Logic piano roll tips?

[chagzuki]

I've finally gotten around to trying out Logic for the first time since perhaps 2002(?), having been a Tracktion/Waveform devotee for a long time.

There's no doubt it's a great package for the price, and I'm feeling fairly comfortable in the environment after about 2 hours of use. But whether or not it becomes my main DAW will depend on how easily I can zoom around the piano roll for fast midi editing. In Waveform using mousewheel to zoom focusses at the cursor position, which enables me to zoom out and then in to whatever region needs attention more or less instantly. I got accustomed to the key commands to zoom in Logic but it seems to zoom to playhead position, which seems rather counter-intuitive to me, and doesn't allow for the same sort of fast navigation. So I wonder if there are ways to change this behaviour, or whether there are other speedy shortcuts to e.g. select a bunch of notes and then frame them in the piano roll? I've watched a tutorial on useful keyboard shortcuts but not found what I'm hoping for so far.

[Jolaff]

Option + select the region you want to zoom

[chagzuki]

Thanks, that'll probably do it.

I'm liking Drum Machine Designer so far. All looking very promising.

[pdxindy]

Thanks, that'll probably do it.

I'm liking Drum Machine Designer so far. All looking very promising.

Drum Machine Designer plus the new Sampler and Quick Sampler are excellent! The devs did a great job on them! Likewise with the new Step Sequencer. It feels like an invigorating new energy has come into Logic.

[apoclypse]

DMD is great. It's so easy to use and get started with. I like that you can put anything you want in the slots. Synths, Sampler, Kontakt, whatever. Very powerful and versatile. Reminds of Ableton's Racks but easier to use in certain aspects.

[EdgarRothermich]

Option + select the region you want to zoom

There is a little more to it.

The horizontal zoom behavior is different in the Workspace and the Piano Roll Editor

Workspace
If no Region is selected, then the Playhead is used as the anchor when zooming in
If a Region(s0 is selected, then the start of the first selected Region is used as the anchor

Piano Roll Editor
If you select a MIDI Event, then the Playhead uses the left border of the MIDI Event as an Anchor to zoom in horizontally. BUT, only if Playhead is not positioned inside that Region. IN that case, the Playhead is used as the anchor.

Regarding scrolling/zooming and workflow, nothing beats the Trackpad. I explain that in great details with lots of examples and demonstrations in my YouTube video about the Trackpad in my series "Music Tech Explained"
https://youtu.be/CtvZN2EyTAc

[chagzuki]

Thanks Edgar, your channel looks great, will have a proper look.

One thing that's annoying/amusing: I'd forgotten about the typical experience of using Logic on a PC back in 2002 which involved the audio engine stopping constantly. CPUs were crap at the time and for some reason Logic's audio engine was designed to stop playback instead of stuttering or lurching. I remember finding this impossible to work with, since even with moderate projects the CPU load would spike now and then.

Well, it seems to still be the case. I'm using an M1 Mac, which runs pretty well, though perhaps not as well as I'd have expected from other people's reports. I probably need to disable some background processes, but it strikes me as silly that whenever CPU load spikes Logic has to stop and tell me politely that it needed to stop.

[chagzuki]

So in using Drum Machine Designer, if I want to have the same EQ applied to a few drum pads, e.g. a set of cymbals, it looks as though that's not possible. What would be the best workflow to achieve something like this?

[apoclypse]

So in using Drum Machine Designer, if I want to have the same EQ applied to a few drum pads, e.g. a set of cymbals, it looks as though that's not possible. What would be the best workflow to achieve something like this?

You can use a bus. Route those channels to a bus and then route that aux back to the DMD.

[chagzuki]

You can use a bus. Route those channels to a bus and then route that aux back to the DMD.

I can see there's a lot of flexibility with routing. That method seems to create some issues with soloing track behaviour... but I'm guessing there are ways to configure that.

[chagzuki]

I'm still enjoying Logic here. Still a Tracktion fanboy, probably always will be, but Logic is a powerhouse, no doubt about it.

I'm confused by the audio preferences for number of threads, on an M1 Mac. One would assume that Logic would know what's best, and in that instance the 'automatic' option would appear to go with 4 threads across 4 cores. But 8 sounds better than 4 (?!), in which case one has 8 threads over 4 cores, and the CPU meters individually look a little lower... but that's not really telling me what the actual cores are doing. Are the extra 4 threads running on the non-performance cores or is there multithreading (2) on the performance cores?

[EnGee]

What plugins you are running? I couldn't max Logic with my usage. Anyway, keep in mind that some plugins are not optimized to use multiple cores like u-he betas (for now), unless you are running plugins under Rosetta (I don't).

I leave the cpu at recommended setup and I find the performance quite amazing. What did you expect exactly?! For me, It's almost on par with my Ryzen 5800x on Windows and that is an excellent achievement for such cool processor!

[chagzuki]

What plugins you are running? I couldn't max Logic with my usage. Anyway, keep in mind that some plugins are not optimized to use multiple cores like u-he betas (for now), unless you are running plugins under Rosetta (I don't).

I leave the cpu at recommended setup and I find the performance quite amazing. What did you expect exactly?! For me, It's almost on par with my Ryzen 5800x on Windows and that is an excellent achievement for such cool processor!

After updating Big Sur the overload issues in Logic have dramatically improved, so things are looking good. I'm currently using Falcon and Pigments a lot, neither of which have M1 versions, so that's a factor.

[chagzuki]

Can anyone explain why Exponential Audio/Izotope R4 reverb doesn't show in the plugin menu, despite the fact that in the Preferences menu Logic states that it's loaded correctly and the 'use' box is ticked?

[EnGee]

What plugins you are running? I couldn't max Logic with my usage. Anyway, keep in mind that some plugins are not optimized to use multiple cores like u-he betas (for now), unless you are running plugins under Rosetta (I don't).

I leave the cpu at recommended setup and I find the performance quite amazing. What did you expect exactly?! For me, It's almost on par with my Ryzen 5800x on Windows and that is an excellent achievement for such cool processor!

After updating Big Sur the overload issues in Logic have dramatically improved, so things are looking good. I'm currently using Falcon and Pigments a lot, neither of which have M1 versions, so that's a factor.

Oh that's why then! I immediately updated from 11.2 to 11.4 (and Logic as well to the latest), so I haven't experienced any lag or hits in the performance.

Sure, under Rosetta you would loose some performance (but not that much). Anyway, I prefer to run everything native. I miss some synths like Phase Plant and Pigments, but it is ok, I have Serum and Alchemy instead. Though, they are coming and I can wait