absofacto

Just a thought I had, have you repaired your disk permissions recently? Perhaps a permission is set wrong and Logic can't delete the file out of the Trash. I'm going to guess this won't actually correct it, but it's worth a shot if you haven't done it in a while.

I can't verify this right now because I'm not on my Logic system, but my best guess is that because when Logic bounces a song, it does so at a much higher bit depth (and actually creates a file at this much higher bit depth). Then it performs a conversion to the bit depth you actually asked for. So at one point this much larger file exists, and after it is converted it is ending up in your Trash bin. On my machine, I've sometimes noticed that if I watch the destination folder when Logic is bouncing, I will see it create the large file, then the smaller one, then the larger one will disappear. I just haven't confirmed that it ends up in the Trash, but that would make sense.

Ha ha, well, I'm glad it's helping. I never end up using any of the Renaissance plugs anymore other than Rvox, and that usually doesn't make it to final mixes. It's a great "convenience" vocal compressor, in that you can throw it on, set your threshold literally almost wherever you like and it never sounds bad. Might not be magical or anything, but it just balances it out and you can get on with your production. The URS Channel Strip Pro is something I use all the time, and is certainly worth demoing to see if you like its workflow. It's designed to be a one-stop shop for compressors, high and low pass filters, and EQs. It also has some fairly subtle coloration options, most of which are pretty difficult to detect but are there if you want them. Generally I will use the Logic EQ for surgical cuts with high Q to get out any annoying resonances, and the CSP for more broadly fitting the track into the mix. It's a fairly unique plugin, and there's more to say about it than I can get into here, but there is a demo available. I certainly would not recommend that you NEED to buy it though (or any other plugin). If you demo all the stuff you think you might need, you will probably decide there are a few that you can't live without, and if you ask 10 different engineers what their must-haves are, they'll give you 10 different answers and they'll all be right for them, and they could all be wrong for you. On the mastering side: Whenever possible, if I mixed something I prefer to have an ME that I trust do the mastering. A large part of the point of it is to have someone else's fresh ears and different room/speakers sanity checking you. My current favorite mastering plug-in is John Scrip over at Massive Mastering: http://www.massivemastering.com That said, I do end up mastering my own stuff from time to time, and sometimes for other people as well. Without getting into too much back and forth over style of music, just how loud you want your masters to actually be, your stance on the loudness wars, etc... here are some ideas of things you can try. 1. Choose a reference track or two in a similar style to what you're working on, and frequently hop back and forth between your mix and the reference track. It's not a perfect system because you are comparing your unmastered mix to their mastered one, so you should lower the playback level of their mix so the perceived volume level is similar. Do this while you're working on the mix, rather than just after you think you might be done, that way your brain will stay flexible and open to drastic changes that might be necessary. 2. Once you're confident you're headed in the right direction on your mix, but well before you are finished, see what happens if you throw on your favorite bus compression/limiting/etc, and try some eq changes to the master bus. See how close you can get it to the reference track. This is a preview of how the eventual mastering processing might affect your track. Things you thought were nice and subtle might end up louder, your vocal might get too harsh, your drums might start distorting... All effects that you should make note of and go back to your mix to correct. 3. As another ear-opening technique to the possibilities of what your track might need, throw the Logic Match EQ on the bus, and for the template track throw your reference track in. Examine what curve it comes up with. This will never probably sound that great, but it will give you some ideas of things you COULD achieve with EQ back on the original tracks. For instance, say you notice the Match EQ is pulling out a ton of 3k. Toggle it on and off a few times while listening, and you might realize that what it's getting rid of is a bunch of nastiness in your guitars that you didn't notice. So go back to the guitar tracks and pull it out there (to taste), instead of doing anything with the cut on the master bus. That way you aren't pulling 3k out of other things that might need it. Each time you make a change to the individual tracks, you need to reanalyze your mix with the Match EQ though. Don't go off the deep end with this, since you aren't trying to absolutely recreate the reference tracks or anything... but you will undoubtedly catch a few things you missed before. 4. Once you are getting really close, you could start trying to (and I'm making up a term here) mix your master. That is, get some mastering processing on that you like, get it up to the full volume level of your reference tracks, and start making changes with the processing on. Is your mix too dull? Brighten it up. Is the bass getting lost? Turn it up. Are any of these things causing new problems? Fix em Do bus compression tweaks, try EQ tweaks to the whole mix, try anything to make it sound the way you want. Conventional wisdom is always going to say you should take your stuff to an ME, and that's absolutely right IMO. But if you have to do it yourself, or just want to, there are a few ideas for you. And even if you ARE going to take it to an ME (and you should), I think it's a great idea to do your own faux-master to listen to before you send it off to get some concept of what is going to happen to your mix. I imagine most MEs would happily receive the unprocessed mix and your faux-master, along with notes about things you like and don't like about each. Oh my god, TLDR!

You're very welcome! At the end of the day if you work hard to develop great listening skills, and learn your particular monitoring setup and environment by studying how great mixes sound in your room, you don't need any particular set of plug-ins to achieve great sound. The plug-ins that come with Logic are extremely high quality. Many of Waves plug-ins are great, but there are many other companies that equal or surpass them in quality, and sometimes at a lower price. You should be able to achieve mixes you're happy with right now with what you've got: Channel EQ - I have Waves Renaissance EQs and URS Channel Strip Pro, and still reach for this all the time Logic Compressor - (extremely versatile, except as a dirty compressor) Overdrive/Clip Distortion/Bitcrusher/Tape Delay (if you set it to 0ms and adjust the distortion level you can use it as tape saturation) - (between all these you can do many flavors of subtle saturation or beyond) Space Designer - (one of the best reverbs around) And for mastering, Linear EQ, Multipressor, and Adaptive Limiter. I think Amp Designer isn't up to snuff compared to Amplitube or Vintage Amp Room, if you need a guitar sim. Before you buy anything, you should also explore the Softube line of plugins, particularly their compressors. I've never seen anybody say a bad thing about anything that company makes. Let me stress again though that you can do amazing work right now with what you have! Do some mixes and masters and demo a lot of plugins and see where you think the weak parts of the Logic chain are. Make sure you've got as much RAM as possible too, makes a huge difference as you start loading up all these native plugins. Sorry if that was just a lot of rambling, I'm just speaking as someone who has spent a lot of money on plugins over the years and probably half of it I later realized was unnecessary, and I end up reaching for the Logic plugins anyway.

For native, you wouldn't need to buy any specific audio hardware outside of your Intel-based Mac. They just utilize your Mac's CPU. However, for either native or TDM you will need to buy an iLok if you don't already have one. That is how Waves handles their copy protection. If you wanted to go TDM, it would require buying some of Avid's DSP hardware that can host them. This would free up CPU cycles for other things. I believe Logic can utilize TDM versions, but I have no experience doing that so I could be wrong. My advice would be to stick with native, because overall it will be less expensive and more flexible for you. You won't be beholden to any specific piece of hardware (other than your Mac's CPU and RAM, and an iLok). Before you buy any Waves plugins, you should also learn about the Waves Update Plan. No other company I'm aware of does updates the way Waves does. If you use Waves plugins long enough and move to newer versions of Logic or OS X, odds are good you will eventually need to utilize this and it will cost money. Some people like it, some people hate it, but either way you should know what you're getting yourself into. http://www.wavesupport.net/content.aspx?id=2160

If I remember correctly, it's just an alias (like a shortcut in windows). So you can move it wherever you like and it will still open up. Be brave!

I would guess they're just referring generally to equalization and filtering (high pass, low pass, etc), if it's in the context I'm picturing.

I have the MKI version of this and I enjoy it. It sounds completely different if you swap out the tubes, so that's another thing to consider when judging it's character. It's a little on the bright side in my opinion, but the equalizer section can balance it really nicely. However, if you are going to end up with more than one channel I'd recommend taking a look at the N72 pres from Seventh Circle Audio, either in kit form or pre-built. By default the knobs are configured so there is one gain knob and then an output trim, and there is plenty of headroom. What this means is that I can record most things with the gain completely cranked to max out the Neve-esque color on a track, then just roll back the output level so it doesn't clip my convertor. Obviously there are some trade-offs here but if you want a little almost over-the-top vintage character, it really does the trick on many sources. Their API-inspired A12 is great too, but I always find myself coming back to the N72. http://www.seventhcircleaudio.com/

The service (and associated price info) is available now: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/MacPro/2009_2010_Xeon_Processor/Upgrade $1484.00 to go from a 2010 2.8 GHz quad-core to a 3.33 GHz 6-core right now, but if you can wait a couple years to do so it will presumably be much less. So if you know you want a 6-core it still makes sense to just bite the bullet, but if you are like me and suspect the 2.8 GHz quad-core may turn out to be overkill already, this might be a good option.

You're both very welcome. I just dropped OWC a line trying to get some preliminary info on pricing for the service, since they haven't announced it yet. I was hoping to make my Mac Pro purchase before the 7th so I can get the free iPod (via the educational store). Though since now I'm considering a non-CTO build, it means I could buy it from someone other than Apple and avoid the sales tax... I'll let you know if I hear anything about how much the upgrades will cost.

12-core at 3.33 Ghz! Oh wait, this isn't Gearslutz. http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-MacPro-upgrade.html In any case, this will be relevant to a lot of people looking at a new Mac Pro. I'm starting to think about just buying the lowest end single processor machine instead of the 6-core like I was planning, and upgrading it later if I even need more power. Something to think about! It's worth noting that you can even upgrade 2009 single processor models to 2010 dual processor models.

I would try a real-time bounce as well, if bouncing to wav/aif doesn't do it. You will be able to hear the song as it plays/bounces, and the final bounce should be exactly like what you're hearing. I've never had a problem with the built-in Logic plugs, though.

Hey Ron, are you doing an offline or real-time bounce? Also, what plug-ins are you using on the vocal track? I've had a few plug-ins not play nice with offline bounce from time to time.

I don't think I've had it completely crash Logic, but it is problematic enough for me that I completely gave up trying to crossfade those time-stretched bastards. It's almost a sure thing that instead of fading, it will just make a hideous "pop" right when it hits the beginning of the crossfade. It's not ideal, but here's my current workflow: 1. Chop phrases into individual regions and nudge them into the ballpark if necessary. 2. Turn on Flex Time and do any stretching necessary on each region 3. Bounce each individual region in place (I have this set to a key command so it doesn't take that long) 4. Select all the new regions and create fades at all region borders using the Inspector. 5. Adjust any fades necessary. 6. If you want, merge all the regions. I usually do. I'm really hoping the next Logic update will address this.

I also noticed that sometimes when I draw a note in it will immediately happen. So immediate that I can't even hold the mouse button down and adjust the velocity of the note. It creates the note at whatever velocity I clicked, then instantly deselects the note while I'm still holding down the button, and I can't do anything to it. I checked, and Fix Value is not on for this note, or lane, so it's not that. Mysterious!