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Most of the action in Logic Pro 8 happens in one screen

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The development of Logic Pro 8 was shrouded in Apple-style secrecy right up to the moment of its release. As it turns out, the application would merely be one element (albeit the most significant one) of a software bundle known as Logic Studio.

Inevitably, the new Logic-based products - the full-on Logic Studio suite and the cut-down Logic Express 8 - are a combination of expected improvements and surprising additions. However, one thing that will no doubt have knocked everyone sideways is the pricing. At £319 for the full Logic Studio suite, Apple has not only slashed the price of Logic Pro by over 50%, but also undercut pretty much all of the competition.

Given that it's the flagship product, we'll be focusing on the fully-fledged Studio package, but if you do go for Logic Express 8, you'll get a standalone application for £129 that shares the majority of the features of Logic Pro 8. What you lose is a lot of content, some more advanced features (including surround capabilities) and the bundled additional apps of Logic Studio.

Aside from Logic Pro 8, the Studio suite comes with the following apps: Soundtrack Pro 2 for audio post-production; MainStage for live performance; WaveBurner for CD mastering; Apple Loops Utility, which enables you to convert audio files into Apple Loops format; Impulse Response Utility for creating Space Designer effects; and a Dolby AC-3 encoding utility called Compressor 3.

Possibly the biggest 'value added' element comes in the form of the 39GB Studio Sound Library. This combines the first five Apple Jam Packs with further content to deliver 18,000 Apple Loops, 5000 sound effects, 1300 EXS instruments and 2400 channel strip settings. And it's all royalty-free, of course.

The new stuff

Fascinating though this is, existing Logic users will want to know what fundamental improvements have been made. The most obvious is the revamped workspace, which we'll look at later on.

Intriguingly, the XS Key copy protection has been dumped in favour of a simple serial number (ie, it's not even a challenge/response system). The handling of templates, track creation and project 'assets' (audio files, movie files, sampler instruments and impulse responses) has moved up a level, too. Rather than being an option, as it was before, your starting point is now a Logic project folder, containing associated song file and assets, and keeping everything tidy from the outset. What's more, you'll be greeted with a choice of task-specific templates to get you going on start-up.

Newbies should find the program easy to migrate to, but for existing Logic users, possibly the biggest ongoing bugbear is the audio handling. Although good, it struggles to match that of Pro Tools.

It's not entirely clear whether Logic Pro 8 addresses this from the ground up with an overhauled audio engine, but there are many new features. Useful tweaks include the routing of buses to record inputs, input monitor buttons, low-latency monitoring of software instruments, end-to-end surround capabilities, support for the new Core Audio file format (CAF), and the ability to play projects containing frozen tracks in Logic on any Mac, even without the original plug-ins installed.