Here Are Some Cool Logic Pro X + Reason Rack Tips

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hurricane
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20 May 2021

Real quick tip, and this is sort of old news, but for those who don't know, Logic supports colored mixer channels like in Pro Tools - but slight catch for now, (because I expect this option to be in actual Logic in the future) is that it requires the Logic Colorizer app, which is worth a purchase if you want to have ultimate customization and coloring options. Totally worth it in my opinion: https://www.creationauts.com/products/l ... colorizer/

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DaveyG
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21 May 2021

hurricane wrote:
20 May 2021
Real quick tip, and this is sort of old news, but for those who don't know, Logic supports colored mixer channels like in Pro Tools - but slight catch for now, (because I expect this option to be in actual Logic in the future) is that it requires the Logic Colorizer app, which is worth a purchase if you want to have ultimate customization and coloring options. Totally worth it in my opinion: https://www.creationauts.com/products/l ... colorizer/


mixercolors.jpg
Wow, $60 to be able to do something that should be built-in is a bit steep, especially for a cosmetic thing. I grew up in a studio world where you had to decipher smudged barely-legible writing on scribble strips on the console and the track notes were a scruffy bit of paper so I'm just happy to have a screen with labels I can read! Most of my work is in Studio One and I usually just accept the default colours because life is too short. But I have a friend and occasional writing partner who can't bear it if the colours don't match his "system" so I'll send him a part-finished project and receive back a "properly colour-coded" one with his additions. It amuses me because he's not especially fussy about anything else in his life. In fact, he's a bit chaotic in general. Just don't try to tell him kick drums are red.

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hurricane
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21 May 2021

Like I said, I expect this feature to be enabled in future versions of Logic, but Colorizer is around now if you want that feature now, plus it does more than just that. It's a complete theming app for Logic, and let s you change the color of practically everything. If a utility like this existed for Reason, and it allowed me to finally have a complete dark theme, I would buy it no doubt.
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motuscott
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21 May 2021

Convincing argument for Logic.
I'm gonna have to move on since Reason is obviously not going to accommodate my old school workflow, electro mechanical instruments and human players. Definitely not looking forward to learning another DAW.
How's Logic for editing across multiple audio tracks like a multitrack drumkit?
Who’s using the royal plural now baby? 🧂

WOO
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21 May 2021

Hey apple its time for you to release a windows version of logic.

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DaveyG
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21 May 2021

WOO wrote:
21 May 2021
Hey apple its time for you to release a windows version of logic.
There used to be one. About 20 years ago. Then Apple bought Emagic and discontinued the Windows version!

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hurricane
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21 May 2021

motuscott wrote:
21 May 2021
How's Logic for editing across multiple audio tracks like a multitrack drumkit?
Logic does multitrack editing very well and it has too many features and functions to cover here. Everything from quantizing audio, to transient detection...timing correction, slicing things recycle-style, drum replacement and more. You will not be disappointed.
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Fotu
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22 May 2021

motuscott wrote:
21 May 2021
Convincing argument for Logic.
I'm gonna have to move on since Reason is obviously not going to accommodate my old school workflow, electro mechanical instruments and human players. Definitely not looking forward to learning another DAW.
How's Logic for editing across multiple audio tracks like a multitrack drumkit?
Though I enjoy Reason, having used it to create dozens of backing tracks for gigging and a few originals, I moved to Logic a couple of years go for similar reason (doing more rock style than EDM, atmo, etc.). On first use it was a constant delight discovering it supported so many 'sequencer' capabilities and workflow efficiencies I'd longed for in Reason. But Logic is feature rich, which means a sizable learning curve. There's a great forum (search Logic Pro Help Forum) run by David Nahmani that's worth a daily scan for tips, tricks and pitfalls. I found macProVideo's (paid) training videos a good launch point. I keep Reason for legacy tracks maintenance and the RRP. So far I haven't needed the RRP within Logic, but nice to know it is available if I need some sound design not easily achieved in Logic.

In Logic you can 'group' audio tracks to perform things like comp slice editing to affect them all simultaneously. (I do that for recording wet + DI guitar parts.)

enossified
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22 May 2021

Another tip for RRP users in Logic.

Using manual assignments to Smart Controls, it's possible to have up to 12 knobs available for tweaking Combinators, by assigning 8 of the knobs to parameters inside the Combi's individual instances.

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stratatonic
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22 May 2021

Great thread, Hurricane!
Mods! Can you make this a sticky? Would be helpful.
motuscott wrote:
21 May 2021
Convincing argument for Logic.
I'm gonna have to move on since Reason is obviously not going to accommodate my old school workflow, electro mechanical instruments and human players.
If you are considering Logic, be aware that you can buy Logic with iTunes gift cards. I've seen the cards go on sale for 10-20% off at times. You can basically get Logic for 160 bucks. Insane value.

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motuscott
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22 May 2021

Thanks for the feedbacks y'all
Who’s using the royal plural now baby? 🧂

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hurricane
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11 Jun 2021

The Logic Colorizer people made some tweaks to the app and now you can color the tracks on the sequencer page, plus tweak the opacity of those colors for a much less harsh look. It's the 2.5 update which was released today. Looks pretty sweet:
logiccolors.jpg
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https://www.creationauts.com/products/l ... colorizer/
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Heater
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12 Jun 2021

This thread is gold.

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Alrek
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14 Aug 2021

@hurricane, do you know if it is somehow possible in Logic Pro X to send one Reason Rack Plugins CV signal to another RRP as an CV input?
Would be glad to be able to route signals between the RRPs. :idea:

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jam-s
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14 Aug 2021

Alrek wrote:
14 Aug 2021
@hurricane, do you know if it is somehow possible in Logic Pro X to send one Reason Rack Plugins CV signal to another RRP as an CV input?
Would be glad to be able to route signals between the RRPs. :idea:
I'm not hurricane, but you should be able to convert the CV to audio (using Thor or a dedicated RE) and then send the CV to one of the extra outs of the RRP. Then in Logic you must route that additional audio output to an additional audio input of a RRP (effect) instance and then convert it back to CV inside the RRP using Thor or a dedicated RE.

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Alrek
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14 Aug 2021

Thank you jam-s! Very much appreciated, although you are not hurricane. :mrgreen:

Interesting approach . But I can imagine that this kind of signal conversion may be unreliable results and delay or am I wrong? I have never worked with Thors signal conversion.

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jam-s
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14 Aug 2021

As it's just simple math the conversion should work reliably, but it will most likely introduce some delay (but not more then one or two buffers).

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huggermugger
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14 Aug 2021

This is a fantastic collection of techniques, thanks!

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hurricane
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24 Aug 2021

A reminder - you can quick-drag any of Logic's factory loops (straight from the browser) onto Mimic:

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And any audio file in your actual project can also be quickly added to Mimic by locating that file in your project's audio file browser and dragging it from there:


projectaudio.jpg
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hurricane
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24 Aug 2021

NOT A TIP - JUST SOMETHING COOL.

If you've been thinking about switching to Logic, I suggest you give Logic's demo songs a look in order to see how "the pros" use Logic's instruments and effects in "pro" productions. Might provide some inspiration....maybe that last little nudge.

There've been some pretty major demo projects included with Logic over the years from several high profile artists - The Killers, Beck, Shiny Toy Guns, The Roots, and more recently, Billie Eilish. All of them have offered a fascinating glimpse into their production process using Logic Pro's instruments and effects. But there's one that I think tops them all and it's "The Fear" by Lily Allen, produced by Greg Kurstin - a hardcore Logic user.

When the "first-starting-out-making-music-me" first opened this demo project and glanced at the arrange page, I thought "holy crap - this is for real!". It looked sooooo "pro" to me with the cool music video in the corner, the perfectly labeled tracks, the well organized markers, and the credits on the right side:

fear-arrange.jpg
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And then I looked at the mixer and my eyes grew wide seeing that the producer included the complete instrument tracks - unbounced, with the software instrument still there, and what looked like a full blown mixer channel full of effects. All the audio tracks had loads of effects too. There was panning, there was automation, things looked EQ'd, there were track notes. It was another "HOLY CRAP!" moment as I realized that I was looking at the actual Logic project of the released song. "THIS IS GREG KURSTIN'S ACTUAL LOGIC PROJECT - OMG".

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Needless to say that I obsessively looked over every little thing in his project - how he panned, how he used Logic's Sample Delay to push things off to the side, the interesting little instructions in some of his notes ("Play with Formant Shift on EVOC") - I mean, it was a look into a pro production that I needed at the time to let my musically hopeless self know that I could make pro-sounding music with just Logic. I NEEDED THIS.

Anyway, I strongly encourage you to find the demo project out there on the internets. It's a pretty fascinating little thing.

Thanks to the wayback machine, I've attached the original "Logic Studio - In Action" article that appeared on Apple's site.
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Apple - Logic Studio - In Action - Greg Kurstin.pdf
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hurricane
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25 Aug 2021

So that DX7 'velocity capped at 100' thing - yeah it's annoying, and the PX7 sort of accurately mimics this behavior (I mean you can press on your keys really really hard to get the punchier sound but I don't want to break my freaking fingers).

Arturia's DX7V is similar, however they at least include a velocity setting so you can chose the traditional DX7 velocity or the FULL velocity. But that still sucks because it's not a global setting so you'd have to switch it for every patch.

VERY ANNOYING.

Whatever. :thumbdown:

In Reason, you can use a velocity scaling RE to bump things up, but if you don't have one of those, then Logic comes with a free one, and it's called the Velocity Processor. It's in the Midi FX section, and all you have to do is move the 'Add" slider to 27. Now your PX7 hits harder. You can also leave it on Arturia's DX7 as you browse through patches so you never have to deal with their velocity shenanigans.

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joeyluck
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25 Aug 2021

I'm finally upgrading to Catalina and getting Logic (I didn't get it before the update and new OS requirement). I absolutely need it for my film work.

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hurricane
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25 Aug 2021

Welcome to the club. :clap:
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joeyluck
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26 Aug 2021

Well for starters, I got another free 90 days lol. Either because of the update to Logic or macOS upgrade.

I'm bummed that my iPad Mini 4 doesn't work with Sidecar :( It's on the latest OS. In my searches I read that it was working on iPad Mini 4 during beta, but I guess they decided to remove it...

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joeyluck
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26 Aug 2021

I thought they had fixed the track naming issue? Every instrument I create is "Inst 1", "Inst 2" etc. Is there a way to get it to default to the plugin name or patch name?

[EDIT] So I found the "Additional Name Column Mode" and enabled that, but I still only get "Inst 1" etc. as the additional name.

I tried "Automatic", "Patch or Channel Strip Setting Name", "Software Instrument Setting Name"... And it doesn't make a difference. That additional name is still generic. Am I misunderstanding this feature?

Additional Name.png
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