Logic Pro 9 Any good work-arounds for Pro Tools HD's 'Trim Mode' ?

Ru_C

Logician
'Trim-mode' on automation (& VCA's too) , are the two things I think i'm missing most on my Logic Vs PTHD experiment.

How do you resourceful Logic Pro's do it?

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I'd like some clues on this too. I cut my automating teeth on SSL twenty years ago and have been waiting for VCA groups and a trim mode since I first started using audio in Logic. 95% of the people I've badgered about this haven't the faintest idea what I'm talking about...
 
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Post-fade send the automated track to an Aux? Keep the automation on the track, use the fader and pans on the Aux track to control overall level, pan etc.

Or maybe you could build something in the Environment to add/subtract the level of a fader from the automation being sent to the channel fader. I'd need to try that myself, I'm not sure of the signal flow of track automation in the environment.

I like the Aux idea better. Simple and easy to build a template track around.
 
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I've been down this route. On a biggish mix (say 120 tracks) you quickly generate a confusing mess. Try going back to it a month later and work out what's routed where and what levels are automated where. There's a reason Digi omitted this stuff from PT LE - it's a really compelling reason to spend the big bucks.
 
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Trimming the entire track is easy. When viewing the tracks automation you'll see in the track header a vertical yellow line that represents the level. To trim the entire track Command click on it and raise or lower it the amount of trim you need.
 
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And trimming individual sections is (relatively) easy too. But suppose you have a collection of tracks (say, a block of backing vocals) all with their own volume automation and you want to dynamically automate their volumes as a group - perhaps to fade them out. There are a number of solutions to this, all of which are very much more complicated than using VCA groups. They would include bussing all tracks to the same aux and automating that or inserting extra gain plugs on each track and automating them. Current automation grouping writes the same values to all tracks in the group and is generally not very helpful - a proper trim mode here would certainly help.
 
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Yeah, Roger knows where i'm coming from here. Using busses etc is a slightly different thing, & trimming a section with a mouse, is again not the same feel as writing trim information with a control surface, whilst the track plays back.

I've been generally super-impressed with Logic 9 since i've been testing it over the last month. It pretty much does everything that my PTHD rig does now.

I think this may be one of the last areas that it's lacking in ( & the way you can't undo a simple fader movement - Doh !)

The environment thing sounds interesting, however i'm too much of a newbie to start tackling that yet !
 
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Yeah, Roger knows where i'm coming from here. Using busses etc is a slightly different thing, & trimming a section with a mouse, is again not the same feel as writing trim information with a control surface, whilst the track plays back.

...

I think this may be one of the last areas that it's lacking in ( & the way you can't undo a simple fader movement - Doh !)

For me, using a Gain plug on tracks or subs covers most of what I need, and can be done with Live automation feel. I totally agree about the lack of Undo on Fader moves - that is a huge PITA, and I've had to Save As, go back to Project backups, and fuss, just to get back levels that I'd screwed up. Oh year, and some proper automation snapshot functionality too....
 
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I agree with Jonperl. inserting a gain plug-in and treating that as your Trim will work well. It is an extra step compared to PT, but will yield the same results. In some cases it may be an advantage in instances where your Trim would need to go above the Faders +6 limit.
 
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It's a single extra step if you're dealing with a single track. It's potentially multiple extra steps if you're dealing with multiple tracks. Like, for example, when a producer says "can we turn all the (many) vocals up a bit? A bit more? And now put verse 2 back where it was?" If you have all your vocals on a VCA group, which would be many people's standard practice, it's completely trivial. Without VCA groups this can take forever, by which time you've probably forgotten what it sounded like before.
 
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If you want a VCA Fader, then bus all the vocals to an Aux Fader. In the example you've just asked about the results would be the same, and the clutter would be no different than PT.

If you want to ride individual Trims like you can in PT, then select all the vocal tracks at once in the mixer, add the gain plug-in and then flip your faders. automate the gain and then when the producer says he liked it the way you had it mixed before bypass the gain plug-ins.

I'm not a spokesman for Logic, nor am I saying these aren't a workaround by comparison. Just offering suggestions and help on what I would do. I understand the extra work involved. Logic is no Pro Tools... But that's also why I like it better.
 
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If you want a VCA Fader, then bus all the vocals to an Aux Fader.

I find that VCA's are something one uses, *as well* as bussing tracks. Sometimes they can be used interchangeably (like just grouping some BV's) other times (like quickly pulling down different kinds of tracks, that are already bussed too) they really come into there own.

I have to admit, before i used PTHD extensively, I didn't really understand how brilliant they are for final mix tweaking.

The same with a true 'Trim' mode, that lets you re-tweek the same vocal rides, using less eyes, more ears 🙂
 
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Yep, agreed on all points. The topology in Logic just doesn't take that level of mixing into account. unfortunately so I might add. I will mention this though. if you are new to Logic, the automation is sooo much better now than it used to be.

They keep making great improvements though. There's always next year ; )

cheers,
 
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If you want a VCA Fader, then bus all the vocals to an Aux Fader. In the example you've just asked about the results would be the same, and the clutter would be no different than PT.

Presupposing that all the tracks in the group require exactly the same sends. In the example that I gave earlier (all the vocals) this would be pretty unusual, at least in my mixes.

If you want to ride individual Trims like you can in PT, then select all the vocal tracks at once in the mixer, add the gain plug-in and then flip your faders. automate the gain and then when the producer says he liked it the way you had it mixed before bypass the gain plug-ins.

Not sure what you mean by 'flip your faders' but I get the general idea. And sure, you can eventually achieve the same end. But in this example with a big time penalty (depending on how many tracks we're talking about). And, in other examples that have been given, at the expense of greater routing complexity.

I confess that my 'need' for VCA groups and proper trim is born, at least in part, from a deeply ingrained modus operandi learned two decades ago. But plainly they are facilities that can save a great deal of time, particularly if you're handling the 100+ tracks that modern production processes often spawn.
 
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