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The Customising Logic Pro X GUI Colours Thread

beej

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beej Newbie

beej

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It seems that many of Logic's colours are controlled by a plist file in it's resources:

 

/Applications/Logic Pro X.app/Contents/Frameworks/MAResources.framework/Versions/A/Resources/MAResourcesMapping.plist

 

This file can be edited in a plain text editor (BBEdit, Text Edit, TextMate etc) or a property list editor such as Apple's Xcode (Property List Editor).

 

Some of the things possible include:

- Changing the mixer channel strip meters

- Changing the channel strip gain reduction meter

- Changing the arrange or editor backgrounds and division lines

- Changing the selection of available colours for tracks and regions

- Changing the colours of many gui elements

 

It is possible to share your GUI customisations by just sharing your edited version of this file with others. Replacing this file on your system with a customised one is all that is needed to apply GUI customisations (at least, customisations that involve no changed images).

 

It should also be possible to edit existing images (eg fader graphics) or possibly add new images to avoid overwriting system images (untested at this time) to apply your own customisations as well.

 

Note: Back up this file first before making changes!

 

Specifically, the "Colors" section describes many colours, and is subdivided by type (Eg "Piano Roll"). Here's an example:

 

Let's look at one option:

 

<key>BackgroundDivision_C</key>
<string>GrayColor:{58,100}</string>

 

Values are between 0 and 255. This is a GrayColor, but there are other options like:

 

<string>sRGBColor:{53,108,200,20}</string>

 

I expect that's RGB+alpha values (alpha = transparency)

 

So, taking this one property, which is default and looks like the screenshot below:

 

<key>BackgroundDivision_C</key>
<string>GrayColor:{58,100}</string>

 

lpx_col1.jpg

 

Let's change it to:

 

<key>BackgroundDivision_C</key>
<string>GrayColor:{255,255}</string>

 

We get this:

lpx_col2.jpg

 

Let's use this thread to look at the effect of various colouring options, look at meaning of the parameters and values, and share some nice common customisations, like lightening the piano roll editor, and returning some of LP9's nicer look elements here.

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beej Newbie

beej

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To change the meters in the mixer, there are color properties for these in the Mixer dropdown:

 

For example:

			<key>ChannelStrip_LevelIndicatorExponential</key>
			<key>ChannelStrip_LevelIndicatorExponentialOutput</key>
			<key>ChannelStrip_LevelIndicatorLinear</key>
			<key>ChannelStrip_LevelIndicatorLinearOutput</key>

 

These are an NSGradient object type, where you define the colour values of four colours, and Logic will automatically display the gradient from these. So changing these values will let you easily colour the mixer meters, without having to custom make images like we did in old versions on Logic.

 

See below for an example of this.

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beej Newbie

beej

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Yes, these can be changed. The "Regions" section contains 24 items (the same number of columns in the colour picker.)

 

Changing the "Base Hue" for one resulted in differences in the colour picker.

 

lpx_col3.jpg

 

After editing the Base Hue for each of the 24 (in this example, numbered from 1 to 42):

 

lpx_col4.jpg

 

So yes, the available track/region colours can be changed.

Edited by beej
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Jordi Torres Community Regular

Jordi Torres

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I found this DigitalColor Meter utility in my Utilities folder (don't know if it's there for everyone) which can come in handy for setting sRGB colors:

 

1332314851_DigitalColorMeter.png.d6cab398b6258a1a8454a5081e77403e.png

 

You just place the pointer over the color whose values you want to get, and use does to fill in the first three values as they appear in your plist editor. The fourth value seems to be the alpha value like beej says.

 

J.

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beej Newbie

beej

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Customising Meters

 

Let's look at Logic's meters. There are a variety of meters in Logic - the channel strip ones, the performance meters, the meters in the global toolbar and the ones in the track header, the channel strip gain reduction meters and so on. It looks like all can be changed, and here's how it works.

 

Looking at one meter type:

 

			<key>ChannelStrip_LevelIndicatorLinear</key>
			<dict>
				<key>#type</key>
				<string>NSGradient</string>
				<key>gradient</key>
				<array>
					<dict>
						<key>color</key>
						<string>sRGBColor:{77,153,69,100}</string> ** GREEN **
						<key>location</key>
						<integer>0</integer>
					</dict>
					<dict>
						<key>color</key>
						<string>sRGBColor:{77,153,69,100}</string> ** GREEN **
						<key>location</key>
						<real>0.67</real>
					</dict>
					<dict>
						<key>color</key>
						<string>sRGBColor:{252,221,26,100}</string> ** YELLOW **
						<key>location</key>
						<real>0.82</real>
					</dict>
					<dict>
						<key>color</key>
						<string>sRGBColor:{252,221,26,100}</string> ** YELLOW **
						<key>location</key>
						<real>0.92</real>
					</dict>
					<dict>
						<key>color</key>
						<string>sRGBColor:{255,130,25,100}</string> ** ORANGE **
						<key>location</key>
						<real>0.92</real>
					</dict>
				</array>
			</dict>

 

You can see from looking at this that the meter will be displayed as follows - from position 0 to 0.67 (about two-thirds up), display the levels in GREEN (I've added the name of the colour so you can easily see what does what). From 0.67 to 0.82, display a gradient between GREEN and YELLOW. From 0.82 to 0.92, display levels in YELLOW. From 0.92 onwards, display in ORANGE.

 

So the location is a position of the fader from 0 (bottom) to 1 (top) and you can have whatever combination of colours and gradients you wish. The output meter, for instance, has it's clip position in RED rather than orange.

 

This looks like this:

 

lpx_meter1.jpg

 

So lets apply a quick customisation.

 

			<key>ChannelStrip_LevelIndicatorLinear</key>
			<dict>
				<key>#type</key>
				<string>NSGradient</string>
				<key>gradient</key>
				<array>
					<dict>
						<key>color</key>
						<string>sRGBColor:{59,173,216,100}</string> ** BLUE **
						<key>location</key>
						<integer>0</integer>
					</dict>
					<dict>
						<key>color</key>
						<string>sRGBColor:{59,173,216,100}</string> ** BLUE **
						<key>location</key>
						<real>0.67</real>
					</dict>
					<dict>
						<key>color</key>
						<string>sRGBColor:{255,255,255,100}</string> ** WHITE **
						<key>location</key>
						<real>0.82</real>
					</dict>
					<dict>
						<key>color</key>
						<string>sRGBColor:{255,255,255,100}</string> ** WHITE **
						<key>location</key>
						<real>0.92</real>
					</dict>
					<dict>
						<key>color</key>
						<string>sRGBColor:{255,130,25,100}</string> ** ORANGE **
						<key>location</key>
						<real>0.92</real>
					</dict>
				</array>
			</dict>

 

So, I've made the green a blue, and a gradient up to white, leaving the orange peaks alone.

 

This gives us:

 

lpx_meter2.jpg

 

Again, I've only customised the one linear element here, for a complete customisation I'd want to also copy those colour values to the exponential meters, and also the output meters. I might also want to match the other meters to this style - but you get the general idea.

 

LPX gives us a simple, and really flexible implementation to be able to customise the metering. And if you want your "red" metering to start from, say, -6dBFS to emphasize headroom, you now know how... :)

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Sevenfold Newbie

Sevenfold

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If it hasn't already been discovered, fonts can be tweaked in the same file. I tested with track header "TrackHeader_Name_RG" and it worked, and there appear to be dozens more settings, many under "AttributedStringStyles". You can also narrow down the list with a search for "NSFont:{" and if provided change the size value (11 in this example):

 

 NSFont:{Helvetica Neue UI Medium, 11}

 

clip.jpg.1fd78c5259b987f6e4e741e9feeb4d89.jpg

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beej Newbie

beej

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If it hasn't already been discovered, fonts can be tweaked in the same file.

 

Yes, this was also one of the first things I tried, to see what options I could do reduce the size of the text in the plugin header (which is really ugly imo).

 

While the font sizes can be reduced, it doesn't look very good because the fonts don't sit vertically centered, so they start to be too high as the size is reduced. I'm not sure offhand whether positions can be tweaked yet...

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beej Newbie

beej

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If you've opened the file in a plist editor, take a look at the "Inline documentation" dictionary for a few hints as to what each element actually does.

 

I don't think this really means much, and seems more a hint/reminder to developers. I don't think much can be done with that, tbh...

 

Note: It looks like the master volume meter and track header meters are implemented in the "old" pre-LPX way, as there are TIFFS for these in the resources directory - so any colour customisations for metering will either have to ignore them, or you'l need to photoshop them to match your custom config in addition to what you've already done.

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beej Newbie

beej

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This is absolutely great. Resolves visual issues users like me have. Q. Does the plist file exist for logic 9? Mid project, hesitating on ten 'just for now'. Dave

 

No, this is part of the new GUI implementation for LPX. The GUI for Logic 9 is implemented differently.

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furrytoes Newbie

furrytoes

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Hopefully a 3rd party app will be created to help LogicProX users change the GUI colours.

I'm looking at doing this now, actually.

Someone will probably beat me to it and, actually, I'm starting with just track icons.

The only danger is that by using internals like this, any update of LogicProX could render such an app completely broken and doing damage. Obviously there'll be a massive disclaimer about backing up LogicProX.

 

Still my plan is to separately manage the icons (eg PNG) you want, so your custom icons are managed & stored by the app, so that when a ProX update comes, the icons can be applied back in bulk each time.

 

In time, any such app could probably be smart enough to know whether it's going to do damage and perhaps can be updated using some kind of config instead of releasing a new version of software each time LogicProX updates.

 

I doubt I'll be able to get it on the MacApp store because of sandbox restrictions (I'm not certain but somehow modifying the internals of another app probably looks, to a Mac, like something only bad people do ;-))

Edited by furrytoes
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JGS Newbie

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I used a custom GUI for Logic 9 that gave the meters step numbers and other small plug in colour changes. I forget the name of the creator of the GUI. After each update, I would have to reinstall the GUI modification. What I'd really like is an app to easily modify the background colours in the Main window, as well as in the Piano Roll. If enough of us complain about this, perhaps Apple will add GUI colour modification in the next update.
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furrytoes Newbie

furrytoes

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I used a custom GUI for Logic 9 that gave the meters step numbers and other small plug in colour changes. I forget the name of the creator of the GUI. After each update, I would have to reinstall the GUI modification. What I'd really like is an app to easily modify the background colours in the Main window, as well as in the Piano Roll. If enough of us complain about this, perhaps Apple will add GUI colour modification in the next update.

Oh right. Whoever wrote that is probably onto the new version already.

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dpickell Newbie

dpickell

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I used a custom GUI for Logic 9 that gave the meters step numbers and other small plug in colour changes. I forget the name of the creator of the GUI. After each update, I would have to reinstall the GUI modification. What I'd really like is an app to easily modify the background colours in the Main window, as well as in the Piano Roll. If enough of us complain about this, perhaps Apple will add GUI colour modification in the next update.

 

Add me to the list. Where do you lodge concerns so that apple developers can address them? Dave

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creationcollective Newbie

creationcollective

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I used a custom GUI for Logic 9 that gave the meters step numbers and other small plug in colour changes. I forget the name of the creator of the GUI. After each update, I would have to reinstall the GUI modification. What I'd really like is an app to easily modify the background colours in the Main window, as well as in the Piano Roll. If enough of us complain about this, perhaps Apple will add GUI colour modification in the next update.

 

Add me to the list. Where do you lodge concerns so that apple developers can address them? Dave

 

 

http://www.apple.com/feedback/logic-pro.html

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JGS Newbie

JGS

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Ooops... the link I included was for this forum.

 

Perhaps Apple / Logic tech support is reading this thread and will respond to user complaints the way they did with Final Cut Pro. I'm a member of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada and there have been lots of complaints about the GUI there too. It's not even a matter of personal preference. This new GUI is truly darker than any other app on my computer, so dark that some of the very features we should be enjoying are difficult to find and or see. Most unusually for Apple, this is a case of style and design getting in the way of function.

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Ploki Newbie

Ploki

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Ooops... the link I included was for this forum.

 

Perhaps Apple / Logic tech support is reading this thread and will respond to user complaints the way they did with Final Cut Pro. I'm a member of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada and there have been lots of complaints about the GUI there too. It's not even a matter of personal preference. This new GUI is truly darker than any other app on my computer, so dark that some of the very features we should be enjoying are difficult to find and or see. Most unusually for Apple, this is a case of style and design getting in the way of function.

 

Thats probably because you dont have FCPX installed.

Adobe can be set even darker.

 

I can understand but please dont be so egoistic and promote choice.

I absolutely love the new interface and i know im not the only one.

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beej Newbie

beej

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Does anyone know where the tif-images for the locator selection are located? I'd love to change the colour, but I can't find the right files.

 

/Applications/Logic Pro X.app/Contents/Frameworks/MAResources.framework/Versions/A/Resources/

 

Look at ruler_cycle.tiff and associated images...

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keman Newbie

keman

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Only some elements of the GUI have associated tiff's. Make sure you read this thread from the beginning.

 

J.

All elements have to be located somewhere in the .app-folder...

 

/Applications/Logic Pro X.app/Contents/Frameworks/MAResources.framework/Versions/A/Resources/

Look at ruler_cycle.tiff and associated images...

Thanks! :D

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