Crescendo not working properly again

[GeneralDisarray]

This is one of those things I refer to when I say that Logic is not dependable all the time, and if I'm wrong please call me on it.

A few months ago I had started another thread about this, but I'd rather keep things simple. In that thread, David pointed me in the right direction while trying to explain something else, which was that apply a crescendo with the MIDI transform editor, you didn't just select the notes like you do with other functions there; instead, you had to make sure these two options were selected per project:

Then select the notes you want, set the velocities and click on Select and Operate.

That worked... for a while. 

In this simple project, where I'm trying to learn a bit of Tubular Bells, I wanted to do a crescendo. So I do the same thing as before, but when I select the note range, it shows a range that has nothing to do with reality:

And I make sure those two parameters are selected, and I even restart Logic twice, but same thing.

So I have to move the playhead to the beginning of the range I want, double click on the current position inside the display at the top, click and paste that into the first range element thingie whatever is called, then move the playhead to the end of the range I want, double click on the current position, and paste that in the second rectangle thingie, so I can finally do what I want:

And I tried this on the second range I wanted, and still, it selects a range with an offset of like 15 bars or so:

See, these are the kind of things that get on my nerves, because I don't have a lot of time to learn this and I'm not exactly young, so I just need things to work as expected, even if the design itself is not great (I don't understand why for many functions you can simply select the notes in the piano roll, select the preset you want to apply, and that's it), but at least if you know what to expect every time, it doesn't get in the way of your creativity or learning.

And sometimes I used the mouse to draw that line in the velocity area, which sometimes worked pretty nicely, but here it just makes a mess:

So, make me sound like an idiot, I don't care. If this is something I messed up accidentally, call me on it. But this is just a simple project with three audio tracks and two MIDI tracks.

So if there's some kind of ridiculous setting called "Offset note selection by 15 bars", well, that's a design failure. And if it's a bug, it's another one in the list.

It seems that every day I try to do something, in the little time I have, I come across something absurd like this that I have to troubleshoot. And I don't want to spend more time troubleshooting, I want to spend it learning and hopefully soon, composing something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[polanoid]

1 hour ago, GeneralDisarray said:

when I select the note range, it shows a range that has nothing to do with reality

Can you, instead of a screenshot, post a video how you got there? Here's how I can achieve such a state:

What did I do? Shift-select notes in multiple selected regions shown in the Piano Roll. Did you do anything like that? Did you do anything else special that we don't know about yet? A video might help to shed some light on this.

1 hour ago, GeneralDisarray said:

but here it just makes a mess:

Again a video would help to make this more clear. We don't even know what the state was before you applied the velocity line.

[GeneralDisarray]

1 hour ago, polanoid said:

Again a video would help to make this more clear. We don't even know what the state was before you applied the velocity line.

I understand, but that would take even more time, between recording the video, finding a place to upload it to. It seems to me that I keep wasting time over and over in troubleshooting things that should be so easy. 

I mean, there's nothing complicated here, unless at one point I pressed a key on the Mac keyboard that toggled something, because Logic has tons of standard keys without modifiers turning things on and off.

But the way I selected those notes is the exact same way I did it before and usually do, by drawing a marquee around them with my mouse. This is after I opened the MIDI transform with Cmd+9, and selected Crescendo.

[GeneralDisarray]

I found out what was wrong, and it's another time that this program just drives up the wall because it does weird crap as if it had a mind of its own, kinda like this Mac Studio when tossing a coin to assign the display roles. 

It turns out it had recorded, without me ever pressing record, or seeing it record, which is something you don't miss, this whole section of me just messing around with the piano keys:

This is something I noticed only because I saw there was a note close to bar 1, where I didn't have a region.

Then, I moved the region to the right several bars, extended it from the left edge, and I see all the stuff you see above. And that's all stuff that I never recorded, because I may not have years of experience with Logic, but at this point I know very well how to record, and what shows on the display when it's recording.

So this came out of nowhere. So of course, I was selecting a note range that I assumed was at the beginning of the region, when Logic had decided to create all this stuff before that I never told it to.

 

 

 

[JakobP]

Sounds like you hit the keycommand for "Capture as Recording" (shift+r)

[GeneralDisarray]

On 3/5/2023 at 6:55 PM, JakobP said:

Sounds like you hit the keycommand for "Capture as Recording" (shift+r)

Let's suppose that was the case. Then I guess Logic decided to print those notes to the piano roll at a position that didn't exist? Because I'm sure that I didn't create a long region, extended it, then dragged it to the left far past the beginning... except that I just tested this and Logic doesn't let you drag a region to the left past the beginning of the song.

I don't know, but like I said, it seems to me that Logic many times has a mind of its own.

[polanoid]

19 minutes ago, GeneralDisarray said:

Let's suppose that was the case. Then I guess Logic decided to print those notes to the piano roll at a position that didn't exist? Because I'm sure that I didn't create a long region, extended it, then dragged it to the left far past the beginning... except that I just tested this and Logic doesn't let you drag a region to the left past the beginning of the song.

I don't know, but like I said, it seems to me that Logic many times has a mind of its own.

Yes, that definitely sounds like you (obviously inadvertently) did a "Capture as Recording" then. The underlying rule here is: If you input MIDI notes in stop modes (i.e. playback is not running) and then use the "Capture as Recording" command, Logic will create a region containing what you have played before, but, 

1) If there was a pause of at least one and a half bars, Logic will move everything before that pause to the area left of the region (thereby making it accessible if desired, but hidden per default)

2) If there was a pause of at least 20 seconds, Logic will discard everything before these 20 seconds because it's considered as not belonging to the take

Yes, you might call that "a mind of its own". But at least it's a defined set of rules. And now you know them. Feel free to try them out.

Edited March 8 by polanoid

[polanoid]

BTW if you don't like the Capture Recording in Stop Mode feature, you can switch it off by long-clicking on the Capture Button and uncheck "Capture in Stop Mode". That is going to be saved in Logic's App Settings, so the feature will never bother you again until you re-enable it or delete your prefs file

Edited March 8 by polanoid

[GeneralDisarray]

1 hour ago, polanoid said:

1) If there was a pause of at least one and a half bars, Logic will move everything before that pause to the area left of the region (thereby making it accessible if desired, but hidden per default)

2) If there was a pause of at least 20 seconds, Logic will discard everything before these 20 seconds because it's considered as not belonging to the take

OK, so I did a couple of tests based on these assumptions. I played three notes in lower keys to make sure I could distinguish them from the rest, which I played around C4 to C5. You mentioned a pause of at least one an a half bars, which at that point was about 4 seconds per bar.

So I played those lower keys, started the stopwatch, and after 12 seconds I played the higher keys. Then I pressed Shift+R. I was left with this:

I see that region, but I also see that green line all the way at the beginning. So I click the region and drag it to the right several bars:

I expand the region all the way to the beginning, and there I see the lower notes:

So good, it was expected behavior, but I think I'm confused as to why would it be designed to do something so confusing. And there may be a very good reason, but to me it seems that it would confuse the hell out of anyone and I don't see any advantage to this. Is there any?

[polanoid]

23 hours ago, GeneralDisarray said:

don't see any advantage to this. Is there any?

Just imagine what you would end up with if you choose to capture a recording in stop mode if you have been noodling on your keyboard for hours, interrupted by coffee pauses every once in a while, just to capture a four bar phrase that you just came up with. Logic tries to decide what it can probably safely discard, what you may still need and what you probably want to see immediately. Would surely be nicer if it offered some dialog stating the actual amount of time stored in its internal buffers, and giving you the option to enter hoe much of that you really want to capture…