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Apple Shares New 'Behind the Mac' Video Featuring James Blake

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Apple this morning shared a new video in its "Behind the Mac" series, which provides a look into the Apple tools used by musician James Blake to create his work.

GRAMMY(R) award winner, James Blake, takes us into his home studio as he works Behind the Mac to put the finishing touches on his latest song, "Are you even real." Editing, looping, pitching, and layering the track in Logic Pro X on his MacBook.
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Blake uses Logic Pro X on a MacBook Pro to edit his music after recording it. Apple has been sharing various "Behind the Mac" ads since 2018, with the ads featuring artists, musicians, app developers and other creatives who do their work on Apple's Macs.

Article Link: Apple Shares New 'Behind the Mac' Video Featuring James Blake
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/07/08/apple-behind-the-mac-james-blake/
It’s a pity Logic Pro X sound is corrupted on the MBP 16” internal speakers and Apple don’t seem to be able to find a fix.
 
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I sure would appreciate seeing this series take a much deeper dive into the tools artists/creatives are leveraging. Keep these 30-sec teases, of course. But also offer longer format pieces where the artist/creative walks you through their gear; their configurations, software, fav filters, process, etc. Could prove both educational and possibly help empower a new generation of creators/Apple customers.
 
mdriftmeyer said:
This is the video to watch Logic Pro X work in a professional studio, and using a new Mac Pro.


I wouldn't touch a MacBook Pro in a pro studio when I could invest in this set up. The producers reactions and comments say it all.
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Intel Mac !
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MacRumors said:


Apple this morning shared a new video in its "Behind the Mac" series, which provides a look into the Apple tools used by musician James Blake to create his work.

Blake uses Logic Pro X on a MacBook Pro to edit his music after recording it. Apple has been sharing various "Behind the Mac" ads since 2018, with the ads featuring artists, musicians, app developers and other creatives who do their work on Apple's Macs.

Article Link: Apple Shares New 'Behind the Mac' Video Featuring James Blake
Click to expand...
Intel Mac!
 
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I’m confused, why is the focus on third party plugins here? It looks more like an ad for Fabfilter ProQ. Sad because Logic and the team behind it deserve more recognition than this ad gives.
 
Dave Y said:
And yet there is James Blake with all his Grammys, Mercury Prize, etc.
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because obviously contrary to the silly implication of this campaign, it matters only who is behind the computer, not what computer is used.

“behind the $400 acer with an external usb audio interface”
 
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I am a little sad, that creativity seems to only be attributed to artists, musicians and maybe some app developers.

What about engineers, doctors, scientists or even farmers? Sure they all use computers a lot - maybe no Macs though...
 
burgerrecords said:
because obviously contrary to the silly implication of this campaign, it matters only who is behind the computer, not what computer is used.

“behind the $400 acer with an external usb audio interface”
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Agreed.

HEre's one with literally a 10-year old Acer laptop:

Saint Jhn & Imanbek: 'Roses'

How did a teenager from Kazakhstan, armed only with an ageing laptop and a copy of Fruity Loops, conquer the charts?
www.soundonsound.com www.soundonsound.com
 
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imnotthewalrus said:
Inspiration comes and goes. If you really want to “create”, the update can certainly wait.
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The prompts are spam burst, quick at in, noisy (if you don’t take the time to uncheck both the notifications sound for that app and the app’s itself custom notifications sound settings) and behind sometimes an important button or section of your DCC app.
I find them useful, don’t get me wrong, but even launching OSX and quickly toggling Do Not Disturb will still let a few notifications slide in my case.
There are also the standalone apps that upon launch prompt a big massive windows about an update available.

At the same time, what’s up with everything that needs constant daily updates? There’s so much “performance and bug fixes” of many apps where I don’t see sometimes any benefit or that bug that has been affecting you is not fixed with it...

Also when I see “buy this new version instead”, that... there I lose it.
 
amartinez1660 said:
The prompts are spam burst, quick at in, noisy (if you don’t take the time to uncheck both the notifications sound for that app and the app’s itself custom notifications sound settings) and behind sometimes an important button or section of your DCC app.
I find them useful, don’t get me wrong, but even launching OSX and quickly toggling Do Not Disturb will still let a few notifications slide in my case.
There are also the standalone apps that upon launch prompt a big massive windows about an update available.

At the same time, what’s up with everything that needs constant daily updates? There’s so much “performance and bug fixes” of many apps where I don’t see sometimes any benefit or that bug that has been affecting you is not fixed with it...

Also when I see “buy this new version instead”, that... there I lose it.
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...I'm not quite sure what you are getting at - I have never experienced the behavior you are describing when recording on Logic Pro X or GarageBand, as music is my area of creativity (which is how the conversation started).
 
imnotthewalrus said:
...I'm not quite sure what you are getting at - I have never experienced the behavior you are describing when recording on Logic Pro X or GarageBand, as music is my area of creativity (which is how the conversation started).
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I’m referring more about system wide distractions, maybe Logic Pro or Garage Band itself don’t get in the way (and updates can do wait for those)... but the MacOS ecosystem is so all-encompassing (also in a very very good way, one of the reasons I went 100% Mac during the pandemic), that messages, notifications, popups, calls, etc find their way to the forefront.

Don’t know about Logic Pro or GarageBand (I suck at them and have only launched them a few times), but it’s often that I feel creative and launch AfterEffects, Motion, Unity, FCPX, Blender while at the same time I’m getting Calendar/Reminders/iMessages, Parallels Desktop update PopUps, NTFS for Mac PopUps, any side plugin/extension/app popup that needs attention, that helper thingy from somewhere (Unity is guilty of this) wanting some permission to install something, etc... that I have to make a conscious effort to let go and just start.

(Also in continuation to related comment, paraphrasing, “when I feel creative I have so many distractions that I end up watching TV” which I found both funny and pertinent).
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Are there more deeper tutorials of these? I find it cool and all that he uses Mac hardware and software, but it would be great to have a more hands-on insight of his gear and even how he does what he does in the video, the voice AutoTune inside GarageBand or Logic too? (does it have that?) He records the piano, drums, etc directly via Midi-In’s? What’s that slick looking Microphone? So on and so forth.
Having recently purchased all the Apple Pro Apps (mostly for the video suite side of things) I feel enticed to try to learn a lot more of how people use them, but I tend to gravitate towards my domain naturally.
 
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davidec said:
Turn off notifications and WiFi and get creating. Problem is with us, not the machine.
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I agree in part with this and never alluded to not be the case, distractions are often an excuse to not do things.

However I sense we have reached a dead end due to wide statements and maybe personal work differences domains and that’s ok.

My point at the beginning was that notifications are useful but can get so intense sometimes that are overwhelming that even by the time you launch and try to put it Do Not Disturb some of them might have even slid in...

I would rather meet half way and have a more clever still functional one. Example, launching a batch rendering process for a group of videos notifies you when each one finishes and clicking on that notification sends you to the file, that’s perfect, and would rather keep that.

AirDrop, Dropbox, etc all use and need WiFi... let’s assume no Slack, Zoom for teammates for this.
If I want to do a quick test B Roll with the phone I can drop the video back to the Mac via AirDrop, wait for the Sync to make it appear magically, or if I do a sketch on iPad I can drop it or wait to let the system conveniently make it appear.
If I’m coding: documentation, support, bugs and solutions are 99.99% online, servers are online, etc.

“the problem is with us, turn notifications/WiFi on and off when needed then” would be a valid response, heck, if it comes to be I could turn on and off WiFi intermittently everytime I want to search something, need to connect to a device, etc... just, not ideal.

I don’t really have a solution for this besides a bit more willpower, tight notifications customizations and get on creating using the benefits while avoiding the distractions or drawbacks.

I do understand too that these are definitely different domains, was thinking that when I play guitar (as a hobby mind you), I just connect some headphones to an amp and play away, no PC, no phones, no nothing around. Sure bliss.
 
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