When Apple announced Logic Pro 13 late last month, the most headline-grabbing new feature was undoubtedly the AI-powered intelligent assistant that’s designed to help you out with various production tasks as you make music.
At the time, it was assumed that this would be included in both versions of the DAW – the one that you can buy outright and the one that features in the subscription-only Creator Studio bundle – but we now know that this isn’t the case.
When Apple rolled out the Logic Pro 13 for Mac updates last week, it quickly became apparent that the assistant is only included in the Creator Studio version. So, although the pay-once-only Logic Pro has the same version number and looks the same (there’s a new dark-themed ‘Liquid Glass’ UI), it isn’t quite the same product.
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As you’d expect, there’s been a certain amount of hand-wringing about this in the days since, so it’s worth taking a step back and considering how much of a big deal it actually is.
A clean break?
On the one hand, the very fact that Apple is effectively separating its two Mac versions of Logic Pro is significant. It reinforces the perception that the company would much rather get users onto its subscription service, and indicates that it’s comfortable with the idea of running a two-tier ecosystem.
You could argue that this is fair enough: there are a lot of long-term Logic Pro users who made their one-time purchase more than a decade ago and have been getting completely free updates ever since, so it’s not unreasonable to ask them to put their hands in their pockets again at some point.
The counterpoint, though, is that, Logic Pro for iPad aside, many of these users won’t care about having all the other apps in Creator Studio, and will feel aggrieved that buying into it for $/£13 a month or $/£129 a year is the only way for them to access absolutely everything that their DAW of choice has to offer.
Having played with the assistant, though, we do wonder how many of these diehards (the ones who paid for Logic Pro outright before the subscription era began) should actually care. Yes, it can be useful for carrying out basic housekeeping jobs – creating tracks with certain plugins installed, making basic settings and answering questions – but we suspect that it will be most attractive to beginners who don’t know the software very well and need help learning it.
It’s also worth remembering that the assistant is currently in beta – there’s still a chance that Apple might make it universally available at some point down the line.
That said, even if you have Creator Studio, you don’t have unfettered access. Only a certain amount of AI usage per month is priced into your subscription – Apple says that, in Logic Pro for Mac, “your usage limit is impacted by the complexity of conversations you have with the assistant” – after which you’ll have to buy a $50 ‘Intelligence Usage Pack’ that gives you more. Any unused ‘credit’ from this will roll over from month to month until it expires after a year.
Intelligence isn’t everything
The good news is that the best of Logic Pro 13’s new features are available to all. Perhaps the most notable of these is the Unified Browser, which combines all of the bundled content (loops and instruments) and your own patches and samples (including ones downloaded from Splice) into a single view. You can now search your library using ‘natural language’ – based on vibe rather than specific instrument type, for example – and audition sounds in sync with your current project.
Everyone gets the enhanced Stem Splitter, too – specific drum kit parts can now be isolated – and Sidecar support means that you can now use your iPad as a multitouch controller for both Logic’s features and third-party plugins.
This functionality comes into its own when combined with the new Play Surface – a supercharged version of the old typing keyboard that offers chord pads, velocity, modulation and pitch controls, and an arpeggiator. This can be clicked with your mouse/trackpad if you wish, but it’s when used with an iPad (or, if you’re lucky enough to own one, a touchscreen MacBook Pro) that it really comes into its own.
The bottom line is that there’s a fair bit more to Logic Pro 13 than the AI assistant, and at this point it’s not worth worrying too much if you don’t have it. The concern, of course, is that this could be the thin end of the wedge, and that Creator Studio users will soon start getting more exclusive enhancements that everyone does actually want. If that happens, then the game really will have been changed.
