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I recently bought a second-hand M1 (2020) MacBook Air. I "acquired" Logic, and honestly I'm having the time of my life. This isn't my first time producing music. I have a degree in Audio Engineering, and I work as a live engineer at a theatre, and a recording engineer at a local recording studio. It's like a musical rebirth. But let me explain the story of how I got here...
Late last year my desktop PC died on me, again, and I really didn't want to waste money buying a new motherboard for an ancient architecture (4th gen Intel circa 2014). So I waited.
Early this year, a friend of mine said he was going to sell his MacBook because he hated the thing and wanted to get a Windows laptop. Trouble is, the computer belonged to a company he used to work for. He quit the job and, well, they never asked for it back.
This computer was completely locked down by their software, and when he took it to a shop to try and sell it, they said they couldn't take it while that software was installed. He asked me if I could take a look, and being a tech guy, obviously I said yes.
I managed to completely jailbreak the computer and nuke the remote management software the company had installed. There was no trace of it left over. I then suggested to my friend, hey, why don't I just install Windows as a virtual machine on here and you can pretend it's a Windows laptop?
So I installed Windows.
Then a day goes by, and he's broken it. So I go round and fix it.
Then a week goes by, and he broke it again. So I go round and fix it again.
He phones me, he's fucked it again. I fix it over the phone.
He finally decides he hates the damn thing -I maintain this was far more due to user error than anything being wrong with the machine. He's something of a genius scientist in his professional life, so he can handle me thinking he's an idiot with software.
So he says he's going to sell it anyway. It then occurs to me -he wants to sell a perfectly good MacBook, for far under the going rate because he hates the thing, just to replace it with a basic Windows laptop to do programming and emails on?
So that's how I bought a MacBook Air. Now, back to the music...
I've always produced in Ableton Live, because I loved how you could chop up beats, and I loved some of the effects it had built-in. But my mixes always came out bad. Something about Ableton just resulted in a terrible end product for my music, for years. It actually got quite embarrassing.
I also HATED recording in Ableton. It doesn't work well with comping, and honestly it's clunky and just, well, anti-human. That's how it feels.
So I had a desktop computer, with music production software. I had a microphone, an interface, three guitars, an amp, a MIDI keyboard. And I NEVER used any of them. They just all sat collecting dust.
Then I took this MacBook home and got Logic going. My God. What a revelation.
In 72 hours I've made two beautiful sounding dubstep beats which already have a potential buyer lined up, and I've written and recorded a demo of a System of A Down-inspired heavy metal song.
And I just don't know why I'm so in love with this workflow, but I feel like I'm making up for lost time. I never enjoyed working on my own music at the studio I work at because, well, you have to book in. I know, I'll feel REALLY inspired next Wednesday at 4pm. Yeah right.
In the 70s, rock bands would just live in a studio for weeks at a time. They'd drink in there, smoke in there, fuck in there, and do just about whatever. And when they felt inspired to work on the music, they'd do it. And it'd sound great, because it has to be the right time. You can't force it.
Anyway, that's basically the end of my little story. I'll be forever grateful to my friend for being a Windows guy.
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