a frustrating bottleneck for power users. Logic Audio Platinum 4 finally shows what these key commands are. Furthermore, any custom key commands you make to menus (and changes to existing keyboard shortcuts) are also displayed, showing that the leap from 3.x versions to 4.0 is beyond the cosmetic.

Installing new audio interface hardware, or just swapping between the options, previously involved rebooting Logic Audio Platinum. Now you have the option to 'try relaunch' within the application. Some cards might not react too well

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to this, so a reboot might still be necessary, but it's certainly worth a try as a time-saver.

There are a few niggles with the new version. Changing the number of audio tracks in the Preferences dialog box count doesn't change the corresponding track mixer. Even creating a new song won't reflect the changes made to hardware preferences, so it becomes necessary to relaunch the application.

The track mixer itself has a problem with muting, as muting an audio track is not reflected in the main Arrange window and vice-versa. Another problem in this version, which was previously discovered in Logic Audio Platinum 3.7.2, is that when playing live or recording with Roland's SMPU-64 USB MIDI interface (Reviews, Vol 15 No 14, p43), playback sounds somewhat phased, as if there were doubled notes. No doubled notes are recorded, however, and the phasing disappears on playback.

Describing all the new effects would take up the whole of this review and then some. Logic Audio Platinum has its own unique effects type, but also supports plug-in effect systems from Digidesign (TDM and Audiosuite), Adobe (Premiere) and Steinberg (VST), which arguably makes its audio features the most versatile you can find. However, only the Emagic effects are provided - you'll have to invest in the others.

The new Emagic plug-ins are excellent. Silver, Gold, Platinum and Enverb reverbs are available, offering different options and visual feedback of their actions. The old 3.x-style reverb has also been kept, which simplifies matters when loading songs written in an older version. A new convenient 'Fat' EQ provides access to five EQ bands simultaneously. Previously, you had to load different EQ sections, each as an insert. The Enveloper provides user- definable sound shaping over time, which Emagic suggests can 'mask the poor timing of accompanying instruments rather than tell your pals they all have the groove of a horde of accountants at a Christmas party'. The list of effects goes on with some fascinating pitch treatments in the form of Ensemble and AutoFilter - a treat for all 'Electronica' musicians which squidges sounds in an analogue style.

Logic Audio Platinum 4.0 is packed full of additional features that offer both new and seasoned users very little to complain about. Emagic has risen to the challenge of providing a really comprehensive software package that, incidentally, includes highly regarded notation features. All it has to do now is produce a USB dongle.