Category : Tips and Tricks

On a recent project (see my last post) I ran into a situation where Logic Pro was literally stumbling and halting quite frequently giving me the standard (and far from helpful) “Logic is too slow error”.

However, I noticed that if I stopped and started it from the same spot many, many times it eventually played through just fine. How weird!

After much testing, I figured out what I believe the cause of this. This recent project had the following attributes to it:

1. I was running on my Power Mac G5/2×1.8 Ghz with 2 GB RAM
2. Most recent version of Logic Pro and Mac OS X 10.4.x
3. The project had some very long “songs” which were film scores, ranging anywhere from 5-15+ minutes per “song”. (I have multiple “songs” that then made up the entire project
4. The cues were all written in a classic “star trek” style, utilizing full orchestral sounds, though with sparse orchestration. Hence, I might have 40-60 exs24 instruments loaded up (many of them keyswitched samples from the likes of libraries like Vienna Symphonic Library (vsl) and Project SAM True Strike, etc.) so there was a significant amount of samples at my disposal.
5. exs24 streams samples from disk, but also requires a certain amount of RAM per exs24 instrument (around 8-14 MB, depending on settings and such)
6. I was using very limited “plug-ins” besides a reverb or two which was being powered off of a UAD-1 card (almost zero CPU hit) and was streaming the samples from a separted SATA RAID HDD, so bandwidth on that end should not be a problem

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Have you ever been confused by what an unbalanced or balanced audio cables is? TRS vs. XLR connector?  I found that the good folks over at Sweetwater have a really nice guide that’s worth checking out.  Enjoy!

Ever get the need for just a few sheets of manuscript paper to doodle a new tune on? Hop on over to http://www.blanksheetmusic.net and they’ll take care of you! This free site that I ran across allows you to customize the output for the number of staves, key signatures, clefs, etc. So get your free blank staff paper today!

A common problem I face when recording with acoustic instruments is getting just the right amount of click in my headset versus program material. Up to a few days ago, I would often just struggle with trying to set the other instruments to a lower volume or trying to crank the virtual instrument in my DAW (Logic) that creates the click to very high levels. Now, there is an easier way!

The magic needed actually existed from two existing picece of equipment that I already own, the MOTU 828 mkII audio interface and the Behringer Powerplay Pro Headphone Amp.

In Logic Pro, there is a setting where you can change what output the click track generated by the system eminates from.  By default, this is set to Output 1-2 (the mains) of whatever hardware interface you are using.  However, if you are using an interface that supports multiple outputs, you can rechannel this to whatever output you want.  For me, this was Output 3-4.

After this, I ran a cable from output 3 on the MOTU to the front of the Headphone amp which has an “aux input” as shown below.

Then, by simply adjusting the “balance” knob on the headphone amp, I can get just the right amount of click.  Nice!

Bonus Tip: When recording vocals with a headset (and others, but especially vocals) have the singer take one cup of the headphone off their ear so they can better hear themselves.  Use your headphone amp to mute the channel that the ear is off so as to help minimize the bleeding into your recording.  Your vocalists will thank you for it!