The AudioWerk8 and Logic 3.0
Probably as a response to
the maelstrom of discontent among PC users, Emagic decide to release its own
Soundcard, the Emagic AudioWerk 8, an unbalanced 2 in 8 out soundcard with
s/pdif. While the card sounded great, it performed poorly on my PCs (I
have heard it was better on Macs). This was introduced in near the end of the version 2 series
and really got up to serious speed as we rounded the bend to 3.0. On
the Mac, many users were ecstatic with the Korg 1212 i/o card. I ran
Logic 3 on a Cyrix 133+ with an array of drives totally 1GB with the
Audiowerk card. Audio barely worked, so I upgraded to a Pentium 200 and
was able to finally get some work done, though there were still issues which
were not resolved till I hurled the card into the closet. Eventually,
right as emagic was about to discontinue the AW8, they released new drivers
which truly improved the product.
Yet 3.0 truly whispered the
promise of a full-functioning MIDI/Audio integrated application. The
coolest feature for me at the time, was the ability to non-destructively
slice, cut and paste snips of audio wherever you wanted on 8 audio outputs.
I used Logic 3 extensively as the MIDI backbone building samples for my
hardware samplers. Logic 3.0 came with 11 real
time effects that could be "plugged-in" to the mixer's channel stripped or
put on a bus. Logic appeared to be following Cubase's lead.
Cubase had started including its VST (Virtual studio technology) and the
competition between the two rivals appeared fierce. Logic 3 had 7 single
band EQs, delay, flanger, chorus and reverb. The EQs and delay were
excellent, and they really helped usher in a transformation in popular
music, as Logic was beginning be used in professional studios as an audio
sequencer. While the plugins were not much by today's standards (I did
not know anyone that would consider using the software reverb instead of
their hardware verb) the gauntlet had been thrown down. Logic was on
its way towards software plugins and virtual instruments.
Above you see a screenshot of Logic 3.5.
Some noteworthy improvements in 3.5 were the introduction of the Adaptive
Mixer, non-destructive crossfades, and perhaps, most far reaching, the
ability to use DX (if you were on a PC) and VST plugins right in Logic's
mixers.
Logic 4.0
Logic 4.0 was to introduce
more plugins, and had a Platinum, Gold, Silver and MicroLogic version. PC users
now had a choice between different driver models (PC AV, AW, ASIO, EASI and
more if you had the Platinum version.) This eased the soundcard issues
significantly. Also, soundcards were improving dramatically, as were
our computers. Audio interfaces with multiple ins and outs were released
that finally got the latency issues satisfactorily resolved, Windows 98 was
finally stable, and CPUs passed the 1 GHZ threshold. It was in this
powerful, but stable environment that Logic 4.0 was released. To many
of us at the time it was a dream come true.
Many of the famous emagic plugins
were introduced in 4.0--the compressor, Fat EQ, Overdrive, Bitcrusher, Auto
Filter, the Notorious Spectral Gate, En-Verb, Platinum Verb and the creamy
Phaser and wonderful Tape Delay and they were all automatable. The
Logic 4 Series was to see the first virtual instruments, sold as add-ons,
which included, most notably, the Emagic EXS sampler. Also, the
Logic's GUI had a total makeover with version 4. It looks quite
similar all the way to Version 6.3. Being on a PC in the Fall of 1999,
I can recall many happy sessions with Logic 4. Musical Productivity on
a PC, at last! On the next page you will read my review, written
in 1999, a few months after the program's release. This indeed was
Logic's shining hour.
Logic 4.5 polished up the
version 4 series nicely. Surround mixer objects came into being which
allowed you to set up your audio interface for 5.1 and 7.1 surround.
Also, Logic incorporated "input objects" in its audio mixer, which, in
combination with a bus object, could let you connect external effects
processors and synths to the output streams without recording them as audio.
While this may seem like a minor point, the result was profound. You
could now connect all your analog gear to Logic's mixer if you had enough
inputs, and for the first time, the user could "mix in the box", that is, do
a full mixdown totally in the virtual domain. Indeed, it was now
possible to go without a hardware mixer.
During the Logic 4 series,
Emagic replaced the old dongle with the XS key. The key was designed
to hold all your Logic authorizations and replaced their old CD
authorization ritual you had to do for your emagic virtual instruments.
Towards the end of series 4, Windows XP was released. Up through version
4.7, Logic incorporated many of its new virtual instruments Logic 4.8 was
the first XP version and required a special updater. With the release
of WinXP, many audio drivers bit the dust and there was a period of
instability, but thankfully, the major manufacturers had learned a lesson
from the horrid transitions from windows 3.1 to 95 and 95 to 98. The
transition period was short, and with Win XP, logic was about to go full
stride.
