Hey everyone! Can anyone think of a possible way to introduce new patterns into the arpeggiator in the environment. For example, I can go up, down, up and down, auto, or random. Some arpeggiators I have used have other patterns built in. Up 2 notes, down 1 skip a few, etc. Any ideas? Bret

Thanks for the quick answer. I am really interested in learning more about the environment, so if you have any suggestions I'd be excited to hear them!. I've only just started building things in there, so projects that are interesting to me are worth the effort. . .

For awhile I have wanted to be able to use an LFO to control plugin parameters. I got the idea from adding parameter behaviors in Motion. Seems like it would be a nice addition to Logic! I tried to make an LFO in the environment several times and couldn't figure it out. When I found the MIDI LFO from swiftkick.com, created by Len Sasso, I was pretty stoked. But I couldn't get it to work. Then I found this thread on Logic Pro Help: http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=26896 Someone has updated it to work with Logic 9! Once I downloaded this, I was able to import it in to a project, cable it to a transformer, and then convert it in to fader data (as I learned how to do from Rounik's Randomizer TNT). This can then be cabled to a channel strip, and there it is! I've been having loads of fun with it. It's great but I can't figure out how to control the amplitude of the wave. So right now when ever I assign it to something, I'm getting the full range of the parameter (if it goes as high as 127). I was able to limit it with a transformer, but that creates some weird rhythmic things as the parameter assigned to it will just stop at that number and wait for the wave to come around to turn it back down. So it's not quite as useful as it could be. I opened up the macro to see if I could tweak it in there, and realized immediately that I am a long way from truly understanding the environment. Len Sasso is a very smart man. Anyway, this has been a project of mine half just to learn a bit about the environment, but any help on tweaking this last part would be very appreciated. Thanks! Bret PS: Another interesting part of this might be that there seems to be a fader missing at the bottom right when compared to the image on the above linked site.

Thanks so much for getting back! I don't think the scaling thing will be too much of a problem for what I'm keen on using it for, but how do I scale the wave? I tried putting a transformer after it and scaling byte 2 but it didn't work right. Maybe I don't totally understand how the scale function works. Do I need to open up the macro and find an output there? If so, what should I look for? Thanks again for the help here. Bret

Thanks, Ski! So, I read your post about 6 times and it started to make sense. For some reason I still can't get the scale function to work. But setting the range does help things, although it's not perfect. Before you spend any more time on me (and thanks again for doing so), I'm going to watch your MIDI demystified tuts (I started last night), and Martin's Logic Environment Explored. I didn't realize that that one existed because it is buried back in the Logic 6 section. :) Once I finish these, I'll post again. It's easier for me to learn stuff when I have a goal in mind, so that's all this LFO stuff has been for me. So if it doesn't work out, that's alright. You've already increased my knowledge 10 fold. Steve H talks about the channel strip as being "one big synth." I love using the bit crusher as part of my one big synth. So wouldn't it be great if I could give an envelope to downsampling, or assign a LFO to it? Or maybe the brake/tremolo stuff on the Rotor plugin? Rounik's randomizer comes in very handy for some of this idea, but an LFO would allow me to create rhythmic patterns to the sound. Once again, thanks. Having someone of your expertise answer these comments is not something I take for granted. Bret

I have created some really fun stuff with this already today! It's great. Would it be possible to have it trigger from MIDI data other than the click, for example, a pattern of C#1 on MIDI channel 10? I tried cabling some in but I couldn't get it to trigger any notes. What do I need to do to make it think it's from the click? Thanks again for posting this one!

I'll keep playing with it. I'm mostly just wondering how to change the resolution (like 16ths to 8ths) :) Maybe there was a super easy way to accomplish this and I totally missed it. After I thought of that I was curious what would happen if I fed a different consistent pattern in like triplets or somethin, however I doubt I would actually use that very much. I used it on a song I was working on last night and had it record some notes for a part on a chorus. It gave some really cool patterns I never would have thought up myself, and after a few little note moves in the piano role, I had something I really was happy with.

I got it to work by recording the click in to the arrange and then routing that into the step sequencer. This would allow one to have the sequencer run without needing the internal click to be running. I thought that removing every other note might halve the resolution of the sequencer, but it doesn't. You could trigger it that way though, so if you wanted the step sequencer to go off every few bars or so, this would work. It's fun playing around with this! Thanks again.

The fact that it uses the click makes me more likely to use it. I just put it in one of my templates and made a screen set for it. I also put an on/off switch on it. It's super easy to hook up since it uses the click, and I am way more likely to use it when I want to if I don't have to build a midi region to make it go. Later if that seems necessary then I can do it. I'll probably make a loop or two just for that purpose. I would love a tutorial on how to do something like this! Reading the Logic manual can only take you so far. What has helped me learn the environment more than anything has been doing you and Steve H's environment tutorials. I imagine doing a tut on this particular object would be a bear to create. I am tier one certified in Logic, and I had never really dove into the environment until your HUB article on arpeggiation. Now I have to be careful when I have time to write music, if I am using Logic, I have to be careful not to get sidetracked on trying to build some contraption! Thanks Bret

Hey everyone - Does anyone have any great advice for trouble shooting 'disk too slow' errors and crashes in logic? I have a student who continues to suffer these and we've tried a lot of stuff to fix it. He has a brand new macbookpro with plenty of RAM. He's using loads of Native Instruments stuff as well as other 3rd party stuff and his sessions are fairly large and mostly MIDI. Another interesting thing about the sessions is that they all contain MIDI data that was exported from an old KORG triton, and it was a bit of a mission to find all of the residual cc messages and what not that Logic didn't need and was actually causing problems (like sending all the faders to max and panning things oddly). He had most of the projects on the desktop and I thought we'd solved it when we moved them into the music folder, but alas. Nothing out of the ordinary is going on in activity monitor. I always keep all my projects on an external firewire drive but that doesn't seem to be necessary anymore these days? Is that still good advice? At this point all his samples, loops, etc are on his internal drive. We've adjusted buffer sizes and all that stuff. . . I guess what I'm looking for is just some things we could try to fix the issue. We're going to have a Genius at an Apple Store run diagnostics on the drive soon, but I just want to make sure I'm not missing something obvious. Thanks for your time! Bret