I want to start by thanking MPV for the great courses and all the tech wizards on this forum for being so helpful. So, I'm into my second year of learning to use Logic in my spare time, and thank god I enjoy a challenge, because it's been a fairly uphill process. My ratio of time spent watching/reading, tinkering, and floundering around to actual music-making is about 1,000:1 at the current time. LOL. I thought I'd create a thread with some general questions that I can just update as more questions arise. So, here's the first round: 1.How do you specify the size of the individual track zoom, so that all tracks zoom to the same size, always? 2. If you begin with a template in which different tracks in the Arrange have different widths, how do you ensure that these widths remain relative to one another when zooming and stretching? --> What unintended action is causing said tracks to revert back to uniform widths sooner or later during my sessions? 3. When using a pad sound in the EXS24, why does the the chord sound only when you start from the very beginning? In other words, if midi "on" messages only occur at the beginning of the pad chord, what's the workaround for this? Clearly it sucks to attempt to listen to your track from midway through a pad that plays continuously through 64 bars, and then have to go back to the start every time. I tried scissor tool chopping the long midi notes every 8 bars, but then you just end up with a noncontiguous pad. 4. If you use a 2nd display, what is the best way to get a full screen mixer, with two vertical rows, rather than one long horizontal row, and a ton of unused real estate? Currently I just use a screen set with two mixer windows on top of one another, but is there a way to get it into one window, without just using an environment mixer layer (I find this to be undoable because 1- you don't get the track colors in the environment and 2- the environment is "touchy" and clearly not designed to be your primary mixer)

5. Formerly I thought of a Bus as an invisible routing system, not an actual object, but then I noticed you can create a Bus as an actual Object in the environment. How is this used/what is the advantage of doing that?

Regarding Question 2. If you start with different width tracks, then choose any single track and hit the Z key, then adjust the size large enough to show automation... And then click another track while track zoom is still on, all the tracks revert to the same size. Insteresting. Logic apparently thinks you "deleted" a track when you do this. So if you go to the Undo menu, you can choose "Undo Delete Track" and then your differently-sized tracks reemerge.

Hey Ben! I'll try and answer these Qs: 1. Not sure I completely understand. Three things you might find useful though: A. If you want all other audio track headers to zoom to the same height as a customized one... simply command-click on the lower left corner of one of the "other" audio track headers. (Same applies for Software Instrument tracks). B. Building templates with locked screen sets already zoomed to your desired magnification can be an incredibly quick way to do this. C. Check out the Save as/Recall Zoom levels in the key commands window. There are 3 levels which can make recalling a zoom magnification very quick! D. Auto Track Zoom (key command) will set the track zoom level to any selected track. 3. Because the ADSR (attack, decay, sustain and release) of a MIDI sound is generated in real-time upon a MIDI note event begin triggered, it can be impossible for Logic to calculate what said pad would sound like 5 bars after it was triggered (if you begin playback further 5 bars later that is). However, you can setup Logic to trigger the MIDI note event from wherever you are in the arrangement using the: Project Settings > MIDI > Chase... and enabling "Notes/Sustained". Remember this will begin playback of the MIDI note from its start point wherever you are in the arrangement. 4. The Environment Mixer window is the best way. Check out Jay's article on The Hub: [url]http://www.macprovideo.com/hub/logic-pro/custom-environment-layers-mixing-logic-pro-9[/url] 5. In Logic 7 and previous versions, Busses were primarily used as actual objects. I believe from Logic 8 onwards they were treated more as part of the plumbing/routing system. This feature to create a Bus object is still there for legacy reasons. i.e. In case users want to import a project from an earlier version of Logic where busses were used as objects. Hope this helps Rounik

Hi Ben37. To add to Rounik's post here is a suggestion for question 3: A temporary solution is to freeze the software instrument channel strip. This will create a temporary audio file of the channel strip. Then if you play back after the start of the MIDI note it will play the audio. You can always unfreeze the track if you wish to make changes to the instruments or plugins and then freeze it again.

Fantastic Rounik and Gary. Much appreciated. An additional note on Question 3: I noticed that sometimes simply looping 8 bars of a pad [i]does[/i] work to keep it sustained, while copying/pasting said 8 bar section does not. So for listening to specific sections, click somewhere on the previous looped section and the next section will trigger at the boundary. However, start from the beginning, and it plays contiguously.

Make sure the MIDI not starts at the beginning of the loop, and that the MIDI note doesn't extend over the loop. This may help resolve the issue.

Oh sorry I could have phrased it better... it wasn't an issue, I was just stating all the positive things I learned about looping regions :)

Great stuff. Logic does have a bit of a steep learning curve when you start getting into the more advanced features. It does sound like you have come along way with the application. The great thing about Logic, is the more you learn about the application, the more you love it and find ways to use its hidden gems in your productions. The Environment is an amazing tool, but most of the time I still feel like I haven't even touched the surface of it. Cheers!

Rounik- Here's what I mean about the track zoom problem. I'm referring to the track list, in which I have different tracks with different widths (See first screenshot) I do use the three recall commands (great feature!) but they don't help for this... Basically what happens is this: If you (accidentally) click the lower left corner of a given track while holding the SHIFT key, all the tracks revert to uniform sizes, and there's no way to Undo it. This is the same exact function as the command control-alt-shift-delete, which has no undo! Just an interesting bit of strangeness I thought I'd point out! Obviously the solution is to NOT accidentally click Individual track Zoom while holding the SHIFT key, but somehow I managed to do that multiple times while performing different actions. ;) My Template: [url=http://www.macprovideo.com/forum/upload/upload/server/php/savedfiles/files/mpv_39625_168438_Template_Macro (1).png] [img]http://www.macprovideo.com/forum/upload/upload/server/php/savedfiles/thumbnails/mpv_39625_168438_Template_Macro (1).png[/img] [/url] Shift-Track Zoom [url=http://www.macprovideo.com/forum/upload/upload/server/php/savedfiles/files/mpv_39625_168438_Shift_Click_Left_Corner (1).png] [img]http://www.macprovideo.com/forum/upload/upload/server/php/savedfiles/thumbnails/mpv_39625_168438_Shift_Click_Left_Corner (1).png[/img] [/url] Can't Undo [url=http://www.macprovideo.com/forum/upload/upload/server/php/savedfiles/files/mpv_39625_168438_Can't_Undo (1).png] [img]http://www.macprovideo.com/forum/upload/upload/server/php/savedfiles/thumbnails/mpv_39625_168438_Can't_Undo (1).png[/img] [/url]