Pro Tools vs Logic Pro 8

Pro Tools:

• 32 tracks (only 16 stereo), this becomes problematic with aux. bus.
• no OMF/AAF support out of the box ($500USD plugin LE only)
• no 5.1
• Only supports digidesign or m-audio hardware (might not suit your needs)
• Only 1 MIDI instrument out of the box (a very recent addition)

Logic Pro 8:

• 255 mono or stereo tracks, 64 buses
• OMF, AAF and XML support out of the box
• up to 7.1 mixing out of the box
• use a variety of hardware
• backwards compatible with garageband
• comes with a heck of a lot of instruments (both MIDI and DI)

The only thing keeping me on Pro Tools for now is using FX Pansion's VST to RTAS wrapper, but to get full functionality of this plug-in I have to run Windows on my iMac. The opensource Windows VST community is really quite amazing.

There is overlap and you can do the same thing in both. BUT IMO:
Pro Tools: audio (if you are into pure studio work)
Logic: midi (music creation)

Yes the track limitation in the affordable versions of Pro Tools are embarrassing. The free program Ardour has more I/O. Bigger studios all use Pro Tools HD setups for recording, so if what you are into is recording pure audio, mixing, etc. I'd say invest in Pro Tools, as that is what is out there.

But for samples, midi, soft synths, and other music creation Logic is much better, from that standpoint. Film composers writing with samples use Logic for composition as working with velocity layers and editing midi is very good. MIDI timing and accuracy is very tight in Logic, but has show stopper bugs in Pro Tools where midi cannot stay in sync.

I Disagree.. I do all of my Audio mixing in Logic 8 now.. It has a workflow that I like better. Logic is by far the better Software all around. Logic 7... Pro-tools still had an edge but not any more. Apple just knows how to do a GUI. It's old school thinking to say that Logic is better for Midi and Pro-Tools is better for Audio. I think we've finally gotten past this

I have Pro Tools with the 002 rack and it is great. Yet, I purchased Logic Studio and it is becoming my favorite. Lot's of effects and Main Stage is cool. You get a lot for the purchase and there is no usb key verification thing that sucks with protools. If you have a couple of Macs with Logic, you can run it in node mode. Sharing the resources of the spare Mac. A late model Mac and 2-4 Gb of RAM with a decent audio card and HD space. Rock on! Get it. Midi audio is good too.

Pro-Tools was good up until 1997, since then the only reason it still is around is that people have spent hundreds of thousands on it and years learning it. Pro tools is rather archaic for the times.

EDIT:BTW, I got Logic 8 the day after it was released. Oh man it is so
FRICKEN sweet!

This is wrong. I've seen studios use Apogee with PT, and as many tracks as their Mac could handle.

PT is a lot better than logic since it has it's own hardware. But we use Logic Pro 8.

Look at this board... kick ass...

Logic doesn't have it's own hardware.