things I think are bogus about mixing in Logic 8

[JPZ]

Originally Posted by synthoid

Another very bogus thing about editing in Logic is that copy and paste on audio regions ignores the "Drag:" mode (e.g., no overlap). When you paste a small audio region (using command-V) on top of a larger region, then click on the larger region before or after the smaller one, the small region disappears behind the big one but it still sounds when the playhead passes over it because of the "latest starting region has priority" rule. That is such a pain in the butt. After all this time I have still not figured out a reliable way to get the small region to appear again so that it can be deleted, haha. If you use the "eliminate overlap" command it seems to wipe out audio after the small region within the big region. It's very well thought out.

Dragging (or option-dragging) regions around doesn't have this problem.

-synthoid

Grab the an edge of the pasted region with the trimmer tool of the pointer tool and change the region boundry a tiny bit. This seems to define the region boundries and now the pasted region doesn't go away. Not all that painful. I can't remember but hitting m twice to mute then unmute the pasted region might do the same thing.

On another note. I mixing two projects right now. One in PTHD and one in Logic. I much prefer Logic and haven't come close to maxing out processing. Once you learn Logic, and you DO need to learn it to operate it, it's great.

[Lackatee]

I havent used logic 8 in a few months, but one of the most ******** things i couldnt deal with was, the fact that you couldn't undo plugin or volume changes. What the hell were they thinking leaving that out???

That was a deal breaker for me.

[synthoid]

Originally Posted by JPZ

Grab the an edge of the pasted region with the trimmer tool of the pointer tool and change the region boundry a tiny bit. This seems to define the region boundries and now the pasted region doesn't go away. Not all that painful. I can't remember but hitting m twice to mute then unmute the pasted region might do the same thing.

great, thanks! they should put that in the manual.

On another note. I mixing two projects right now. One in PTHD and one in Logic. I much prefer Logic and haven't come close to maxing out processing. Once you learn Logic, and you DO need to learn it to operate it, it's great.

Yeah yeah, I've used Logic night and day for years, it's great. Very efficient, very powerful. But c'mon, grab an edge of the pasted region with the trimmer tool of the pointer tool and change the region boundry a tiny bit ... so that the pasted region doesn't disappear isn't what most people mean when they talk about learning an interface, haha. This bug is nasty because it creates something that is audible but not visible.

-synthoid

[strauss]

Adding a gain plugin isn't the same a trim mode automation.
With trim mode you can have rides upon rides. Like for example you have done lot's of rides on the lead vocals, but want to do a fade out while maintaining the previous rides. This is where you need trim mode.
PT HD, Cubase/Nuendo as well as analog consoles have this... It's something I REALLY miss when I'm mixing in logic.

[mixerguy]

Originally Posted by Lackatee

I havent used logic 8 in a few months, but one of the most ******** things i couldnt deal with was, the fact that you couldn't undo plugin or volume changes. What the hell were they thinking leaving that out???

yeah - I noticed that too.... I was shocked.

[JPZ]

Originally Posted by synthoid

great, thanks! they should put that in the manual.



Yeah yeah, I've used Logic night and day for years, it's great. Very efficient, very powerful. But c'mon, grab an edge of the pasted region with the trimmer tool of the pointer tool and change the region boundry a tiny bit ... so that the pasted region doesn't disappear isn't what most people mean when they talk about learning an interface, haha. This bug is nasty because it creates something that is audible but not visible.

-synthoid

Uh, I believe I was talking about mixing not editing. I'm really tired of the bitching, especially from the PTLE people. Learn the program (Logic), use your brain and figure out a work flow. Everybody with their "deal breakers" etc. Get lost then and move on to something else. Logic is amazing but it isn't for everybody How about an LE "deal breaker" being you have to use a crappy digi interface with limited functionality? Or the HD "deal breaker" of spending a wad of cash on an underpowered, outdated system?

[nativeaudio]

Originally Posted by synthoid

Another very bogus thing about editing in Logic is that copy and paste on audio regions ignores the "Drag:" mode (e.g., no overlap).

Yes, the Drag mode is only a Drag mode - it doesn't affect Copy/Paste behavior.

After all this time I have still not figured out a reliable way to get the small region to appear again so that it can be deleted, haha.

The behavior is actually very logical (but still not good enough IMO): What you see is what you get - unless you select a region, in which cases Logic assumes that you want to see that region, even if other regions are placed under it.

If you want to see that underlying little region, just make sure no region is selected.

All this was very useful when Logic was a MIDI only app, because one MIDI region overlapping another wouldn't mute it. And even if it would, one would have to deal with hanging MIDI notes, notes cut off in the middle etc. Too complicated.

If you know the logic behind the current behavior (especially if you aren't used to eg. the PT way of doing things), it's simple today as well.

Still - the 'black hole' in the current behavior is that in spite of...

• the Replace icon in the Transport panel
• the No Overlap Drag mode
• the Paste Replace key command and the
• Remove Overlaps key command

...there's still no way to emulate the Pro Tools behavior. There's one good reason to have an option for emulating PT: many PT users also use Logic or switch to Logic.

Even if it's totally WYSYWYG and the exception (that if you select a region, it is shown as if it were the only region in that area, topping everything else) is logical, it would be better if a small change would be implemented that would allow users from other platforms to get the behavior they are used to.

The Remove Overlaps key commands could be improved, or the Replace button could affect copy/pasting, or the Drag mode should optionally affect pasting as well. Or a new key command could be introduced which would force a WYSIWYG situation even if the user has selected a region.

Personally I've never liked the other behavior, which removes the underlying material once you have pasted something on top of it, because it normally often means that you have to fine tune the regions start/end of two regions afterwards.

But:since the day Logic got the Junction tool, which allows you to edit the end of the leftmost region at the same time as you edit the start of the rightmost region, I wouldn't mind a more PT like behavior, with one exception: MIDI regions. And then again, it's nice that MIDI and audio regions behave the same - for simplicity. But I'm used to Logic, and would probably keep my own behavior (in terms of overlapping) as it is.

Still - I guess a new setting in Preferences or Project Settings is all it takes to make everyone happy, but you're only one click away from getting what you want: just don't select any regions, and you'll see what you hear (unless I've missed something).

[reid]

Originally Posted by peter_martin

Well when setting basic levels on the CH mixer lets say it goes from -10.8 and the next step is -11.3, -12.5. Its even worse the lower the values. IE from -18.5 goes to -20.1. Thats insaine to me when getting a ball park mix that the CH mixer jumps sometimes a full one to two DBs. That was my only gripe, have the mixer be fluid from 0 db all the way down to -30 db(??) like cubase

Clearly we're talking about different things - I'm not sure which window or controller you're getting your results from in LP8, but if I adjust the track automation in the Arrange page whilst using your starting points, I get the following displayed:

starting -10.5dB > 10.9 > 11.2 > 11.6 >12.0 > 12.4 > 12.8

starting -18.5dB > 19.0 > 19.6 > 20.2

Not even close to the 1dB to 2dB jumps you're experiencing.

I'm assuming the guys at Logic are using some kind of logarithmic scale to produce results, so it's hardly surprising that the resolution is not so fine at the lower (and generally lesser used volumes). Up in the area where the ear is more discerning about volume change (and where the majority of mixers are doing their critical work), the resolution is as high as 0.1dB per step.

I've not used Cubase in the last 12 years - does it really have super fine ( say, 0.1dB steps) resolution all the way down to -30dB?

[synthoid]

Originally Posted by nativeaudio

Personally I've never liked the other behavior, which removes the underlying material once you have pasted something on top of it, because it normally often means that you have to fine tune the regions start/end of two regions afterwards.

Do you mean that you like to slide the pasted (small) region around on top of the big region, effectively treating both ends at the same time? hmm, that's interesting.

Of course, the sound you get is exactly as if the underlying material were removed anyway. And the junction tool (along with the crossfade tool) is perfect for adjusting the ends individually, as you say. I normally put a touch of crossfade manually on most anything I paste so I have to visit the ends anyhow.

btw, this has nothing to do with PT from my point of view. I'm happy for Logic to differ from PT in any way whatsoever. I find the overlapping region thing to be a little uncomfortable to work with quite apart from any comparison to PT.

-synthoid

[MatzeMillion]

Originally Posted by nativeaudio

Ah - I see. The way to do this on Logic is to press E (Open the Event list), and alter (drag) the start point of the regions while holding Alt + Shift. That should give all the selected regions the same start point... but I just checked this, and think I found a bug in Logic 8: this procedure aligns the start point of all the regions, but places them at position 1111. In Logic 7 this still works as expected. So you need to enter the correct value after they have been aligned.

On another note, if you simply want to align a number of region start points to the grid (for regions that are almost placed where they should be), you can always just quantize the region positions (again, in the event list) to eg. 1/1-notes.

thanks! lots of tricks to learn. the quantize thing helps a lot. if you mess around with phase shifted multi mic recordings and want to start over.

Probably because people often enable Automation View when they want to enter automation nodes in a track that doesn't have any automation yet?

Thats right. Me too. But why I draw nodes if I simply want to use the zoom shortcuts (ctrl+alt)? That happens all the time because I´m so used to zoom that way.

To the next transient, you mean? That would be a key commands that makes sense...

The next transient or the next region start/end. That is THE time saver in PT.

Re. general zooming, Logic also zooms in around the playhead, but only if no regions are selected. If a region is selected, it zooms in around the region start.

I know that but... If I move the playhead while I'm zoomed in, I want to see the playhead right in the middle of the screen, not some part of a region somewhere random on the screen.

Not sure what you mean with 'the view in automation mode', but if you hold Shift while changing from seeing eg. Volume to Pan, it will shift that view for all tracks.

Thats exactly what I mean. Thanks! So...

if I want to solo all tracks, I can use shift or apple,
if I want to mute all tracks I have to use apple
if I want to change the view of all tracks I have to use shift
if I want to change the height of all tracks I have to use apple
if I want to align all selected regions ends I have to use shift
if I want to align a parameter of multiple events in the event list or midi editor i have to use alt+shift

I don't get the LOGIC behind this, ;-)

Of course there are things PT can that Logic can't, and vice versa, but in some cases things are simply done in a different way.

Think different...

Don't get me wrong. I switched to Logic a long time ago and I still like working with Logic. Thats the reason why I complain about the quirks and bugs. IMHO the most important thing for the next upgrade (besides 64bit and something like Liquid Audio) would be more LOGIC and consistency.

[nativeaudio]

Do you mean that you like to slide the pasted (small) region around on top of the big region, effectively treating both ends at the same time? hmm, that's interesting.

No. But often, if I edit something - and place eg a sung word or note from an instrument or whatever on top of another region, fine tuning is needed anyway. I wasn't aware of the workaround (that when editing left or right corner, the Drag settings work), and in general I don't want to rely on workarounds - like everyone else. :-)

[nativeaudio]

Thats exactly what I mean. Thanks! So...

if I want to solo all tracks, I can use shift or apple

Yes - but (pardon my ignorance) why would someone want that in a system that's 100% native?

if I want to mute all tracks I have to use apple

Yes

if I want to change the view of all tracks I have to use shift

Yes, because Command has another function when changing automation view (convert or copy automation data)

if I want to change the height of all tracks I have to use apple

Yes, because Shift resets the track height

if I want to align all region ends I have to use shift

Yes

if I want to align all parameters in the event list or midi editor i have to use alt+shift

Yes, because Shift follows the Apple standard of adding more objects to the selection.

So: Mute all or Solo all: Command key

Align region positions or ends: Shift key, unless Shift is used according to the Apple standards.

They seem to have allowed an alternate modifier if it isn't used for something else, and sometimes there's need for using more than one modifier, because several actions are 'hidden' under these buttons. I'm sure there's room for improvement, but my head is too busy with other stuff to suggest something useful. :-)

So... just come up with something smart, and post it here:
Apple - Logic Pro - Feedback
:-)

[MatzeMillion]

Originally Posted by nativeaudio

So... just come up with something smart, and post it here:
Apple - Logic Pro - Feedback
:-)

I'll try :-)

Thanks for your help