Apple have today relaunched their professional digital audio software solution, Logic Pro, as a download-only title available from the Mac App Store. Retailing in the UK at £139.99, this represents a considerable saving on the £399 RRP of the now discontinued Logic Studio bundle. Mainstage 2, the live performance application, is available separately for £20.99.

The new Logic Pro package is interesting in that it makes the Logic app available as a standalone application, rather than being part of a bundle. While the content included with the app itself initially appears to be greatly reduced in volume, Apple are making an additional 19GB of content (presumably Apple Loops, EXS24 instruments, synth presets and Space Designer impulse responses) available to download from within the app. Logic Express users will be interested to note that the high-end features thus far denied to them are now available at this price point, although it hasn’t been made clear whether there is an upgrade path from the Express version to this latest, Mac App Store version. For anyone considering moving up from GarageBand though, 140 quid is something of a bargain in my view.

As far as a brand new version, in the light of the furore surrounding the recent market repositioning of Final Cut Pro, nobody is really sure what Apple has up its sleeve for Logic. Will the next major release be a dumbed-down version for hobbyists that leaves professional users frothing, or will it be a totally re-written, re-structured ProTools killer? One thing we can definitely say is that, two and a half years after its last major update, this is a very interesting development in the evolution of the Logic product. Watch this space…