Alternatives to Alternatives?

[JT3_Jon]

I’m working on a song using mainly midi instruments and want to listen to two different arrangements of a section. I thought Logic X’s Alternatives would be the answer, but it seems Alternatives is just a fancy word for two different projects, and it has to reload all my Virtual instruments for each version, which makes it impossible to A-B quickly. I know I can bounce down the one as audio, and A/B them that way, but then I can no longer edit the midi of version that I bounced down as audio.

 

To make things more challenging, the two different versions of the two songs have two different time signatures and two different tempos, along with different parts on multiple instruments. Is my best bet making two different folder objects, two different signature and tempo sets, and do it that way? Or is there an Alternative to Alternatives?

[JT3_Jon]

Ended up using a combination of folders which I solo'd and muted, and alternative signature & tempo tracks and it worked ok. Of course you run the risk of forgetting to change the tempo track on occasion, but no big deal. I didn't do any extensive automation for each version, so I'm unsure how well that would work in more complicated alternative versions of things. Guess we will find out in the future.

 

I do wish "Alternatives" worked more like DP's chunks feature where you really can have completely different alternatives in a single session and they load instantaneously since they are all referencing instruments that stay loaded when you switch. I could see Logic doing something similar with its environment architecture, as this is kind of what the folders are already doing, but on an entire project scale would make this much easier to manage. Doubt its high on a feature list unfortunately. Too bad.

[Ashermusic]

Indeed one of my longest standing feature requests.