Logic Pro 8 Anchors

[peterlemer]

I'm trying to understand what anchors are and what they're used for.
AIUI, they are created whenever I cut an audio region, and they appear to the left of the region in the sample window.

I can slide it to the right within the boundaries of the region - what happens if I do that? I haven't noticed any difference

peter ( speed reading the manual again )

 

[leytonnz]

anchors are your regions "sticky point".. ie where the region thinks it is starting from, thus at which point it wants to stick in the arrange page grid.

and where logic reads its "head" is

try this..
take a piece of audio( say a drum loop NB not an apple loop) and cut it on a downbeat ( beat one) of a bar.. (say bar 103 in pictures attached)
open that audio and move the anchor to be where the snare is ( beat two)
now go back to the arrange and you will see that the audio has moved so the snare is on beat one of the bar( because logic assumes you want the anchor to "stick" to where you first cut the region) and the first kick will now be on beat 4 of the previous bar.

now move that region and logic will think that anchor ( on the snare) is where you want to stick to in the arrange.



another example

a reverse cymbal audio file
we would want this to reach the end of the file ( where the crescendo has loudest and finishing) before the first beat of the next bar.. we could just move the audio file around until it sounds right OR we open it in the sample editor move the anchor to the end of the file or crescendo NOW logic thinks that the region sticks at that new anchor point.. move the region until logic says its on the first beat of the bar and the head of the region will actually be before it..

NB compensate region position( in sample editor) needs to be off for this to happen.. try the drum loop example with it on to see waht happens.

someone will put that into words better im sure.. jeekers

 

[Pete Thomas]

Exactly.

I use anchors all the time.

Often with saxophone riffs. I might play a phrase just before the beat, so if I chop that region on the beat (say 3.1.1.1), the initial attack of the note is before the region. My method is to hold option while moving back the region start triangle. This keeps the anchor right on the beat but the sound before the anchor. When I look at the region in arrange, it still shows at 3.1.1.1

This makes moving and looping such regions a bit easier IMO.