(This post has been moved from the 'Logic Pro & Logic Express' Forums and has been modified to serve more appropriately as an opening thread in this forum). I recently started to use Logic Pro as a tool for educating, inspiring, and motivating my students in the classroom and for live performances. In this thread, I'd love to exchange ideas, techniques, etc. with anyone who uses any of the Mac Apps. for creative use in the classroom. I am a music teacher, so my interests mainly lie with Logic and GarageBand. But Mac Apps. - iLife, Final Cut, Photoshop, etc. - have so much to offer in this area, and I'm sure that a lot can be learned by anyone who teaches and uses any sort of technology in the classroom. This is the direction that education is going in, with digital and computer technology becoming more and more a part of every aspect of our lives. Until I started using Logic with some of my students about four months ago, I didn't think it would have as much to offer educationally as I now realize it does. Here is a general overview of what I've started to do using Logic with my students: The first thing I must mention is that I work with special ed./learning disabled students. So, a lot of what I've used Logic for so far is designed to make it easier for the students to make music. Like using a Roland SPD 6 (electronic drum pads) to trigger midi notes channeled into a chord memorizer in the environment, so that the striking of the pads triggers some motown - like horn stabs. Or adjusting velocity so that a students keyboard playing comes out more evenly. I did a show just before Thanksgiving where I was able to use Logic to receive midi data from a few different controllers sending live data into Logic on different midi channels simultaneously (thanks to the auto-demix by channel checkbox). Some of the controllers were keyboards split into zones via channel strip parameter boxes and an instrument object in the environment. This is real basic midi, I know, but the point educationally was the inspiration it provided for the students playing the instruments and hearing the wonderful sounds that they were producing through Logic's software instruments and effects. On one number during the show, I was able to run the project in real time, while the students played their instruments live through the project, complete with a drum-machine track (ultrabeat), channel strip settings, software instruments, effects, automation (one student really loved the effects he was getting from the automation, which was a tweeking of an LFO in an ES1 - I think), and keyboard splitting and layering into an instrument object in the environment. My first post to these forums was asking about 'logiconizer' and how to get icons into Logic without using Photoshop. (Photoshop would do the job perfectly, but I was looking for freeware, and GIMP was recommended to me by Rounik). My reason for this was to start tapping into the great visual aspects of Logic. I can sometimes use a smartboard in my school (smartboards are basically just big touch screens) and I can put up pictures of instruments and link sound clips to them, so that a student can touch a picture of an instrument and hear the sound of that instrument. (These sound clips can come from Logic, of course - like the JamPack loops). So what better than to use pics that can also be icons in Logic. That way, a student can transition from just touching a picture to produce the sound of a desired instrument, to recognizing that instrument as a track icon on a track in Logic, so that the student can then start to play, maybe the caps lock keyboard, or an attached USB keyboard, to produce the sound of that instrument themselves. Following Steve H.'s suggestions to always use colors fits right into education - especially learning disabled students, because some of them are very visually oriented. I should also mention that my school has students ranging from 6 yrs. old to 21. So, some of the older, higher functioning students could actually be taken into the environment and shown a lot about sound routing, effects, delay, arpeggiation, cabling, and just sound and midi in general. I think an entire course on sound could be taught just by using Logic to visually and aurally demonstrate in a way that would be interesting and memorable. But, that's where I'd like to go with it, and of course, I still have a lot to learn myself. So, please feel free to chime in if you've done anything like this with any Mac Apps. I'll post reports on progress, or new ideas, and hopefully this thread will fill up with a lot of rich ideas from people using the power of these wonderful technologies to help educate our youth - not just learning disabled students, of course. Thanks, Adam P.S. I think my next exploration will be touch tracks objects - awesome stuff!

Hi Adam, Thanks for re-posting here. Much appreciated! Logic is pretty amazing. I agree it lends itself to being a teaching tool for signal flow and digital audio production and simple music making. Touch Tracks would be great in the classroom. I've not tried it... I wonder if my Random Nature 2 plugin would be appreciated by your students? It can produce some pretty interesting sounds. I should mention that I am a teacher and an Apple Certified Trainer in Logic too - hence my interests merge at the same point as yours! Back to the classroom: I'd really recommend checking out Mainstage2, which comes as part of Logic Studio. In terms of visuals it has a lot of potential and is much more appealing on the eye than Logic's Environment. Buttons can be resized and coloured and basically made to look very nice. However, Mainstage lacks arpegiator, delay line... any environment objects that rely on Logic's transport to be running... Mainstage makes it incredibly easy to create custom onscreen controls/buttons and map them to MIDI hardware and assign them to controls in Logic's SI's and/or effects. Additionally you can add your own pictures to Mainstage... For example this is one of the templates with an image I've added: [img]http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/7046/picture2jw.png[/img] Do you use the Vector fader in any of your Environments? It can be a very interesting and playful way to control two different parameters simultaneously. I also want to mention a product I've come across in my capacity as a consultant to a local council's education authority... SoundBeam. [url]http://www.soundbeam.co.uk/products/sb2-intro.html[/url] It's used in many capacities, one of which is with special needs students. I believe there are ways of making it work with Logic too. I'm hoping to get hands on with it very soon... As for iLife... well, that has so much classroom potential it's too much to go into now... but I'll post back some links to good sites before the end of the week! Thanks again for starting this thread. It's really inspiring for me to know that others are using Logic in such a creative and productive way within the classroom. :) Rounik p.s. Am sure that Touch Tracks will be a big hit!

Re: Educators Unite-Shared Ideas f... Hi Rounik! Well, this is all just amazing. You are very inspiring and I'm feeling very fortunate to be able to have you and all that MPV has to offer as a resource. Yes, your 'Random Nature' macro looks like it's exactly what I had in mind to enable my students to manipulate sound via knobs, sliders, pads, etc. I just purchased an Axiom 61 and a Trigger Finger with precisely that sort of thing in mind. I mentioned that I am busy now, and I don't want to put too much on my plate - there's a tremendous amount to do in preparation for my shows - but I really can't wait to start taking that macro apart and learning from it, and using it - it looks awesome. Oh, I have to ask, though, can it be used in LP8? It looks like it may have some LP9 features (not sure about that since I don't have LP9). I totally agree about Mainstage. That's also on my list of things to learn. Can pics be imported into LP8's Mainstage? And last but certainly not least: I was totally blown away by Soundbeam! I think I remember hearing about something like Soundbeam, but may have been skeptical about it. But seeing the short video staring those children - incredible! Looks like there were some other great resources on that site as well. Please let me know if you get a chance to use one. One more question, if I may, regarding an LP8 vs. LP9 issue. Quite a while back I purchased David Nahmani's LP8 training book, with the idea of becoming a level I trainer. I didn't really get to start using Logic until this summer, and then LP9 came out in the fall, so can I still be certified for LP8?, and is it even worth it since LP9 is now the current DAW? Well, gotta sign off now and get some sleep. Thanks again though, to you and all the great people at MPV. Take care, Adam

Hi Adam, It's great to be able to find others who are utilizing music technology and Mac software in general in the way you are! I hope Random Nature V2 lives up to your expectations! It is a bit messy inside - so really don't worry if it seems intimidating... it is. Unfortunately, it's a little tooooo big and complicated to explain in a video tutorial... (famous last words? ;) It can be used in Logic 8. Despite being created in L9, you'll see a little warning message when opening it, but everything should run normally! Mainstage, IMHO, is just going to get better and better with every release. It's pretty exciting to have a more aesthetically customizable Logic Environment. Yes, you can import pictures in to Mainstage 1 (Logic 8 version) and resize them etc :) Am looking forward to getting my fee wet with Soundbeam - it's just a matter of time and availability. Must make this happen - especially as the company that created and produce them are a couple of miles away from me! Will definitely update this thread when I get the chance to use one in person. Do you know about these links (mainly about iLife in Education): [url]http://www.apple.com/education/teachers-professors/resources/[/url] [url]http://www.apple.com/education/teachers-professors/digital-content-creation.html[/url] I also came across this one today: [url]http://4teachers.org/[/url] which I haven't had a chance to browse in any detail yet. Looks promising. Back to your question (L8 vs L9): End user certification for Logic 8 is being retired in Jan 2010. I believe the same will go for Trainers certifications. So, there is no point in taking the L8 certification as an end user or trainer. The Logic 9 level 1 user certifications and trainer certs have just been released within the last couple of weeks... so that's the only way to go. The Logic 9 book is not much different from the L8 version... very few big changes except for a little on Flex editing and slight differences in comping and the entire Video chapter has been removed. If you are thinking of getting user certified in L9 then I'd recommend getting the L9 book and joining one of Steve H's Logic 9 certified courses in Chicago if that's possible. [url]http://www.macprovideo.com/forum/logic/logic-pro-express&id=21798[/url] I'd love it if you were based in Bristol, UK... I'd invite you here, but I'm guessing that may be a bit far for you to travel ;-) Rounik

Hi Rounik, and all who may be reading this thread. Even though I have a lot of work to do, I've been captivated this whole evening by the links provided by Rounik in his previous post to this thread. Thanks again to you, Rounik! I have looked through the Apple Education resources before, but that was quite a while ago. It seems much more interconnected now, probably as iLife, and such devices as iPhone and iPod touch have developed into what has become a totally interconnected network of tools that can be used for education. I could go on and on about what I only briefly browsed through just now, but I hope that whoever sees this can click the link provided, and check it out. One thing that really did it for me was iTunes U, which is another recent addition to this interconnectedness. I downloaded some video podcasts to my iTunes app, and noticed that they were from a website called [url]http://www.teachers.tv[/url] which is an awesome website with excellect teacher resources, tech and non - tech based. Again, I only briefly scanned here, but it's very inspirational. Speaking of .tv websites, [url]http://www.idesktop.tv[/url] has been very useful to me. It is basically just a way to link to youtube videos, but, the big plus is that you can download any of the videos into several different viewing formats right onto your desktop - or wherever you want on your hard drive. Just search in a category, or even for a specific video, and you'll be able to find it and download it off of that site. Especially useful if access to youtube is blocked in your school. There's a lot of good educational stuff to be found there. Enjoy, Adam

Hi Adam! Wow! Great links! I'm going to take a closer look at teachers.tv over christmas.. So far, I'm inclined to agree with you. The videos I've just seen are very inspirational! Thanks again Adam! Let's keep this thread updated and good luck with the pre-christmas workload ;-) Best Rounik