MusicRadar

When Apple bought Emagic in 2002, Windows users were, to put it mildly, gutted, as the new owner flatly stated that Logic Audio would never advance beyond version 5 on PC. Apple heads, on the other hand, were overjoyed.

Not only were their computers being designed in Cupertino, but now their DAW of choice was, too, implying not only rock-solid stability but also a symbiosis of hardware and software that could bring who knew what sort of game-changing features with it.

Since then, Logic Pro (the name was changed for version 6) has developed, certainly, but not exactly at the rate many hoped it would. With Steinberg and Cakewalk reliably packing ingenious new features and workflow enhancements into their annual Cubase and Sonar updates, and Ableton redefining the philosophy of what a DAW should be with Live, it's felt rather as if Apple has had its audio team spending the vast majority of its time on GarageBand – admittedly, a hugely worthwhile endeavor, but not one of great interest to serious music producers.

"Logic Pro can proudly consider itself an absurdly feature-rich and, in several areas, way-ahead-of-the-curve software studio once again."

Logic has moved on, certainly, but in comparison to what its peers have achieved in the same timeframe, the progress between Logic Pros 6 and 8 has been medium-paced at best, and in some areas, the application could be described as positively backwards next to the competition.

Until now! Logic Pro 9, we're happy to report, sees Apple truly bringing its problem child up to speed with what a professional DAW should be in 2009. Most of those niggling little 'legacy' issues have finally been resolved, some very well thought-out new workflow enhancements have been applied, and a considerable number of extraordinarily cool new features have been added.

Logic Pro can proudly consider itself a problem-free (well, as much as we could reasonably expect of any DAW), absurdly feature-rich and, in several areas, way-ahead-of-the-curve software studio once again.

And if you're looking for reasons why, we've got 10 of them right here...

1. Flex Time

Ever since Ableton burst onto the music software scene with its seminal Live DAW, every major developer has rushed to build its own take on 'elastic audio', and although it's taken Apple longer than most, its implementation is elegant and effective.

Simply activate Flex Time on an audio clip, select a Flex Mode (Slicing, Rhythmic, Monophonic, Polyphonic, Tempophone and Speed) and a marker is created at every transient point. Using the Flex Tool, markers can then be locked in place or dragged along the timeline, taking the attached transient with it and timestretching everything before and after it up to the previous or next locked marker.

Cleverly, the colour of each slice changes to show whether it's been stretched or compressed – orange for the former, green for the latter.

Since Flex Time has clearly required an overhaul of Logic Pro's entire timestretching engine, a few other useful features have come about as a result. Audio can now be quantised, for example, in exactly the same way as MIDI, with transient markers standing in for MIDI note events; Varispeed enables you to speed up or slow down your entire project just by activating Varispeed mode and changing the global tempo; and with Selective Track Import (more on this later) you can combine recorded tracks from different Logic projects, with everything conforming to the same tempo.

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