The Logic Off Topic list

This past Wednesday in Audio Round-Table we discussed 'free softsynths
and softsamplers which
are both cross-platform and sufficient quality to be a standard for
collaboration'
And also disussed some logic techniques . like strip silence and
quantising audio regions.

The session was attended by BetaBrett, remixqueen,  skwawksoun, Jody and
oink.
The following is a substantially edited summary of the forum chat:




  Jody says, "my first round-table!!!"
  Jody says, "what's the topic tonight?"
  oink says,  "free softsynths and softsamplers which
are both cross-platform and sufficient quality to be a standard for
collaboration"
  Jody says, "hmmm..."
  Jody says, "I'm not aware of any free ones."
  oink says,  "for a start , there aint a lot of
cross-platform freebies"
  oink says,  "oh there are a few""
  oink says,  "quite a few, but usually either or"
   oink says,  "mac OR pc"
  Jody says, "right."
  oink says,  "not many are both"
  oink says,  "the sampletank free piano looks like it
qualifies"
  oink says,  "and mda piano"
  Jody says, "really?"
  Jody says, "where do you get them?"
  Jody says, "I grab it right now and plug it in."
  oink says,  "ok best places to start are
www.hitsquad.com/smm/"
  oink says,  "and www.kvr-vst.com"
  oink says,  "my list so far consists of ces synth1,
ces synth2,  ces synth5, sampletank free piano, mda piano [but I cant
get to the download],
loopazoid"
  oink says,  "muon tau. muon atom,"
  oink says,  "and from steinberg, VB-1
  Brett says, "Whew..."
  oink says,  "jan , do you have any other Xplatform
ones ?"
  remixqueen says, "aside from the ones that Sascha mentioned on the
list today no . ."
 oink says,  "what else did he mention, let me check"
 oink says,  "the thing is with things like loopazoid"
  remixqueen says, "i'm interested in a drum one
though . .i have been unscuccessful in finding one of those so have
reverted to using short audio
loops"
  oink says,  "is that they don't include a standard
sample set, as far as I can see"
  oink says,  "so that sorta disqualifies it, in a way"
  oink says,  "VB-1 is a good standard instrument"
  oink says,  "a lot of variation"
  oink says,  "the virtual analog synths are another
kettle of fish"
  oink says,  "I'm not sure they are really useful for
collaboration"
  oink says,  "what do you think jan ?"
  Jody says, "I can't get sampletank to play. :-("
  remixqueen says, "the dx10 i use all the time . .
  remixqueen says, "the ces synths seem unuseable in
the main"
  oink says,  "is the dx10 cross-platform ?"
   remixqueen says, "it's an mda plug in"
  Jody says, "never mind I just figured it out."
 Jody says, "can't have midi channel set to all."
  Jody says, "only allows 3 keys."
  Jody says, "sounds pretty good."
 oink says,  "have you got VB-1 ?"
 oink says,  "VB-1 is bass, get it from that hitsquad
link"
  Jody says, "hold on. I'll grab it."
  Jody says, "though I really prefer real bass."
  oink says,  "of course, but for MIDI collaboration,
thats what were looking at"
  oink says,  "songwriting etc"
   oink says,  "quick and easy for dialup users to
colaborate too"
  oink says,  "leave the audio for the most important
tracks"
  Jody says, "right."
  Jody says, "I like the reverb for sampletank."
  remixqueen says, "can someone explain about DAE,
TDM and rocket?"
  remixqueen says, "and soft synth compatability?"
  Brett says, "All I know is that TDM and non-TDM
aren't compatible... I'm saving my penies for a Mix Plus system"
  oink says,  "oh, you would need to get the TDM
bridge"
  remixqueen says, "and UTM vs split stereo files .
. i'm so confused recently as some users seem to have been posting with
split stereo files"
  oink says,  "OK with split stereo"
  oink says,  "if a song is UTM-off, you need 2channels
in the tracklist"
 oink says,  "they can be linked stereo channels"
  oink says,  "but the 2 channels must be present"
  remixqueen says, "right but when i first got on
rocket i wasa told it only worked using UTM"
  remixqueen says, "now i see so much split stuff"
 oink says,  "with utm-on, you can drop a split stereo
file on a regular stereo channel and it works fine"
  remixqueen says, "is it compatible with DAE now?"
  oink says,  "I don't know if DAE does interleaved or
not, it never used to"
  remixqueen says, "no it doesn't"
  remixqueen says, "so again i was told it wasn't
compatable when i became a rocketeer"
  remixqueen says, "but now i have seen people
posting using it"
  oink says,  "TDM and native sessions aren't all that
compatible, if tehy have TDM plugins, and if users don't know how to
handle UTM-off"
  remixqueen says, "right so how does the PT deal
work?"
  oink says,  "and of course , no VST plugs on TDM
sessions, till now"
  oink says,  "if they are using the TDM bridge"
  remixqueen says, "i thought there was a bridge 4
that?"
  remixqueen says, "ok"
  Jody says, "got the VB-1, working with the
sampletank piano."
  oink says,  "cool, they give a framework"
  Jody says, "put up a file so I can grab it. I'd
like to check something out with it."

  remixqueen says, "exs24 is incred"
  Jody says, "still waiting for my copy."
  remixqueen says, "worth the wait"
  oink says,  "OK, maybe I should try loopazoid"
  Jody says, "I'm also looking into Battery."
  Jody says, "I want to trigger it with midi data
from the V-drum."
 oink says,  "maybe if we gt standard set of samples
posted"

  Jody says, "any body know how to qantize the
objects in the arrange window?"
  remixqueen says, "?"
 oink says,  "in the event list"
  Jody says, "no"
  oink says,  "deselect all"
  oink says,  "open event list"
  remixqueen says, "highlight and use the left top
menu "
  oink says,  "select all"
  remixqueen says, "under midi thru"
  Jody says, "select the ones I want to qantize?"
  remixqueen says, "yes"
  oink says,  "yeh"
  remixqueen says, "and of course change the
quantize figure"
  Jody says, "doesn't work."
  Jody says, "darn."
  Jody says, "It's got a mind of it's own and only
quantizing two of the ones I'm not selecting."
  oink says,  "you are talkin about audio ?"
  Jody says, "I'm trying it on midi, but I'd like to
do it with audio objects."
  Jody says, "say like I cut up a loop or
something."
  oink says,  "with midi it quantises the content, but
not the actual sequence position"
  oink says,  "with audio it should work"
  oink says,  "import a drum file"
  oink says,  "a longish one"
  oink says,  "do 'strip silence'"
  Jody says, "trying it now. I'd like it if logic
could automatically slice it up."
  oink says,  "then go to the event list"
  oink says,  "select all those regions, and quantise
using the q button"
  oink says,  "you'll see em snap"
-  Jody says, "how do I work the strip silence?
forgive my ignorance."
-  oink says,  "logic does"
  oink says,  "audio window"
  oink says,  "select the audio region"
 oink says,  "options/strip silence"
  oink says,  "keycommand ctrlS"
  oink says,  "strip silence window will open"
  Jody says, "got it open, seems to miss the quiet
hits though."
  oink says,  "tweek the threshold and pre-attack
values till the splits look right"
  Jody says, "yup."
  oink says,  "try taking the thereshold down to 1"
  Jody says, "gotcha."
  Jody says, "I'm getting it now."
  Jody says, "I'm feeling like I just learned
something really good to know."
  Jody says, "that splicing and quantize of a loop."
  remixqueen says, "hi paul"
  Jody says, "thanks a bunch. Even after 5 years I
learn something new every time about Logic."
  oink says,  "Jody: strip silence aint ReCycle, but it
comes close"
  remixqueen says, "me too jody (-:"
 remixqueen says, "it's like a big video game (-:"
 Jody says, "and people think I know how to run
this program. :-)"
 Jody says, "I've never used recycle."
  Jody says, "is it better?"
 oink says,  "yeh I guess"
  oink says,  "though it only just went stereo"
  oink says,  "and strip-silence has been stereo for
years"
  Jody says, "I was curious about this cause I know
Pro Tools works this way and wanted logic to do it to."
  Jody says, "now I know."




***********************************************************************
 Disclaimer: I have edited this chat substantially, but done my utmost
to maintain the sense of what was said. This is to be regarded as only a

precis of the actual chat, and any unforseen or contentious inference
that can be drawn form one line to the next, is purely unintentional on
my part, and cannot be attributed to the persons who posted the chat.

***********************************************************************

Dave Eager [oink]