Logic Pro X 10.3

Touch Bar support – and much more

$200 (free for existing users) Developer Apple, apple.com Requirements OS X 10.11 or later, 4GB RAM

We were beginning to fall a little out of love with Logic Pro X. What used to be a lean, mean, music production machine had become sluggish and crashy, and we found ourselves dreading even simple tasks such as bouncing tracks, because they’d often take down Logic completely. But version 10.3 fixes that, and introduces some important improvements too.

The most obvious difference is the revised interface, which is flatter, lighter, and less likely to give you eye strain. With Advanced Tools turned off, the app looks more like GarageBand than ever, although pro users won’t see the fake woodgrain. If you’re a GarageBand for iOS user, you’ll love the new export feature: You can flatten your project, work on it in GarageBand, and then bring the amended version back in as a proper Logic project again. That’s great not just for mobile musicians, but for podcasters too: You can go out, record new audio and put it straight into your project even when you’re far from your Mac.

The other obvious new feature – if you have a new MacBook Pro – is Touch Bar support, which is very clever. You can use it to control track playback, to get quick access to key effect settings, or to navigate the timeline, and you can even use it to play software instruments or trigger drums.

There are new tools for all other Macs too. You can now use the Fade tool to fade multiple tracks at once, and the new selection-based processing enables you to apply groups of effects and/or plugins to a selected region or regions. That’s particularly useful for fixing the odd fluffed note or unwanted plosive, but you can also use it to apply all kinds of things to a specific area. The new track alternatives capability enables you to store multiple versions of the same song in one project, so you can play with different arrangements.

Under the hood, the summing engine has been upped to 64 bits – a kind of Retina for audio – and there’s support for up to 256 busses, genuine stereo panning, and music XML. Software instruments can now trigger sidechained plugins, and MIDI plugins can control other plugins’ parameters.

If you’re a GarageBand user, it’s never been easier to go pro with Logic: with is Advanced Tools off, Logic feels like a kind of GarageBand Pro.

the bottom line. Just when we thought we were out, Logic brings us back in again: 10.3 is rock solid, with useful new features.