Logic Pro v10.4 is out

[Weasel-Boy]

I’m posting this because I bumped into something I’ve never had happen after applying a Logic Pro X update. Sorry if it’s a little long-winded.

Within an hour or two after installing 10.4, the application began to quickly degrade all mouse driven graphical and menu selection activity. An example would be: selecting a track and watching a beachball for almost 15 seconds before the track actually became selected. The entire program began behaving like this for every operation. It was basically slowing to a crawl.

I began to consider rolling back to the previous version. I went online to see if anybody else was experiencing anything like this. As expected, because the update is so new, I couldn’t find anything specific on the subject of 10.4. However, there were a number of postings discussing earlier versions of Logic, where something similar was occurring….all of them filled with suggestions discussing OS, hardware, or audio setup issues…etc. as possible solutions. None of which solved the problem for any of the original posters. A lot of wild goose chases.

I’ve had something like this occur after updating Cubase from time to time, and that almost always led to a corrupted preference. In all the years I’ve used Logic, I’ve never had any reason to muck about with the program to fix something like this. I simply thought the update was flawed. I was completely unfamiliar with where or how many preference files Apple installs/generates for the program.

I had to start somewhere, so I went here:

BootHD/Users/YourName/LIbrary/Preferences/.

I found: com.apple.logic.pro.cs. It reported a file size of 173 mb. I looked for the same file in a backup HD containing the previous version. It reported a file size of 15kb for the same file. As that version had been used extensively for over a year, that seemed like a big difference.

For safety, I compressed the 10.4 generated version of that file, trashed the original and rebooted Logic. The program regenerated the file and reported it as 15kb.

I ran the program for a few hours, working on some new stuff and a bunch of older projects while checking out new features and plug-ins. Same thing I did after the initial update.

Worked a charm. No slowdown anywhere. I double-checked the size of the com.apple.logic.pro.cs. file. Still 15kb.

Just thought I’d pass this tip along.

[chk071]

Pretty much any thread here on Logic that's long enough becomes a thread where people argue the ethics of Apple, which is fatiguing. Apple is a red herring in the media these days much the same way Microsoft were in the 90's. There seems to be a thing within people to criticize and demonize whatever company is currently dominating in the free market. Expect the pressure to turn up on Amazon even further now that they're poised to become bigger than all the rest...

I use neither Logic, nor a Mac, but, i'm really happy that we have this kind of diversity on the market, and that everyone can choose, and feel free to use whatever he finds best for his uses. And, as you wrote, it is seriously fatiguing that every thread, where one of the major players in the business is being discussed, turns out into a discussion about the business ethics. Especially as one of the biggest player in the business, Steinberg has a mere couple of hundred employees, which, excuse my language, is a fukkin' joke compared to really big companies. It's not even a big mid tier company. Rather a pretty small one. And people are already smelling world domination. Good times.

[Bombadil]

Here is a pretty good idea of how the new horn section works, although he seemed to have trouble with a couple of articulations. Amazing. Realistic, imo.

And FREEEEE!

Looks great.

However, I am having a problem replicating something in this vid. Help!

Around the 15:00 mark, he starts to use individual instruments after using the Chicago section.

His MIDI clips for the solo instruments have Articulation dropdown. Mine don't. Is there a setting somewhere that I have to check off to get this feature? (I did have the Articulation dropdown for Chicago)

For clarification, I mean the dropdown when you work in the Midi region, as opposed to the actual plugin.

Thanks!

There's another way. You might want to check out this thread on LPHelp:

https://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/view ... 1&t=135414

Looks like you can also select and right click midi notes in the midi editor and get an Articulation option and choose there as well.

We may have it all figured out now.

Here is something else very interesting: Custom Artic setup for 3rd party libraries! If they use keyswitches, it seems pretty simple!

EDIT: Ok, No success with VSL Mapping, but I assume I am doing something wrong. Success with Kontakt Cellos, though!

Edit 2: Got it going with VSL! W00t!

This is a complete game changer for me. I can finally use my libraries in a semi-coherent manner!

[mrj1nx]

Did anyone figure out how to make it color every region/track automatically? (I belive i saw that in the update notes)

[Bombadil]

I believe it is in the recording preferences.

[machinesworking]

Question for those with multiple MIDI controllers. It's been years since I set this up in Logic in the early 2000's. There are various ways of getting this to work, but it seems that Logic is still a bit of a PITA to set up for multiple tracks being controlled by different MIDI controllers.
I have:
SL MKII
Beatstep Pro
Qunexus
M-Audio ProKeys 88
Push 2
Maschine
and a MOTU MTP AV with some MIDI hardware attached, including an analog rack synth.

So far it seems this is the best solution to using multiple MIDI controllers for various virtual instrument tracks in Logic is to decouple the Sum in Click and Ports, then use a Transformer to hard assign a MIDI channel to each controller. So SLMKII is channel 1, ProKeys 2 and so on. This way each controller keyboard sends to only that channel etc. I don't see any way to assign a MIDI port to a specific virtual instrument, and the obvious downside to this is devices like Maschine, which sends on channel 1, and another channel for Scene changes... Any better solution to this than what I outlined here??

Oh and yes this is only a limitation with soft synths, Hardware synths can get a specific port assigned to them.

It's weird to me that this MIDI limitation still exists in Logic? but DP still doesn't have any way to set key limits for a given MIDI channel, and Live still works with only 128 parameters of track automation.... Freakin DAWs!

[fmr]

So far it seems this is the best solution to using multiple MIDI controllers for various virtual instrument tracks in Logic is to decouple the Sum in Click and Ports, then use a Transformer to hard assign a MIDI channel to each controller. So SLMKII is channel 1, ProKeys 2 and so on. This way each controller keyboard sends to only that channel etc. I don't see any way to assign a MIDI port to a specific virtual instrument, and the obvious downside to this is devices like Maschine, which sends on channel 1, and another channel for Scene changes... Any better solution to this than what I outlined here??

Many years ago Logic had a thing called Logic Environment where you could do all kinds of specific routings. I presume that still exists.

You could create one or more MIDI tracks that receive from a specific MIDI device (don't need to restrain to any specific channel, although you can, of course) and you can then route those MIDI tracks to the virtual instrument(s). I even think that you could make specific routings for virtual instruments, but I have to check.

[Bombadil]

The Environment, for a MidIdiot like me, is 'teh FORBIDDEN ZONE!'

[fmr]

The Environment, for a MidIdiot like me, is 'teh FORBIDDEN ZONE!'

Actually, it's something that always disappointed me. When I started with Logic, one of the things that attracted me was exactly the Environment. But the Environment basically remained as it was back then (at version 2.0). From version 3.0 onwards, Emagic concerns were to catch up Steinberg and the VST technology, and they started developing their own plug-ins, and their own audio engine (EASI) that they wanted ot compete ASIO.

When Logic reached version 5, it was already a great system, their sampler was one of the best (EXS MkII), and they had launched ES2, EVOC, EVB3 and EVD2. Yet, basically no work had been done in the Environment since version 2.0

[nordickvr]

...set up for multiple tracks being controlled by different MIDI controllers...

I'm not sure this is what you'r looking for but here's a way that may resemble to a solution.

I first created a Track Stack ("Summing Stack" type) after selecting all the soft synths/tracks needed.
Then used the Scripter to allow just a selected channel per track/soft synth.

Hope this help.

[jonljacobi]

The environment is cool, but a little nerdy for the average user. The heritage is definitely Atari ST/C-Lab and I was a bit surprised that it was there when I found it. (I'm fairly new to Logic)

One of the things that's surprised me greatly about Logic is the quality of the instruments and included sounds. They also seem more efficient CPU-wise than the third-party plug-ins which they seek to replace. And most are already "FX'd". That's a quite a bit different from say Live, which gives you the bare sounds.

[machinesworking]

\
Many years ago Logic had a thing called Logic Environment where you could do all kinds of specific routings. I presume that still exists.

Click and Ports is a layer in the Environment.

You could create one or more MIDI tracks that receive from a specific MIDI device (don't need to restrain to any specific channel, although you can, of course) and you can then route those MIDI tracks to the virtual instrument(s). I even think that you could make specific routings for virtual instruments, but I have to check.

Funny, I'm then back to a separate MIDI track for each virtual instrument. I'm pretty sure you would still need to put the coupled MIDI track in the Arrange page and work with it instead of the instrument track for MIDI. DP's odd MIDI limitation is no MIDI directly on VI's. Theoretically it seems possible, I'll mess around and see what I can come up with.

I think the simple solution is to assign separate MIDI channels on my hardware, since everything else requires tinkering each time I write a new song, I don't have 16 MIDI controllers, but I've written pieces with 16 VI's... The solution I'm working on is a bit buggy, setting up Transform objects to force each bit of hardware to a specific MIDI channel should theoretically just work, but it also includes having to separately couple each possible MIDI to the input signal. Makes me think that other devices might react weirdly to this, like the V-Control software for the Raven... The one problem with assigning channels on the hardware itself is a good half of it is dumb USB devices like Push 2, Maschine, Beatstep Pro, Qunexus etc.

Has to be said, this is the big WTF! with Logic, that virtual instruments cannot receives separate MIDI ports on input?? Reaper and Live and DP all do this with zero issues.

[machinesworking]

The environment is cool, but a little nerdy for the average user. The heritage is definitely Atari ST/C-Lab and I was a bit surprised that it was there when I found it. (I'm fairly new to Logic)

One of the things that's surprised me greatly about Logic is the quality of the instruments and included sounds. They also seem more efficient CPU-wise than the third-party plug-ins which they seek to replace. And most are already "FX'd". That's a quite a bit different from say Live, which gives you the bare sounds.

I think the virtual instrument issue I'm outlining is a huge downfall of it the Environment, the Apple/Emagic team should have wired a solution for this a long time ago. It shouldn't be up to me or any end user to have to play around with the Environment to solve this. Setting up things like MIDI sequencers etc. should be what you do there.

Logic has great virtual instruments and FX. Best in class, especially the later additions. Sculpture I would buy on it's own, the new drummers, and Alchemy was a purchase as we all know. DP and Live my other DAWs mostly have good FX, and only a few good instruments. the new Wavetable synth in Live is outstanding though!

[Bombadil]

Ok, I've had issues with mapping Sampletank 3 articulations. Blumoch.

[fmr]

DP's odd MIDI limitation is no MIDI directly on VI's. Theoretically it seems possible, I'll mess around and see what I can come up with.

Funny enough, I don't see that as a limitation. I like to work that way - it resembles the way I worked when there was only MIDI.

I have the instrument track where I can process the sound of that instrument, etc. but the MIDI is a separare affair, that is done in MIDI tracks that are then routed anywhere I want (including virtual instruments). Cubase has both ways. Logic, AFAIK, only allows to work the DP/Cubase way if we create routings in the environment - no way to do that directly in the Arrangement.