Think Different

Jun 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Len Sasso

           

Automation

Logic's track automation is powerful yet extremely easy to use. Each track can have as many automation lanes as needed. You can create automation graphically with the mouse, or you can use a control surface to record automation on the fly. You can automate any track or plug-in parameter. Track automation is not contained within regions, but you can set a preference to have it automatically moved with overlying regions.

FIG. 4: Global Tracks at the top of the Arrange winodw manage markers, video thumbnails, chord names, Apple Loop and MIDI file transpositions, tempo changes, and beat mapping.

You can freely move track automation to regions and vice versa. If you move automation to an audio region, you need to open it in the Event List editor to view the automation. You can view and edit track automation directly in its own list-style editor, but you need to assign a key command to open that editor.

Two kinds of events are used for automation in Logic: MIDI Control Change messages and Logic's special Fader messages. MIDI messages are used for standard parameters such as volume, pan, sustain pedal, and so on. Fader messages are used for plug-in-specific parameters, although if you have a MIDI controller mapped to a plug-in parameter, you can use that as well. You cannot use MIDI CC 7 (Volume) and CC 10 (Pan) for plug-ins, because Logic always intercepts those messages to use for channel strip volume and pan. You can view and edit Fader messages in both the Event List and Hyper Edit windows.

Owing to Logic's excellent graphical tools for editing automation, track automation is usually preferable to region automation. But region automation has its uses, and one of them is automation looping. To loop a chunk of track automation, create an empty MIDI region the length of the desired loop and move it under the track automation. (You can move the MIDI region to any automation lane.) Move the track automation to the region and loop the MIDI region as needed. If you want to convert it to looping track automation, turn the loops to real copies and move the automation back to the track (see Fig. 5).

FIG. 5: Five steps to looping automation: ?create one loop of automation, place an empty MIDI region under it and transfer the automation to the MIDI region, loop the MIDI region, turn the loops to real copies, and transfer the automation back to the track.

The Details

I've tried to point to processes and features that differentiate Logic Pro 7.2 from other digital audio sequencers. Needless to say, the devil is in the details, most of which I've glossed over. Logic Pro 7 Reference Manual is an excellent source. A quick search of the PDF version of that tome will almost always get you close enough to figure out the rest for yourself. When that's not enough, the various second-source books and the users forums that the Apple Web site links to are great resources. The answer is out there somewhere.

Len Sasso is an associate editor of EM. For an earful, visit his Web site at www.swiftkick.com.