LOGIC NOTES

Customising your Environment

Published in SOS July 2002
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Technique : Logic Notes

From the patch list window you can configure your Instrument objects to cope with different MIDI Bank Change message standards.

More practical advice on customising your Environment and setting up multiple Autoload Songs, plus our usual selection of helpful Logic tips.

Last month I introduced you to some of the wonders of Logic's Environment, and I showed you how to go about tinkering with it for yourself. This month, it's time to have a look at how you can customise your Environment setup to make your work quicker and easier.

One of the things that attracted me to Logic in the first place was the ability to use patch names rather than program numbers to call up sounds. Logic can't directly read the patch names from your synths (unless you also have Sound Diver) so they have to be typed in, pasted in from a text file (often available from the synth's manufacturer) or (where available) loaded in from templates.

If you double-click on any of the 16 sections within a virtual instrument, a patch list will open up. By default, this will show GM patches or numbers, but by using the Text tool you can type in the patch names that actually relate to the instrument you're using. Before you point out that a Matrix 1000 owner has to type in 1000 separate patch names, may I refer you to the Various Multi Sets Song, where you'll find sets of Logic Songs that contain nothing but Instrument objects set up as patch name templates for the most popular instruments (including the Matrix 1000) from all the leading manufacturers. Various Multisets is automatically put into the Logic program folder when you first install Logic, and many of the popular expansion card patches are there too, with new additions appearing regularly on the web sites of third-party developers on the Net.

It would be great if every instrument obeyed the same MIDI Bank Change messages, but they don't. Logic deals with this by providing a pull-down menu of message types, within the patch list window. At the top of the list is the option to create a custom bank message, if you need to accommodate any particularly arcane sound modules.

Once you've entered the patch names for all the relevant banks in your Multi Instruments, these will appear in all the parts of a multitimbral instrument, unless you tick the box that displays GM drum program names for channel 10. At the moment, there doesn't seem to be any easy way to customise drum bank names further, or to select drum channels other than 10, but there is my workaround. Simply create two identical Multi Instrument objects with all the parts other than channel 10 active on the first Multi Instrument object and only channel 10 (or a different channel if that's where your drums are) active on the second. Set them to operate on the same MIDI port and then name the second Multi Instrument suitably. Turn off the 'Use GM Drum Program Names For Channel 10' check box and type in the actual names of the drum programs. In the Arrange window, select your drums object whenever you want a drum part or the other object where you want the regular synth sounds.

In the Arrange window, you can simply add audio and MIDI tracks as you need them or you can create a few of each so that they're available to use when the Autoload Song is called up. I favour the latter approach and a sensible option might be to have, say, four MIDI tracks for each multi-timbral synth you have connected, as well as eight audio tracks. This way you can at least make a start on a Song before needing to add more tracks. Note that you can only place audio tracks or virtual instruments in the Arrange window if corresponding Audio objects (which look like mixer channels) exist in the Environment. The same applies to MIDI tracks insomuch as the instrument must exist in the Environment before Logic can use it.

You can quickly assign 16 new tracks to 16 MIDI channels of a Multi Instrument using the Key Command for Create Track With Next Instrument -- the key combination for this is listed beside this operation's listing in the Track submenu of the Arrange window's Functions menu. Assign the first track to the first channel of your desired Multi Instrument, and then use the Key Command to add the rest.

Audio objects are usually kept in the Audio layer of the Environment and are, again, added using the New menu, though the default version of Logic comes with an Environment mixer already configured. See your Logic manual to find out how to configure Audio Objects as playback tracks, group/auxiliary busses, inputs, virtual instruments or master busses. If more than one audio driver is active, you can pick which one an Audio object should work with via its Parameters.

Work More Quickly Using Multiple Autoload Songs     Logic users will be familiar with the default Autoload Song, into which we save not only our personal settings but also the complete Environment with instrument patch names, port assignments and so on. By basing each new Song on this Autoload, we save ourselves re-inventing the wheel. Nevertheless, situations arise when the Autoload isn't exactly where we want to start from, in which case it's very easy to save different customised versions of the Autoload Songs and then to lock these so that they can only be copied rather than changed. I discovered several situations in which customised default Songs make life easier. For example, after installing a MOTU 828 audio interface, I had the choice of recording from the analogue inputs, the ADAT input or the S/PDIF input. To save having to change my settings for different projects, I simply created three defaults with the audio mixer routing already set up and called them Default ADAT, Default Analogue and Default S/PDIF. I also have further variations depending on whether I want to mix everything into stereo inside the computer or bring out the audio as eight separate streams for external mixing. By applying a little thought to the way you work and then spending a few minutes tweaking and saving a set of customised default Songs, you can save an enormous amount of time.

While having an audio mixer that you can change or even completely rebuild might seem like harder work than always having a ready-made audio mixer, it is very flexible, as you can also create stereo busses to use as effect returns and then route their outputs to the master output, just like in a hardware mixer. Also, if you use two or more pieces of audio hardware (soundcards or audio interfaces) it is often clearer to create two separate mixers on different layers of the Environment and access them via Screensets. This two-mixer trick is incredibly useful for ESB/TDM users who need both a DAE mixer and a TDM mixer inside Logic.

To label multiple Audio objects, select them all and click on one of their names with the Text tool. If you append a number, for example '01', to the end of the name, the objects will be numbered consecutively starting from that number.

If you want to automate your audio tracks, busses, masters or virtual instruments via the object faders in versions prior to version 5, you'll also need a Channel Splitter object for each set of 16 MIDI channels, with its outputs cabled to the corresponding Environment Audio objects. Channel Splitters may be accessed from the Arrange window, just like any other MIDI destination, allowing you to record and edit MIDI automation data. The default Autoload Song that appears when you first install Logic has pretty much all of the Audio Environment layer set up for you, including Channel Splitters) so I'd recommend you play around with it as it is for a while before deciding to make major changes.

Remember that any subsequent changes you make to your default Environment only apply to new Songs you create. Older Songs remain unchanged, so if you need to go back and work on them and you've swapped one of the synths you've used, you'll have to update the Environment by pasting the new instrument from your current Autoload Song Environment into the one you're updating. You can copy and paste objects or even whole layers from the Environments between Songs, though bear in mind that, the more complex your Environment, the larger the size of the final Song file. By putting in a little time and effort to create a good Autoload Song, particularly the Environment, you'll find Logic soon becomes a very friendly place to work. If you need several different Autoload Songs for different types of project, simply save them as read-only Song files and open copies in the usual way. Hopefully, now that I have explained how simple the Environment can be, you'll feel more inclined to investigate its impressive list of advanced applications.

Copy & Paste To Save Time     Copy and paste patch names between Instrument objects to save typing them all in. A neat feature of Logic is that you can open two Songs at once, then use conventional keyboard shortcuts to cut/copy/paste MIDI data, audio or Environment objects from one to the other. Therefore, if you have a synth for which a template already exists, the easiest option is to copy the ready-made Multi Instrument object from the support files, paste it into your own Autoload Song Environment, then enter the MIDI connection details as explained earlier. Similarly, when a patch list window is open there are tools that allow you to copy all the text from any Multi Instrument bank and paste it into any other desired bank within your own Multi Instruments. This is useful in the case of something like a JV2080, where not every user has the same expander cards or has them loaded in the same slots, though beware that Logic currently supports a maximum of 14 banks of patch names.

Logic Tips     I'm always going on about the wisdom of learning Key Commands, but there are two features of Logic Audio that I use so regularly that even I have got around to learning them. These are Note Overlap Correction and Force Legato, which default to Tab and Shift Tab on my Mac, respectively. Note Overlap Correction not only tidies up parts that are supposed to be monophonic, but it also conserves polyphony. Force Legato extends notes so that they play until the next note takes over, but the results are only really predictable when you're working with monophonic lines. Legato is good for string parts and also for flute, providing you go in and manually shorten some of the notes to simulate the places a player would take a breath. One quick and dirty way of making a chordal part more interesting is to extract the top or bottom line and copy it to a new track where it can be assigned to a different instrument. Go to either the Matrix Edit or Score window, then choose Select Top Line/Bottom Line from the Note Events submenu of the window's Function menu. The selected line can then be copied and pasted into a new sequence on another track. You may also want to delete the line from the chordal part once it has been copied, to avoid duplication. To create an interesting double-tracking effect, play in a part and record it on a MIDI track, then copy the sequence data to a new track and assign a suitable sound to both parts. If your performed timing was pretty good you can leave the original part unquantised and quantise the copied part. This causes the timing to vary slightly between the two parts, and in most cases it will produce a fairly natural doubling effect. Where your original performance timing isn't quite on the money, however, you may need to quantise the original track. In which case, treat the copied track with a percentage quantise and keep reducing the percentage until you get enough looseness for the required effect. For extra realism, you can also simulate the pitch differences that occur between double-tracked parts by adding very shallow and suitably random pitch variations to one of the parts using MIDI Pitch-bend messages. Logic provides an import function to allow standard MIDI files to be loaded into a Logic Song (ideally with 16 tracks already set up to access the parts of a General MIDI synth). By far the easiest way to achieve this is simply to drag the MIDI file icon into the Logic Arrange window, making sure the tracks line up with the GM tracks you have created. If you want to use different sounds, all you have to do is to select new MIDI instruments and patches to play the various parts.

Current Versions     * PC: Logic Audio Platinum v5.1.2 * Mac: Logic Audio Platinum v5.1.2