The Emagic Logic Control Surface represents one more step in Emagic’s quest to create the all-in-one DAW environment. Emagic has made limited forays into the DAW hardware arena – but this piece (and its companion, the Logic Control XT) is a welcome addition for a lot of Logic end users, including myself.
Logic users span the spectrum of the music industry – from songwriters, producers, engineers, artists, etc. – and if they are like me, have often had to do their critical mixes in another studio. Emagic’s introduction of the Logic Control offers a huge advantage when it comes time to finish the project. There is a distinct difference in the result you can achieve interacting with your music on the Logic Control surface – you have ten fingers and can obviously make more than one instrument respond to the mix at a time – something you simply can’t do with a mouse. I’m an “old school” engineer, and honed my mixing chops on a short-loaded MCI console (from the days before Sony bought them for those who remember). The Logic Control Surface gave me that missing human element to my mixes with Logic, almost like finding the “fifth” element of earth (for all you movie buffs). It allowed me to get back into my mixing and interact with my music in real-time. Logic Control gave me the ability to not only control the levels for mixing – but the panning, editing, equalization, and touch sensitive automation. I no longer have to take my projects to a commercial recording facility to finalize my mix. Logic Control gives me that “old school” feeling from the MCI, all in the comfort of my own digital home studio.
There is also now a HUI software emulation mode that allows a composer like myself to do my initial production and composition work in one application, and, if I prefer, do all my mixing in ProTools or any other program that supports the HUI controller parameters. Running in HUI emulation mode would use normal MIDI controller information as opposed to the proprietary System Exclusive information that Logic and the and Logic Control use, but still offers one more important degree of flexibility. The Logic Control surface requires Logic Audio 5.1 and the software itself comes in the box, but not the XS Key that authorizes it. If you are currently running Logic Audio version 4.x, you have the option to purchase the upgrade from Emagic. Otherwise, you’ll need to purchase a full version separately that includes the authorization key.
The Logic Control is in short a full-featured control surface designed for Logic Audio on a Mac or PC, with the thought in mind that you would now have a complete, professional DAW solution.