Logic X Key Commands: ProTools Preset

Holy pants, folks! I don't know if this was always in Logic X, or if it has just recently reappeared, but this will save me so many ⌘-Z undo actions.

My brain's memory banks thanks you, Logic developers!

Especially, the difference between the default Logic X and ProTools zoom shortcuts: ⌘+← or → for Logic, ⌘+[ or ] for ProTools. I can tell you how many times I've mashed the ProTools shortcut 5 times while using Logic, thinking I was going to zoom out or in, only to trim a region or wreak some other untold havoc on my session.

Using Logic Pro to generate "air"

A while back, I linked to a Designing Sound article by Doug Murray (whom I later would go on to work for on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes!) about using convolution reverb to generate room tone to fill holes in dialog tracks.  At the end of that linked post, I speculated on using Logic Pro's Space Designer plug in, since I didn't (and still don't) own a convolution reverb for ProTools.  Well, I finally had a reason to sit down and try it out, and the results were pretty great.

Using Space Designer to generate endless room tone!

I was really pretty happy with the results. The general process:

• I cut in ProTools, so when I needed a piece of fill, I'd copy-and-paste a clip of room tone onto a new track that I had labeled "FILLSeed", and consolidated it (OPTION+SHIFT+3) into a new file, and named it according to the character, room, and reel, i.e. "FILLSeed_Chris_BR_R1". I called it "FILLSeed" because I didn't want to confuse this short clip of room tone with the synthesized version that will come out of Logic later.
• Switching over to Logic, clicking on the disclosure triangle next to the IR Sample label in Space Designer brings up a menu for importing a sound file as your new impulse response.
• Make sure to set the Dry level to "0", which in less confusing terms would be -∞, and setting the "Rev", or wet signal, to "max." Space Designer is also a multi-channel plug-in, so it will always come out as stereo, so I set the Input slider to the mono setting, over on the left side of the window.
• Turning on the Test Oscillator insert plugin (with white noise, output at around -50 to -60 dB) on my AIR SOURCE track in Logic, white noise starts pouring into Space Designer, which gets convoluted with the impulse response of room tone that I just imported, and sweet magical room tone comes pouring out!
• Space Designer does have built-in EQ, so if you need to tweak it a little bit with some high or low-pass/shelf, it's really easy to do that right in the plugin window.
• I set the input of a second track to be the bus output of my SOURCE track, put it in Record Mode, and record a chunk of fill! Drop that new recording into your ProTools session, and cut it in. Huzzah!

So, there you have it. For about 1/5th the cost of Altiverb, you can buy a copy of Logic Pro and have your own capable convolution reverb. And, you get a pretty nice DAW with some great features of its own, to boot! With the improvements to Core Audio in OS X, having two DAWs open at the same time, using the same hardware, is actually possible, making this type of workflow far less painful.

POST SCRIPT (11/09/2015): While this process has been rendered less useful due to features in software like iZotope's RX and the Ambience Match algorithm, this is absolutely still relevant if you a) don't own RX or 2) don't have it available immediately.

Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite

Just a quick note to say that I've installed OS 10.10 on my laptop (MacBook Pro, Late 2011), and so far my sound tools (ProTools 11, Logic Pro X, QLab 3) are running with minimal problems. No, Avid has not certified ProTools to run on Yosemite yet, but since my studio Mac Pro is running Mavericks with aplomb (and will for some time to come), I was willing to jump in and make the switch to Yosemite on the MBP. I had been running the beta versions of 10.10 for a couple months on a separate partition, so I had a good idea what I was getting into.

Your mileage may vary. As always, if you're currently in a project, wait until it's finished to upgrade. And, back yo self up!

Logic Pro X

Apple released Logic Pro X, the newest version of the pro audio software that is my go-to tool for writing and recording music. 

Here's a thoughtful first-look review from Jim Dalrymple of The Loop:

Logic Pro X is the best music software release I’ve seen from Apple in a while. They added a lot of pro features, but at the same time managed to make the app more approachable—that’s a difficult thing to do.

... 

Overall, Logic Pro X is a great release and for $199, you can’t go wrong.

I'm a little disappointed there is no discounted upgrade pricing, but $200 for pro audio software as feature-rich as Logic Pro is, ultimately, hard to be too mad about.