Planning to buy Logic, I found the Logic Gold Production Kit to be a quite an attractive deal for getting the software and the sound card at about $750 (I'm converting from a 604 running OS 9 to a G5).

The question for this software forum is: what are the main differences between Gold and Platinum, or what will I miss if I get Gold?
Is it worth the price to get Platinum for what it adds?

Also, I assume there is an upgrade option from Gold to Platinum. Is it wise to start with Gold and if in a couple of years I feel I need Platinum I'll just upgrade? Or will that cost much more than directly buying Platinum?


Thanks!
Rafi

Here's a link to a comparison chart so you can see the differences between the 3 platforms. I can't really comment on if it's worth it, as I just use Audio. It all depends on your specific needs/wants.

Yes, there is an upgrade path - I believe you only have to pay the difference between the retail prices of the programs (although if you were to wait "a couple of years", there will surely be a new version out, so the price would be somewhat higher than the existing difference).

Thanks a lot!

It seems like the main difference is TDM support (and support for 192 kHz sample rate).
I'm not very familiar with TDM. Is it pure Pro Tools related or can anyone use it?

I read somewhere that Logic has a new feature to freeze the audio setup in order to reduce the CPU processing of that audio (if I understood correctly, instead of processing dynamic calculations to produce audio, like DSP effects or maybe even software synths, it will freeze the audio so that all that remains are flat audio files that only need to be played back).
Is this feature also available in Logic Gold or only in Platinum (I couldn't find it in the comparison chart)?


Thanks,
Rafi

Yeah, TDM is a ProTools thing. So with Gold, you miss that and some plug-ins. Freeze (your understanding of it seems spot on) is available in all 3 versions of Logic. More on Gold...

Thanks for all the info.

I'm now confident that Gold is the version for me.


Rafi