Jump to content

Homina

Member
  • Posts

    358
  • Joined

  • Last visited

1 Follower

Homina's Achievements

  1. Macs with a T2 chip have internal drives that are automatically encrypted, which complicates doing anything out of the ordinary with them. Replacing corrupted PLISTs or other root-level files becomes much more complicated. Apple uniformly recommends wiping a drive, installing a clean OS (that Apple requires you download), and reinstalling everything. That may be fine at Apple headquarters on a 100GB ethernet network, but is a whole different reality when you're limited to a metered, slow internet connection. My audio software and the authentication it requires took me four days to build my boot drive after the first time my 2019 Mac Pro hosed it, and I swore I'd never do it again. Upgrading to Big Sur has required that I either I live with Big Sur's many problems, or go through the insane gymnastics of reinstalling Catalina (itself a lousy OS) and rebuilding everything from scratch. Again. I've had over a dozen Macs since 1985, including four Mac Pros. This is not what I had in mind when I bought the last one in January 2021. It gave me so many problems out of the gate I nearly returned it, and in retrospect, I should have.
  2. I upgraded to Big Sur and Logic 7 a week ago, and am now resigned to having to rebuild my boot drive after reinstalling Catalina from scratch. Catalina was no prize, but Big Sur is a dumpster fire.
  3. My experience with audiologists has been uneven, and generally not very favorable. They find what they expect to find, based on age and noise exposure history, and seem primarily interested in selling their exclusive brand of hearing aids. They were interested in doing that fifteen years ago when my hearing deficit was less than it is now, and even now it doesn't warrant hearing aids, IMO. While I agree that seeing an ENT is prudent to rule out an unusual organic cause, I'd urge you to be deliberate and cautious about buying anything from anybody until you're fully informed about your condition and alternative treatments to address it. For what you get the cost of some hearing aids is beyond obscene. You can acquire reliable devices with 90% of the best aids' capabilities for 25% of their cost. They may not be personalized to the same degree as the best, but reputable products are designed to accommodate the frequency profiles typical of most hearing loss, and will therefore be beneficial to most people. Of course, there are scammers and true-believers in all professions, but assistive hearing devices are prime real estate for the former. Caveat emptor, in all caps. I've tried a variety of things to lessen my tinnitus. Stress and muscle tension are definitely major factors in my case, and any strategy that reduces them will help. The only supplement that has ever made a difference has been lipoflavonoids. I'd estimate that it reduces my tinnitus by 40-50%. Among my peers, I'd say about half who've tried them realize a similar magnitude of benefit; the other half do not. If I knew why, I'd be a richer man. My tinnitus is much like David N's, not pronounced and at a high enough frequency that it doesn't present a great problem in audio processing. It's always there, and if I attend to it, I'll notice it; otherwise, it's lost in whatever else my ears pick up, and I don't. Our brains are very plastic, and will accommodate sensory anomalies to an impressive degree, in many cases without our even being aware of it.
  4. Altering MIDI is not an instrument function. You alter MIDI data within Logic's piano roll. Depending on the instrument you use, you might be able to alter its attack, resonance, decay, release, or some instrument-specific parameters, but none of that affects the MIDI data that triggers that instrument, at all. The screen picture you posted shows the articulations available (e.g., legato, sustain, pizzicato...) for the chosen instrument (large string ensemble in your picture). Each articulation exists as a set of samples, which are triggered when a MIDI note is played with that articulation active. In the piano roll you can edit note velocity, note on/note off, note duration, expression, modulation, sustain, pitch bend, aftertouch, MIDI channel, MIDI volume, MIDI pan. You can also assign program changes and controls. None of that is done via instruments. It's all piano roll. Changes you make in the MIDI data via the piano roll will affect whatever instrument you assign to that track. The instrument you assign to a track, however, will have no impact whatsoever on the MIDI data in that track's piano roll.
  5. Are you using the term "session" to mean a Logic project? What is "doesn't link up" supposed to mean? If you've assigned an EW instrument to a track using Play, the only way that same instrument wouldn't be assigned to that same track the next time you opened the project is if you didn't save the project before you closed it. That's not unique to EW; it's true of any instrument, by any manufacturer, including Logic's own instruments. If you've saved a project after assigning instruments, and you don't see those same instruments the next time you open that project, your file system is seriously faulty. If the EW instrument is still assigned, you can edit its settings just by opening Play using the same button you used to assign the instrument in the first place. It's in the same place it was when you assigned the instrument; it's also above all of the effects on the channel strip in the Mixer. Move the screen cursor over the "Play" button in either place, and it'll change its appearance. Click on the middle of the "Play" button, and Play will open, permitting you to change whatever settings are editable. This is basic Logic interface stuff.
  6. As Ashermusic said, MIDI is MIDI. A piano roll is connected to each individual track. You supply the MIDI data to a track, the track's piano roll displays it. Until you assign a virtual instrument to the track, the notes produce no sound. The same MIDI notes will be used to trigger whatever virtual instrument you assign to that track, regardless of the company that produced that instrument. Logic's piano roll will display, collectively, the MIDI notes of whatever tracks are currently selected, but each track plays only the MIDI notes that exist on its own piano roll, and trigger only the samples associated with the instrument assigned to that track. It's a very straightforward process and signal path. Having just completed a project involving numerous orchestra tracks, I necessarily became reacquainted with some products I haven't used in a long while. I found them all wanting for my immediate purposes, which was the liquid smoothness Diana Krall's orchestra reliably exhibits in her recordings. As was the case ten years back Logic's string instruments were still the least impressive, and East West's Symphonic Orchestra strings still came closest. Regardless of what product I used, however, even at the very lowest note velocities I still heard way too much high-frequency noise during the string section's peaks and swells. All the samples I tried, regardless of product, had a significant bow-noise component. After removing it what remained sounded too much like a failing oscillator, so the bow-noise had to remain for the samples to sound authentic. East West also offered the greatest selection of articulations, and the highest degree of control over player-level characteristics (e.g., level of vibrato). Ultimately I had to shave a lot of the high-end off all the strings for the resulting sound to be anywhere near as smooth as Krall's orchestra. It made me curious about the process by which that orchestra was recorded; evidently somebody, somewhere along the way, had to remove a whole lotta high-end. I do not have the Hollywood Strings product, so can't speak knowledgeably about it, and defer to Ashermusic regarding it. Being able to modify samples' reverb tails would be a useful capability.
  7. Difficulties arising from mismatched software capabilities on two separate systems are only going to be handled by matching or avoiding them. I saw no screenshots in your message, at all. Evidently your not having the same third-party software as your collaborator doesn't stop you working together, so I presume the missing software is not critical to whatever you are doing on your end. The obvious solution is to limit your collaboration to project files employing third-party software you both own. Short of that, I don't see another way around these issues. The software hooks and pointers that exist in a project on your partner's system aren't preserved after that project is modified on your system, so, as you've seen, they have to be recreated when it's reopened on his end. You can probably transfer MIDI files or stems without much difficulty, but not project files.
  8. If you stick with an earlier macOS and version of Logic, you have to live within those limits. Later versions of plugin software sometimes will not function with earlier versions of Logic. You won't only be stuck with a less-capable version of Logic, you'll also have to function with earlier third-party software. If those restrictions really don't matter, the information given earlier in this thread is solid. The machine characteristics mentioned would be sufficient for you within your small budget. If those restrictions do matter, or if they're likely to matter later on, you'd be well-advised to reconsider staying with Logic. Later versions require more powerful machines and OSes, and they're consistently more expensive than their PC counterparts. It's unlikely you'd be able to acquire a suitable machine within your budget. The risks with a Hackintosh amplify all of these issues. You'd be on your own, both for the PC and the Mac software, as neither will be supported by their manufacturers for your purpose. The few people I've known with Hackintoshes didn't stick with it beyond an OS or program update; it was just too demanding and time-consuming. As Apple or another software vendor changed things they were constantly pulling their hair out over some incompatibility or slippery problem.
  9. I am perfectly calm, pal. You want me to work-around a problem in Logic. I want Apple to fix it so that it works as it's supposed to, and used to. That's it.
  10. "Go from left to right through the entire Region, only adding tempo events where they are needed. You can and should do this in real time, with a click for reference" There are a few things to bear in mind here. One, beat-mapping worked without playback timing divergence in Logic version 9. I used it regularly. Therefore, beat-mapping with subsequent accurate playback is possible. Logic Pro X version 10.6.3 simply doesn't provide it despite claiming that it does. Two, the process you describe is precisely what I've had to do, manually, to impose more faithful timing on a song in lieu of Logic 10's flawed automatic process. Having to do it when I did not used to have to do it is irritating. That's the point: if the process LPX provides to accomplish this goal worked, no one would have to take additional actions to achieve that goal. I presume LPX's transient analysis discloses as many points as necessary to reflect the timing variations in a song. If that wasn't the case, what would be the point in having the capability? That LPX does not make accurate playback possible using its self-generated definition points IS the issue. Three, you state that tempo points should be added in real-time. I don't see that there's a practical alternative. However, the recommendation to use a click-track is nonsensical. My opening statement in the original post referred to the song's highly emotive nature, which entails many timing variations. That precludes the productive use of a click-track. For a click-track to be useful the song couldn't display timing variations in sufficient number or magnitude to be a problem. People have been making music for thousands of years, most of that time without digital assistance. Computers are machines, people are not. Computer-produced music is sterile and lifeless, reflecting its origins. It approximates human music much as anime approximates human life. Variations and imperfections are what defines music that humans enjoy and want to hear. Logic is a tool, which is supposed to make producing human music easier. Most of the time it's fabulously useful in doing that. Sometimes, as in this case, it falls on its face. When a deficiency in Logic is disclosed it needs to be corrected. Users should not have to tailor their approach to music production to accommodate the shortcomings of the tools they use. That's especially true when the exact capability at issue used to be available in earlier versions of that tool. In short, Apple needs to address this timing playback deficiency in LPX; users ought not have to do anything beyond using its capabilities as advertised.
  11. Never heard of Groove Track before. Looked at the online and Help resources, and am not confident it'll work given the length of the region involved. Nonetheless I'll definitely give it a try. The alternative is tons of hand-tweaking, so I hope using a Groove Track avoids beat-mapping's playback problems.
  12. I don't determine the number of tempo points, the song does. When I initially had LPX analyze the song's transients and do the beat-mapping, it produced more tempo points than in my manual beat-track. If LPX cannot produce cohesive playback timing using the tempo points it generates, it's unlikely the problem originates in the number of tempo points. Back in 2016 Eric Cardenas identified this same bug. It just hasn't been squashed in subsequent versions of LPX.
  13. Never heard the term "tempo ramp" before, and couldn't find anything using it as a search term, either on the web or in Logic's Help. Therefore, I can't answer your question. I can provide a look at the tempo information in my beat-mapped project, though. I've attached a screenshot of a representative piece of the tempo data. I didn't try to upload my project in the original post, just a couple of pictures and audio files. If you couldn't see those images, you probably won't be able to see this image, either...
  14. A bad timing problem cropped up in LPX a few years back, and I thought it was solved. Here it is again, as bad as ever, in version 10.6.3 running under Catalina 10.15.7. If someone has a way to avoid this happening I would greatly appreciate them sharing it. I'm recreating Diana Krall's "I've Got You Under My Skin." It's an emotive performance filled with subtle meter variations. Its first 25-seconds is pure feeling between the performers in the band and an accompanying orchestra; I'm confident there was a conductor leading everyone, and there's just no way to put a meter to it. The song shapes up after the intro, but still exhibits timing variances. When I let LPX beat-mapping loose on the original song's file it doesn't do a very good job sticking with the band's tempo. This is true whether the ad lib beginning is included or not. This necessitates my creating a manual beat-track with a percussive pad, at least for the song after the 25-second introduction. I can do a passable manual job on the song after the intro. When I playback the original song and the manually created beat-track, they stay in time throughout the song's playback. That's fine, but I can't use the manual beat-track to quantize any virtual instruments I add later; I have to have a beat-map. When I use exactly the same manually created beat-track to beat-map the song, upon playback the song-track and the metronome/beat-track slowly but steadily diverge. By the end of the six-minute song the metronome & manual beat track are very obviously different from the song track's tempo. This makes additional full-length tracking impossible since the metronome is not coincident with the song's tempo. The same thing happens whether or not I've locked the regions' SMPTE positions. It gets worse. If you stop playback, either by actually stopping it or just instantaneously relocating the playhead with the cursor during playback, the metronome and the song's playback are instantly in-time. It doesn't matter where you restart playback, the song will be in time with the metronome. Just as before, however, it still won't stay in time. As playback proceeds the metronome and the song's meter will slowly diverge. That is a nasty bug. I've ZIPped some explanatory files: Two LPX screenshots that show the manual beat-track before and after it's beat-mapped, and two MP3 files, one of the song and manual beat-track playing in-time all the way through, and another of the post-beat-mapping's gradual divergence between the beat-mapped clicks and the song's audio. There are four or five restarts after 5:44 in the second audio file to demonstrate that restarting playback instantly restores in-time playback. About 45-seconds into the divergent audio I reduce the song-track's amplitude and pan the manual beat-track hard right so that it and the metronome are easier to hear. If anybody's got a work-around that doesn't involve Olympic-level gymnastics I'd be most appreciative of hearing it. Skin.zip
  15. They don't import, at all. You select an East-West instrument - or any other third-party product - on a virtual instrument/MIDI track, Logic loads that instrument's samples, and you trigger those samples with MIDI data. That is how ALL virtual instruments are used, AFAIK, regardless of who makes them. The only difference between East-West and Logic's own instruments is that East-West (and any other third-party product) appears as an AU Instrument in the "AU Instruments" pop-up menu rather than being listed first among Logic's own instruments. That same pop-up menu is where you'll find all properly installed third-party software & instruments. Look at the names above and below East-West in my earlier post; they're all either instruments (e.g. Arturia) or links to third-party software (e.g. Native Instruments > Kontakt) used to trigger instruments.
×
×
  • Create New...