This is my first post here so I would like to start off by saying hello to all! This has been a go-to forum for me for awhile. Thank you.

I feel I should also note, I am not new to audio world. This isn't a "Which is better post". I work in various media not just music.

So, to business I suppose.

My question is this: What would the wise people of this forum suggest as an alternative to Logic X on Windows?

I know that the people who post here are very experienced, and with that, most of you are very familiar with Logic. So I am interested in the opinion of those that have actually worked with it.... and not 'that guy' who has just used it at a friend's house.

I have found that Logic X is a fantastic tool for writing music because of the simplicity and work flow it provides. If I am working with a band, artist, or just my stuff, I usually go to Logic to feel out chord progressions, different instrumentation, or some just some basic recording for rough ideas. All of my real sessions are done on a Pro Tools 11hd rig. If I am working on some serious sound design, I use Audacity. If I am working with an artist who is very heavy in the loop/sample based type of music, I will use Ableton.

When I do sound design for post production, I will almost always do the heavy editing in Audacity, bring it in to Logic to add a few layers of sweetness to it, then I ultimately bring it into Pro Tools where the rest of the session is. Of course if it's game audio it would be the same, except I will either the use engine that the devs are using, or hopefully, Wwise or Fmod (if they are supported), instead of Pro Tools.

Up until recently, I have used Mac for all of my work. I have finally upgraded to a far more powerful PC, and I didn't take into consideration that you can't run Logic on PC.

I despise FL Studio, so that is a no go. I used to run Cubase 5 back in the day, but I have not worked with it since. But with the new upgrades, it is looking appealing. Bitwig looks interesting. Anyone have any experience with it? I seen it got a very heavy update and I am curious if it fixed all of the things wrong with it since launch.

Again, I understand that people say a DAW is a personal thing.... but I disagree. I would never recommend Logic X to a studio that needs to run 500 channels with an ass load of inserts (especially Waves plugins) for a post production project. I also wouldn't recommend Pro Tools to someone who clearly doesn't really care about editing as a career and is just trying to record some basic ideas for fun. So please, spare me that lecture, I understand. I am just looking for something easy on the system, superb work flow with virtual instruments, has a relatively small learning curve (as I would be using this in the studio with other engineers, so I will be teaching them as well), routing is simple, looks impressive to clients (don't judge me), and most importantly...... is not FL Studio.

I apologize in advanced if this exact question is on here somewhere. I looked, but either my search skills suck, or I just got too impatient with the monotony of sifting through stuff. I do truly appreciate those that are on here. I have done research, but I appreciate the communicative way to approach things. The last thing I want to do is buy software I pretty much already have.

Thanks in advanced!

 

Welcome to the Forum Jeremy_H
I suggest Presonus Studio One

 

Bitwig is not yet mature enough to use it professionally.
If you know cubase 5, I would stick to cubase. In terms of workflow not much has changed and it's pretty comparable to logic.
Plus, Cubase supports Pro Tools hardware.

The process of learning a new daw like live or Bitwig is long and painfull, I would skip that if you don't have to.

 

Make your new pc a hackintosh, its not that hard and you could still work with Logic x :dancing:

 

I don't know man, from what you have written you are using most of the best DAWs available on the market (Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton) . You have missed only Cubase and Studio One...

 

And REAPER

 

The closest thing to Logic would probably be Studio One which is a great DAW but it doesn't look particularly good. Apparently it seems the developers are blind.

I would choose Cubase though. It looks good and is a very powerful DAW.

 

I'm a PC user. After using many DAW, I settled for Studio One which work best for me.

I also tried Cubase (who didn't?), Reason, Sonar, FL and Logic.
Lately I had a look at Digital Performer which looks like being a big pain in the a** to learn so I didn't really bother.

To summarize: Studio One!

 

Any Windows compatible DAW.

 

i got both Studio One and Logic Pro X. I miss 32 bit support, zooming here and there is painfull and audio editing is really slow in LPX. if i had to pick one i'll go with Studio One for sure. And i'll add that Studio One runs better in Windows(7) than in OSX (10.9)

 

Studio One, Ableton Live, Cubase, Pro Tools ... (I'd even recommend Tracktion for its great workflow if there was some beefier development behind)
Reaper is very good too, but make sure you can be friends with its workflow.

But before suggesting any DAW, I'd like to start asking like this:
- What's missing in Pro Tools Windows that you rely upon in Logic Pro X?
- Do you have to exchange projects with other studios?
- Do you really need a linear track recording approach or could you become friends with pattern-oriented recording of ideas/snippets and spontaneous rearrangement?
- How important is the integration of external MIDI and Audio gear? How would you like to have them integrated?

I use both Logic X and Ableton Live.
For some reason, especially in the initial creative process, I use Ableton Live a lot more.
Logic would be my choice for mixing and finalizing a track, but in your case Pro Tools holds that position.
From what you describe it sounds like you could do with Ableton, then Pro Tools.
I also suggest watching some DAW videos for your specific use cases first, there's often some important info about workflow that you can't see from product specs or essential tricks you won't find in the manual.

 

I have used Logic since the early days.I have tried presonus studio one if you like drag and drop workflow then you would probably enjoy the workflow of studio one.I have Sonar X3 which has a devoted following but I have found it to be glitchy and it has various little bugs which irritate me I like the prochannel idea that it implements which is really like a popout mixer channel which you can add gates,compressers, and other fx.

I then tried Reaper after reading from a Nebula user that the had got great performance from it.It runs many more instances of Nebula which is an enormously greedy plugin in terms of its cpu usage.Reaper is extremely customizable you can select which menus are shown,what are in the menus,the routing matrix is well ahead of the competition imo,it can be graphically changed using user themes uploaded at the cockos website ,I use white tie imperial theme it feels like using a mixer for me,it has flexible folders,actions which are like macro commands set up keys commands in combinations to perform all sorts of actions,comes with a load of ready to use plugs the reaper eq is very good.It can be made to look any way you like and it performs infinitely better than Sonar on my machine anyway.It is astoundingly cheap you get 2 full versions free before an update charge it's small only 9 Mb.It doesn't have a notation editor and it's midi functionality isn't as good as midi in Logic though not bad,it doesn't come with sample libraries but you probably use your own anyway or VSTIs.It is frequently updated every month or so and each version is a huge improvement on the previous version and it uses no copy protection.The reaper forum has quite a few Logic refugees so they can get you up to speed with it pretty quickly.The sws extensions are a donationware download which greatly increases the functionality of Reaper I think every Reaper user downloads them.Reaper has fully functional trial which never times out even though you are expected to pay after 60 days. for download at its website for PC XP,7,8 32 bit and 64 bit,MAC intel and ppc.

Cubase is expensive and is a huge program in comparison and I'm not a fan of copy protection though it is extremely feature rich I've never been a fan of its interface or its workflow though.Digital Perfomer is another option but its interface and workflow are very different to Logic it's good enough for Wendy Carlos though.Pro Tools well I'm not going to open up that can of worms every body knows the pros and cons of that DAW by now.


I still use Logic on Mac but for PC as is obvious from the above I vote for Reaper cheap,powerful,customizable,frequently updated,constantly improving,lean on resources and very stable.

 

maybe an decision support ...Its from 2013 and in german, but a overview

 

Go with Cubase......it has all you need for a Pro DAW and you'll never look back!

 

I was a legit user of Logic on Windows (Win98 2nd edition and WinXP). When 'they' stopped developing Logic on Windows I was very.. lets say sad ;-)
So then I used Logic 5.3 (If I'm not wrong, thats the last one which worked on Win7 x64) on Win7 and also from time to time now on Win8.1 (I still like to work with it!).
But as I got more and more new, modern VSTi's, which usually wont work on Win7/8.1x64, I had to find a new DAW and I found a good replacement in Presonus Studio One.
Very easy to learn for what I need. Although I like it; Reaper and Ableton Live is still on my 'checking' list, but maybe its better to make music than to learn a new DAW.

 

I love Reaper. Install a couple of VSTi's and a few other plugins, set up some templates, and I can be composing in a matter of seconds every time I turn on my computer

 

They stopped development because of Apple buying it from eMagic and then shutting off Windows because they needed it to sell more computers. What a bunch of cunts. Fucking hate that company.

 

They will kill it on Apple too, when they don't need it to sell computers any more

 

Don't forget Samplitude. Pro X2 will be released soon and it may have some new features making it a little closer to Sequoia (would love to see Melodyne ARA). However, reading your post and seeing you want something with less of a learning curve, I would also recommend Presonus Studio One. Samplitude is a beast but Studio One is much more user friendly.