Please see the section with useful links of this FAQ.
First copy the audio environment to your new song. Then go back to the source song and open the Audio Configuration window. In that window select the correct audio hardware that your virtual mixer is addressing from the Device menu. Select "copy" (Command-C [Ctrl-C]). Now open your new song, open the Audio Configuration window, once again make sure it's set to the correct hardware device. Select "Paste" (Command-V [Ctrl-V]). All of you mixer settings/plugins etc will be copied.
Select all the faders you want to put into a sequence. In the Arrange window, select an empty track and hit the Record button in the Transport window. Now pick "Send Selected Fader Values" from the Environment window's Options menu. All the selected faders will be recorded into a single sequence.
Note: in LAMP 5.5 this doesn't work for channel strips from the Audio Mixer anymore (possibly due to LA5's new automation scheme). It still works for faders you created yourself in the environment though. This might apply to other Logic versions as well.
The Track Mixer displays anything that exists as an Arrange track, so:
They're like menus that stay open. If you don't want to scroll, make one folder for tracks 1-64 and another for 65-128 which you don't have scroll because they shows all objects (on 1600x1200 screens).
Press Option [Ctrl] and select Track Mixer from the Windows menu (opens a floating Track Mixer). Resize it to show one audio track. This floater is good to have in the left or right bottom corner.
Option [Ctrl] click to turn plugins and sends on or off: just press the Option [Control] key and click on the insert slot, on the virtual instrument slot, or on the send-slot.
Option [Control] click on the Send amount dial or the Volume fader automatically sets it to 0.0 dB
Option [Control] click the solo button on a solo'ed track when you have multiple channels soloed and all soloed channels are switched out of solo mode. Click again and only the channel you click goes into solo.
Option [Control] clicking the solo button of a non-solo'ed track will un-solo the currently solo'ed tracks and solo the currently selected track.
If you Control [Alt] click a channel's solo button, a small cross appears over the solo button and that channel will continue to play when you solo other channels. Alt click it again to undo the effect.
Double-clicking on any slot (bus-send, input, output, etc) scrolls the Audio Mixer to reveal the corresponding object. This makes for very easy and fast navigation.
Just make sure that in the Environment window's View menu, "Protect Cabling/Positions" is unchecked and "Cables" is checked. Then you have a tiny square in the bottom-right corner of the ornament which resizes the object (like it does with other Environment objects as well). There are definable key commands for both menu-entries as well.
Explanation of using Mapped Drums.
BTW, just like Hyper edit sets, you can have as many of these as you like.
The following supposes that your recorded MIDI notes are not on channel 16. If they are, open an Event List, select all events, and set the channel to anything but 16.
Create a Channel Splitter in the environment and tick its Icon checkbox (in the parameter pane) so it'll show up in the Instrument list. Assign the Splitter to the Arrange track on which you want to mute individual notes.
Option-click [Ctrl-click] the Channel Splitter's channel 1 outlet so that the Instrument list pops up, and pick the proper Instrument. Repeat for channels 2-15 (yes, that's 15 cables).
Then in your Matrix window, open an Event Float and mute individual notes by putting them onto channel 16.
A simpler method that achieves the same:
Create a transformer in the Environment. Cable it into the proper instrument. Double-click the transformer to open it, and from the top popup, pick "Filter matching events". Set the Cha popup to "=", and the channel number to 16. Close the transformer's window, select the transformer and check the Icon checkbox in the parameter pane. Assign the transformer to the track containing the MIDI data whose notes you want to mute. Again open an Event Float next to your Matrix wndow, and set the channel of notes you want to mute to 16.
Question: How do I use the arpeggiator so that the arpeggio appears in the score/matrix, rather than just the chords played in?
Answer: You can do what you want by patching the arpeggiator into the Sequencer Input object on the 'Clicks & Ports' layer. Put the chords to be arpeggiated on an Arrange track assigned to the arpeggiator and then record on another Arrange track assigned to the desired playback instrument. The recorded sequence will contain the arpeggios.
To set up a VSTi with an arpeggiator or delay, see this FAQ's chapter on VSTs.
Question: Am I doing something wrong, or is it impossible to quantize the Arpeggiator-output (Param. qua) to a custom Groove-template?
Answer: How about recording the Arpeggiator's output on a new MIDI-track, and quantising that? Assign a track with plain chords to the Arpeggiator object, and cable the Arpeggiator into the "to Sequencer" object. Record-arm a fresh MIDI-track and hit 'record'.
You can apply the same method to any environment object -- delay, chord memorizer, etc. The same applies to 3rd party environment macro's, etc, etc.
Since the TX81Z is pre-bank, or rather non standard bank switch, getting to bank D can probably be achieved only through SysEx. I used to have one so I'm going by memory. When you press the front panel "bank switch" buttons I think the TX81Z sends out a MIDI command. Try recording the 81Z's output and press the bank D button, see if Logic records the sysex output. I think the original idea was to pick out your favorite 128 patches and map them.
These are special "non-MIDI but MIDI-like" commands native to Logic itself which allow Logic to do special tasks. They're used to automate and/or organise all sorts of things including tools within Logic that are unique to Logic.
Create an environment button with an 'Out' definition of 'Meta', select an empty Arrange track, and start recording. Click the button once and stop recording. The sequence that's now created contains one Meta event. Open the sequence in the Event List and click-scroll the 'Num' column to see all defined Meta events.
From a user perspective, only the Meta events available to the user are relevant (these are mainly used when working in the environment). These are listed in the Mac 4.0 manual on page 5-84 and 85. They are:
This is specific to setting up a sysex fader for a JV1080 but will work when adapted to other synths.
Note: for those really wanting to get "into" sysex environment programming, or those who want to learn more about the use of sysex faders, and the use of the transformer's "Sysex Mapper" mode, there are a couple of extensive tutorials dealing with this at http://www.omega-art.com/logic/.
Question: Can someone please help me to figure out the exponential transforms in both the transformer window and the transformer objects in the environment. I've never been able to figure this out. It's something like "constant to the power nx" where n is the number you set for the "exponent" parameter and x is the incoming value. However, those numbers get huge so it's "normalized" in some way (that's what I can't figure out). I am specifically looking for real world examples that I can use to do e.g. soft knee type compressions to MIDI data meaning just turn down the louder stuff, leave the quieter stuff alone i.e. 127 -> 90 and 40 -> 40.
Answer: For soft knee use negative exponents (say n between -3 and 0). From the graph inside the transformer you'll see this looks like soft knee. But, you will always get 0->0 and 127->127 because of the "normalization".
For soft knee type inverse expansion (meaning to turn up quieter stuff without affecting louder stuff, i.e. 10 -> 40 and 90 -> 90), use positive exponents (say n between 0 and 3).
Note: From looking at the exponential curves in the transformer, it will be clear that they don't really leave any value alone (except 0 and 127). I.e. it's not possible to downward compress the top range without affecting the bottom range.
Question: I have an Autoload that was given to me, and it was setup for my hardware synth. I now have another environment for two other synths I have. Can I have them both or all three in the same autoload?
Answer: Yes. The easiest way is to open both your autoload and the other song, and then copy/paste (or drag) the other two synths from the other song into your autoload and save it again. If you want to import more than just a simple Instrument (e.g. a layer with a huge environment patch), pick Import Environment > Layer from the Environment window's Options menu.
Question: How do I assign the environment Arpeggiator to a single channel of a Multi-Instrument? I can't work out how to signal which of the Multi's MIDI channels it is that I want to arpeggiate, while leaving the other channels functioning normally.
Answer: Hold the Option key [Ctrl] while clicking the Arpeggiator's output. A menu will pop-up (the same as the Arrange Instrument list) from which you can select specific sub-instruments of the Multi-Instrument (assuming they're enabled).
Create a new Button in the Environment window (New menu > Faders). In the button's parameter pane set the Range to 2 identical values (like "90 90" for a volume=0dB fader). Make sure the button's Out definition corresponds to the parameter you want to affect (Control, -1- = 7 for volume for example, or Fader, -1- = 28 for the first Send slot (in LA5+)). When controlling one of the knobs on the channel strip itself (volume, pan, sends, etc), set the button's channel to 1. Cable the button to all channel strips in the Audio Mixer whose values you want to be able to reset. Done.
In order to find out which controller or fader event belongs to which mixer knob, create a new Monitor object, and cable one of the Audio Mixer's channel strips into the Monitor. Now wiggle the knob you want to know about and watch the Monitor. If you see something like "F 1 28 56", that's a Fader event, channel 1, event 28 with value=56. If you see a tiny modwheel-like thingy, followed by "1 7 98", that's "Controller, channel 1, cc7 (volume), value=98".
It's really easy (and useful) to set up a sort of MIDI "reset" button in the Environment to use to "zero" or "normalize" your MIDI mixing strip after playing around with it and getting unwanted results.
You now have a reset button. Press it, and all your volume and pan settings get restored. You can of course use this idea for every other type of continuous controllers as well (modulation, pitch bend, etc).
A useful variation would be as follows:
Create a fader-style fader (instead of button style). Insert events as described above. Before closing the Event window, select all Volume events, but leave the panning events deselected. Now when you move the fader, you'll set volume on all 16 channels (the fader affects the value of the selected events), and at the same time resets e.g. panning.
You could also make a button that contains 16 "sustain off" events (controller 64, value 0), to act as a kind of "panic" button when you get hanging notes from missing CC64 events. Et cetera. The possibilities are endless.
There's a meta-fader for this (meta #100) which you can create by selecting 'Tempo Control' from the New > Fader > Specials sub-menu in the Environment window. The tempo range is from 50 to 177 BPM in steps of 1. If you're recording, fader activity will be recorded directly in the Tempo List. When you create the Fader you'll see a message about cabling it between the physical input and sequencer input - you can ignore this.
Have you ever imported a complete song's environment with the "merge" function accidentally? That might have doubled all objects. You might not even be able to see them as they are placed exactly on top of the original ones. Just give it a try and select one object, then drag it or press delete. At least this is what happened here once.
First of all, launch OMS and check that 'QuickTime Music' is in your studio setup. If not, you'll need to fix that first. Then, double click on the QuickTime Music icon in your OMS setup and make sure it is turned 'on'.
Go into your Environment window and create a new Multi-Instrument. Call it QTMI, or something. In the parameter pane for the Instrument (left side of the screen), you'll probably see "OMS Map used" just below the icon checkbox. If you click-hold there, you should be able to change it to 'QuickTime Music'. You will also see all your other OMS nodes there.
The output triangle of the Multi-Instrument turns to a yellow square, which means it's talking to OMS. Click on all the Multi-Instrument channels so they're no longer crossed out to enable them.
That should be it. Assign an Arrange track to the Instrument & away you go. Often when I close & open a song, instruments seem to forget what OMS node they are attached to, and come back up as '(OMS Map used)'. You have to set them back to 'QuickTime Music' each time.
Note: You don't actually have to make a new Multi-Instrument; you can just reroute any existing instruments to 'QuickTime Music' in the environment window.
Logic has a built-in MIDI driver for SampleCell. In the Environment window, pick the "New > Internal-> DigiDesign SampleCell" menu-item, and then cable a Multi-Instrument to it.
You will still need to have the OMS extension active in your System Folder for SampleCell to work at all. But just don't make it active inside Logic.