rafisaar

What About Emagic?

Reading through the topics, I see that people talk a lot about Tascam and M-Audio (besides Digidesign).

How are the Emagic audio cards?

Are they so bad that few people talk about them?
Do they have some advantage when working with Logic, coming from the same company?


Thanks a million!
Rafi

Buying Logic Pro 6 Advice

I am planning to buy Logic Pro and an audio/MIDI interface.

Logic Pro goes for about $1000.
Emagic's A62m sells for about $300.
In total, I would need to spend about $1300 for Logic Pro and the interface together.

However, Emagic's Logic Gold Production Kit, which sells for about $800 seems to still be available. That includes both Logic Gold 5 and the A62m sound card.
Then, the Logic 5 to Logic 6 Pro Upgrade sells for about $200, so that's a total of $1000 with the audio/MIDI card!
In other words, I would save $300 that way and I would get the same products.

Question is, am I right with this plan? Will this actually work?
Will the Logic Pro upgrade above actually install on top of Logic Gold 5 which I got from the Production Kit?
Of course, this all assumes that the Production Kit can still be bought.

Your advice will be most appreciated!
Thanks,
Rafi

Logic Gold Vs. Platinum

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

Emi 6i2m Packaged With Logic Gold Production Kit

Switching from an old PowerMac 8600 to a G5, I now need to convert my SV Pro to Logic/DP and buy a new MIDI and sound card(s) (to replace my old Digi Audiomedia III).

While shopping for options, I found Emagic's Logic Gold Production Kit, which Sam Ash is selling for $749.99.
It includes Logic Gold, the EMI 6I2m sound/MIDI card, + 3 more Emagic software products (EVB3, EVP88, and EXSP24-sampler).

Question is: how's the EMI 6I2m?
I've read one person complaining about the Emagic sound cards, but that was just 1 person.

How does it compare to my other options?
I don't want something expensive, but I also won't compromise on latency problems, pops and clicks, or hisses.

MIDI is a must and I need 2 audio inputs since I'm using a small Mackie analog mixer.
So far I don't need digital I/O (although I have no idea what the future will bring).
Is USB good enough or do I absolutely have to get a FireWire card to overcome any latency issues?

The other cards that would interest me are the Tascam US-122 (USB, no S/PDIF) and the M-Audio Firewire 410 (FW, incl. S/PDIF, surround, but more expensive).

When giving your advice and recommendations, please keep in mind the package deal and price that I would get with the Logic Gold kit as opposed to buying all pieces separately.


Thanks,
Rafi

Converting Studio Vision Files To Os X

Planning to make the move from my PowerMac 8600 to a new G5, I sadly have to leave Opcode's Studio Vision Pro.
The big question is: how do I transfer all my Vision sequences with linked audio files so that I'll be able to reopen them in Logic (for example) in OS X on the G5?

I have some idea, but it seems like a lot of work and I was wondering if some easier way existed and for that I need the help from the experts of this forum.

What I'm planning on doing is:
1) convert all the sequences to standard MIDI files (will the patch changes be kept?)
2) mix all the audio parts per track into a single new audio file which starts at the beginning of the sequence (even if it includes just silence) - that way I don't have to record which file starts at what exact point into the song and when I import the audio into the new file I know it always starts right at the beginning

So this seems like a lot of work for all the sequences I have, and I do want to have the ability to make future edits to these songs.
Is there a way to make this easier?
Is there some conversion tool?
Maybe Logic can immediately open Studio Vision files???
And what about the patch names. Now I use Opcode's Galaxy. Will Logic read my current patches?

Thanks in advance!
(I'll have some hardware questions, but those are for the future )

Rafi