Whats Josh talking about?

[NuEra]

Not fully understanding what he is getting here. Is there a logic equivalent?

Source: http://www.beatportal.com/feed/item/prod...utomation/

Josh Gabriel
Automation is the key element in telling a good story with your tracks.

Since I switched to Live for my productions, the biggest change has been the use of macros in the instrument and effect racks.

By assigning multiple synth and effect parameters, like reverb, filter cutoff - or exotic stuff in Operator, like modulator amount or tuning - you can make a sound completely transform over time.

The idea behind my automation techniques is to set up a sound so that it goes from one extreme to another.

When the macro knob is set to zero, the sound is small and restrained, but at maximum it’s huge.

By continuously varying the value of one or more macro knobs, I can play with the sound over the course of a track, making it build all the way to the peak via automation.

Another great thing about macros is that if you want to add an effect to an already automated track, it’s just a matter of tying the new effect to the range of the macro so it follows the feel of the existing automation.

[admin]

NuEra,

Hi thanks for this as it's something I haven't really explored before but now I realize I should.

A 'macro' in this case is just a virtual knob that you can assign any parameter to within an effect chain or 'rack' in Live. Normally you'd just assign one knob to one parameter. But in this case he's doing multiple. So maybe you'd assign filter cutoff, reverb time, and release time all to one knob. That way you can do as he's saying and have a sound that's tight and dry sounding to modulate to more open and wet. Would be a lot easier to control this way than having three knobs and needing to move them all at once simultaneously.

Not quite sure how you'd do this in Logic though..Perhaps in the environment you can assign a midi controller to multiple parameters within a tracks inserts or returns. I haven't done anything like this in 8 and forget if the earlier versions had this ability.

Looking forward to trying it in Live though.

[NuEra]

Ahh I got it. One knob, multiple parameters. One of the worst parts of Logic 7 is the midi learn, so this sounds like a nightmare. haha. I'd probably just end up automating each parameter on its own.

[admin]

Ya forgot about the midi learn thing. That's one of those areas where Logic is a bit too smart for it's own good. They give you all the power of connecting things in the environment but then leave out an everyday useful feature like the learn function.

[NuEra]

Ya live really has that one down!

[sven hauck]

Definitely, love that feature.