Reaper Themes Logic Pro X

Announcing OTR2! - Orchestral Template For Reaper v2 Now Available! (Free) REAPER General Discussion Forum. So the Reaper Pro Tools skin makes the FX button and routing button extra wide and sticks them in the same spot, so that it kinda looks like Pro Tools, but it loses information, uses more space than is needed, and creates a false impression about how close the UI's match. The most commonly used DAWs are Audacity, GarageBand, Logic Pro X, Ableton Live, Pro Tools, and, of course, the Reaper. While each software has its own unique interface and features, all DAWs are capable of recording digital audio, editing and processing them, and mixing multiple tracks together. Drag and drop I logic V3.0 Into the folder Reaper theme or,just drag and drop on desktop Reaper icon. WITH CONFIGURATION. ATTENTION: Before importing the config,go on Reaper top menu choose preference and general.Export your config (if you want a Future Backup ) And name it Default. After exporting,Return in reaper top menu preference,general.

I need a few extra days to work on the effects review like I’ve done for other products like: Mixbus Effects, Mixbus Instruments, Bitwig Effects, Bitwig Instruments, Cubase Effects, Studio One Effects and Studio One Instruments.

I’m trying to improve each successive review, so this one is taking more time than any previously. Of course, I also hope to update previous reviews soon… maybe. The Studio One reviews particularly need an update.

Anyway! Here’s some tips and tricks I’ve learned while writing this Logic review… and 5 more cool things about Logic Pro X!

P.S. Huge shoutout to Edgar Rothermich, Eli Krantzberg, the aforementioned at Logic Pro expert and the staff at Logic Pro Help. Some of these tips come from their awesome resources. I also highly recommend Edgar’s Graphically Enhanced Manuals. I’ve gone through the free selection and they are awesome. These guys all are ‘Cool things’ about Logic.

Parts in this series:

Reaper Themes Logic Pro X Download

  • Plugin manager tricks
  • Bonus cool features

Purchasing Logic Pro X cheaply

When I purchased Logic, I paid $150 instead of the normal $199. How? Discounted gift cards.

This is completely legitimate, and I strongly suggest that you only buy from reputable retailers. You can simply google search for ‘itunes discount gift card’ or similar, or follow a twitter like this one https://twitter.com/itunescarddeals?lang=en. Sam’s club and Costco have frequent discounts assuming you have no ethical misgivings about purchasing from them.

Discounts of 15% are very common (Logic total price of $170). You may not be able to get an awesome 25% off deal, but shoot for at least 15%. Neopets birthday cupcakes.

I purchased 2 $100 gift cards for $75 each at kroger.com. I then used those 2 gift cards to purchase Logic outright. Easy savings.

Themes

Logic doesn’t officially support themes, but some folks have figured out clever ways of theming Logic.

  • Some info here: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/apple-logic-pro/904900-all-fcasoria-logic-x-themes.html
  • and here: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/apple-logic-pro/885002-logic-pro-x-quot-api-theme-pro-quot.html

Plugin manager tricks

Plug-in Manager

I already covered this one, but I’ll paste it here again.

Keep track of unorganized plugins

Cubase and Reaper have an awesome feature that lets you see what plugins are not currently in a category. Logic does not have this… almost.

When I organized my plugins I simply took everything and dragged it to a folder I called ‘Uncategorized’. Then I simply dragged plugins from ‘Uncategorized’ to the correct folder. The net result being that anything that wasn’t in a properly labelled folder was left in the ‘Uncategorized’ folder and I can easily see what I missed.

Sometimes I amaze myself with the (admittedly somewhat small) amount of brain power I put towards such insignificant issues.

Plugin Subfolders

I’ll let you in on a secret: you can create sub-folders in Logic’s Plug-in Manager easily. A sub-folder is indicated by a colon :.

So Guitar is a folder, and Guitar:Pedals would create a sub-folder under Guitar with the name Pedals. Any level of sub-folder can contain effects. See my plug-in organizer screenshot above for this in action. (EQ, Dynamics, Guitar, Saturation)

A Better organizer

Want even more power over your plugin organization? Go purchase the awesome Auganizer. Even with Logic Pro X’s new plug-in manager, Auganizer offers you a number of features that aid in the organizational process. Particularly with more advanced filtering, search and the fact that it works with all AU hosts.

Transfer settings between systems

If you want your Logic installs on 2 systems to be identical, including plugin manager settings and strips then you need to copy these 2 files:

  • ~/Music/Audio Music Apps/Databases - transfer this entire folder.

  • ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.logic10.plist - transfer just this file.

You can get to these directories easily by opening Finder, Go->Go to Folder (cmd-shift-g) and typing the directory without the filename.

Sample edit stereo files

Meta Events

Logic has events called ‘Meta Events’. These are described in the manual, but it’s a very minor mention.

Basically these are internal controls for Logic. You can create events that triggers actions in Logic like jumping to a marker, switching a screenset, stopping playback, etc…

In the video above I have 2 meta events: Go To Marker and Stop Playback. If you watch the transport at the top you can see it jump from 2.1.1 straight to 6.1.1 (where the marker is). Then at 7.1.1 it stops where the marker is. Rather useful sometimes!

You may note that the playhead doesn’t follow the Go to Marker action. This appears to be a bug.

BONUS

More information on Meta Events:

Automation Event List

Logic has a hidden event list for fine-grained control of automation data. It’s not in a menu and it’s not a button. It’s only accessible via key-command. The default key is Command-Control-E, and it’s listed in the ‘Key Commands’ window under Track Automation Event List...

This window allows you to see every single automation event in a spreadsheet-like manner.

An interesting thing that I discovered is that you can insert midi data and meta events in your automation stream! What practical use this has, I’m not sure of yet, but it surely is something that could come in handy somehow maybe?

Producer Kits

Producer Kits

In another post I talked about the Drummer feature in Logic. I did not cover the bonus ‘Producer Kits’ that are available though.

Logic comes with a number of multi-track sampled drumkits that can be used with the Drummer or naturally with your own MIDI.

For using the ‘Producer Kits’ with a drummer (and assuming that you have the content installed), click the gear in the Drummer editor. It’s near ‘Beat Presets’ and select Keep settings when changing drummers. Now open the Library on the left (it’s the file folder looking icon in the upper left). Browse to Drum Kit->Producer Kits. Select one and go!

In your mixer now you’ll see a little triangle in the lower left of your track. You can click that and expand the multi-channel folder that allows you to access each element of the drum kit. Most of the ‘Producer Kits’ come with a selection of FX already in place, and you can add/remove/adjust those as you wish too.

Most of these actually sound quite decent too, especially for a free download with the software!

Smart Controls

Reaper

Logic’s Smart controls seem dopey at first, but they are far from it. You can assign any controls to one of the 8 available knobs. Multiple controls can be controlled by a single knob, and each mapped control can be scaled, inverted and has its own min/max range value! On top of all of that, smart controls can be automated too.

So let me explain everything that’s happening in the video above…

First some background. I have a plugin called BlackRooster VPR-73. It’s a pre-amp simulation that sounds amazing (go buy it!), but when you turn up the input gain it gets very loud. Naturally you would want to adjust the output gain in reverse to counteract that effect. VPR-73 has this capability built-in by right-dragging the ‘Gain’ knob but…

  • There is a single smart control that controls -
    • Gain - the smart control is mapped 1:1 to the Gain knob.
    • Trim - the smart control is inverted to the trim knob.
    • High shelf - the highshelf is moved slightly by giving it only a +/- 1.5dot range. When the smart control is at max (overdriven preamp!), there’s a very light high shelf boost that makes it brighter. When the smart control is at the minimum value, there’s a high shelf cut that makes it duller.
    • Highpass - The highpass is set to turn on when the ‘Gain’ reaches about 70. With so much overdrive it starts to get a bit muddy, and this automatically highpasses at a certain value.
  • I automate the single control then playback and you can see all of the parameters move in response to a single control!
    • The smart control automation stays static. You can change your mapped parameters without messing up your smart control automation.

All of this is done with a single smart control. You can easily map up a control panel for your track that lets you adjust common effects, or make your own complex macros, all from an easy to access panel.

AAC Simulation

AAC Simulator

Ever wanted to know what your project would sound like encoded to various AAC formats? Well every modern apple system comes with the ‘AARoundTripAAC’ plugin. You can use it in any AudioUnits host like Logic. It’s located in Audio Units->Apple->AARoundTripAAC.

You can select which formats to preview in near-realtime and see information for clipping and intersample peaks.

This isn’t a Logic-specific feature, but as Logic user you are guaranteed to have this capability.

This post took 8 hours to research, photograph, write and edit. If you appreciate the information presented then please consider joining patreon or donating!

Today I’m taking a break from the automation sub-series (which still has life in it) to explore one of the more well-known parts of “DAWs sound different”.

GOTCHA, I’m not.

This article is about a close cousin of the ubiquitously discussed “Pan Law”. Hop on through to see some explanations and hard data.

  • Pan Law: Why?
  • Test!
  • Results

Text article has more information, but the video is faster and probably more fun.

Reaper Themes Logic Pro X Download Free

FUNNY - I actually got bit by the difference between Logic Pro X default pan law and Final Cut Pro pan law. My first upload of this video was 3dB clipped. My first time using the two softwares together, and what an appropriate problem to have.

FUNNY 2 - It’s not clipping in FCPX at all, but it does clip in a few places on youtube despite meeting their level requirements. Ugh.

Clean, fast, simple, easy.

NOTE Some DAWs (bad!) filter DC, otherwise using a DC signal would be a good solution.

All of these tests are using the DEFAULT settings.

Some DAWs have a variety of pan law settings, and I’d go nuts trying to show all the variations available.

If you wish to inspect the results yourself, then download the data, open one of the json files in the zip and paste its contents in the live Vega Editor. That will allow you to inspect absolute values and massage the data a bit if you wish.

Ardour 5.12

-3dB Pan law. Opposing side is compensated. Code is available here.

Automation smoothing at play here. Fade does not end at 96,000 samples.

EDIT: I previous made an error. There’s a bug in Ardour 5.12 where automation plays buffered in touch mode. All other DAWs were tested in play/read mode. I have updated the image above with files ArdourLeft2 and ArdourRight2.

data.zip has been updated as well.

Bitwig 3.03

Bitwig (Click for larger image)

(see conclusion for more about this section)

Bitwig is… broken. Arguably conceptually broken, at least.

The opposing side is over compensated. In the graph you can see that it clips early. Try it with a -3dB mono sine wave yourself, if you hard pan to a side then the opposing side begins to clip quickly.

Bitwig compensates the sides by 4.2dB. Your signal can be boosted by 4.2dB by panning.

The automation is incorrect. I placed the point at exactly 96,000 samples (bar 2 at 120bpm at 48khz), however the fade did not complete till after.

This is the worst of the behaviours I saw.

Cubase 10.5 build 668

Pan Law options available.

  • 0dB
  • -3dB
  • -4.5dB
  • -6dB
  • Equal Power DEFAULT

-3dB center. Opposing side rises to 0dB total change.

Digital Performer 10.0 build 79351

DP (Click for larger image)

-2.5dB center. Opposing side rises to 0dB total change.

FL Studio 20.5.1.522

(see conclusion for more about this section)

0dB center, but opposing side rises +3dB.

This means that panning can cause digital clipping.

Live 10.1.5

Live (Click for larger image)

(see conclusion for more about this section)

0dB center, but opposing side rises +3dB.

This means that panning can cause digital clipping.

Logic 10.4.7

Pan Law options available.

  • 0dB
  • -3dB
  • -3dB Compensated DEFAULT

0dB center, but opposing side rises +3dB.

This means that panning can cause digital clipping.

Logic’s Automation also rears its ugly head again with poor interpolation and late modulation. I had all “Sample Accurate” settings turned on for this test.

Pro Tools 2019.10.0

Pro Tools (Click for larger image)

Pan Law options available.

  • -2.5dB
  • -3.0dB DEFAULT
  • -4.5dB
  • -6.0dB

-3dB center. Opposing side rises to 0dB total change.

That sharp drop appears to be an artifact of Pro Tool’s automation. The scale of the area where you draw the automation is not linear, so a ‘straight line’ ends up with this curve.

Reaper 6.01

Pan Law options available.

  • Variable - You can enter your own center value
    • Optional “Gain Compensation (boost pans)
  • 0.0dB, no gain compensation DEFAULT

Reaper’s default curve is unique. 0db change at center, but it rises about +2dB partially through the sweep then back down to 0dB change at the end.

Quite oddly this means that you could (assuming a >2dbFS peaking signal) potentially cause digital clipping at ~50% pan, but not at 100% pan.

Studio One 4.5.5 build 54904

Reaper Themes Logic Pro X
S1 (Click for larger image)

0dB change at center. No compensation on opposing channel. This is “console-like”, but it’s generally considered to be the least consistent sounding of common methods.

Studio One’s terrible automation system demonstrates itself yet again with late modulation and poor interpolation.

The data I have is there. Don’t trust it. Try it yourself!

When designing these systems there is sometimes a decision between the idealistic solution that assumes an omniscient user, and a practical solution that assumes humanity.

Ideally the default state of the system, “mono” signals panned to the center, would be untouched. This state would mean that pan law would need to boost as the sides are approached. I call this ‘ideal’ because untouched signals are untouched, and the signal is only changed when the user inputs a change (panning).

Unfortunately, we users are often in a rush, unaware or just plain stupid. If the peak of the signal is within the boost margin, we can cause clipping by panning. Practically, not boosting allows the user to operate the pan control without suffering potential negative consequences.

I believe that the design decision should favour common use in scenarios where the idealistic solution is only slightly better. I consider boosted pans to be a poor design.

Logic Pro X Download Free

It’s your choice though. As long as you are informed, you can make good decisions.

Reaper Themes Logic Pro X Download Free Windows 10

This post took 28 hours to research, write and edit.