Logic Pro 9 Come on logic, why can't i do this on logic but can on another older software...

First things first, i use DP5.13 about 90% of the time, but have to use logic when doing remote sessions.

First thing that i can't seem to figure out, is being able to easily and quickly do a fade on, lets say, 10 drum tracks at the same time. i've tried grouping the drums and then trying the fade tool, ive tried selecting all the drum tracks at the same time, and that doesn't work, i've tried selecting all the faders on the mixer and that doesn't work, and i've tried all thee above at the same time, and that didn't work. so how can this be done, and don't tell me that Logic can't fade multiple tracks at once? that'd just be silly, time is money when recording, and as far as logic is concerned with their fades, they want you to waste time instead of save it, can anyone help me with this? in DP5.13 (digital performer, if you're not aware of what DP is) i can select all the audio i want to the grid or not to the grid, as precise as i want, and with one hot key, can fade everything select and control fade curve as well all in under 2 seconds, prob around 1 second, since i've been doing it so much in the past years. i don't know about you, but thats wayyyy more convenient, better work flow, faster cutting/fading of noisy guitars silence (which i know a gate can be used, but manually cutting is more accurate).

which also brings up, just cutting audio out in general, all i've really been able to find when trimming audio i don't want, or shortening drum ring outs and buzz of guitars on the beginning and end of the song, and just other places in general i want to cut out real fast. the only ways i've seen to do this is, getting the scissor tool, and also trimming. well, you can't trim a multiple take track until you "flatten and merge" it, (which is seems you've got to do that to each track individually... way to go apple...) and then after that you can select how ever many tracks you want to trim and what not, so thats not sooo bad, but not even close to what i can do in DP5. scissor tool can do cuts, but i can't seem to find the hot key that allows the scissor tool to "not snap to a grid" i just want to free hand cut things, and i want to get them close. and then easily fade the outs of the cuts if needed. HOW can i just take my mouse, highlight an area on one or as many tracks as i want, and cut out what's been selected? i know this is possible, because i do it everyday on my 4 year old software, is there a hot key i need to hit to do this? when using scissors, i need to cut the the tracks, and then select them and hit the delete button, and maybe trim up the tracks if the scissor didn't cut as close as i wanted to, so thats 4 steps when in my day to day software its only one step.

another pet peave of this software, is not able to have more than one interface easily hooked to it through the settings, i guess you can use the apple audio/midi settings and setup a combined interface deal and use that as the interface to be selected in logic, but it doesn't tell you what any of the inputs or outputs really are, it's like a guessing game, in dp, i can have how ever many hooked up, and when i select an input to use, it'll tell me the name of interface and name of input from that interface, its not just "analogue 1" or "adat 1" like logic seems to like to do, unless you manually waste time naming the inputs... yeah, thats awesome, especially if you use multiple interfaces for different applications and on location recordings.

WHERE CAN I GET A POP OUT INPUT LEVEL METER THAT SHOWS ME AN ACCURATE INPUT LEVEL FROM MY INTERFACES? in dp5 i've got a nice resizeable input level meter, and i get my level to peak at about -3, and on logic, the level meter isn't so friendly, it'll read .1 and 2.0 and just doesn't allow me to get what i feel is an accurate input level "to tape". since the level meters are very small and reads (to me) unusable random numbers, a dumb thing to say, but when i've been using an input meter on DP for 4 years, that i extend to about 10" high so i get very accurate reading, and shows me all the input numbers/names at the bottom, and shows and leaves where there's an input peak, pretty much spoiled me when trying to get usable accurate levels in logic. can anyone help me with that?

pasting is a huge pain as well, i wanted to past two drum tracks to be exactly lined up with the original, but on two new tracks, so i could do different compression and eq on them to beef of the original track, so i copied one, and then put my used the mouse to pretty much select the part of the track where i wanted it to be pasted, but didn't work, i think it ended up pasting it on a completely different track, so i tried clicking somewhere else, and selecting that channel on the mixer and it pasted it on the right track this time, but NO WHERE NEAR where i wanted it to go, i mean, come on now, why can't i click on the mouse on the part of the grid where i want to paste something? is that too much to ask?

this is a huge problem i had the other day, and i was lucky to have had copies of the session on two other harddrives, but all the songs where on one session. it was recorded pretty much live, and i separated each song by just a bit of space between each song. so i was going through, "manually flattening and merging" all the tracks so i could actually "trim" the endings and beginings, and i hit the triangle in the top right of the audio track for a kick drum on one song, and hit flatten and merge, and then the song right after it, just had one kickdrum track disappear, the whole band watched as this happened, and i went into the undo menu, and didn't say anything about deleting a kick drum track, on the screen, just showed a very small grey/white track with nothing on it, and i tried to drag it out, incase it just trimmed itself down or something, but that didn't work, and then i did flatten and merge to another track on the previous song, and it did it again to another track on the next song.

I don't hate logic, i like the sounds i get out of the mix buss, and i like some of the eqs, (though i hate how they're setup up, i'd rather have round knobs for the q,gain, and freq selection...) but still there's way too many things that make this not great for fast precise tracking and mixing IMO. it appears to be great for midi ****, but not for audio, at least compared to my 4 year old software that i use everyday, that is.
 
First thing that i can't seem to figure out, is being able to easily and quickly do a fade on, lets say, 10 drum tracks at the same time. i've tried grouping the drums and then trying the fade tool, ive tried selecting all the drum tracks at the same time, and that doesn't work, i've tried selecting all the faders on the mixer and that doesn't work, and i've tried all thee above at the same time, and that didn't work. so how can this be done,

Why not just route the audio channel strips your multitrack drums are playing on to an aux channel strip, and use it's fader to make your volume adjustments, fades or whatever?

It would be very nice if you could be a little more brief and succinct in describing the other issues you are having. In fact, it would probably make it easier to answer them ;)

kind regards

Mark
 
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1) Fading ten drum tracks: I like Markdvc's suggestion of busing to an aux channel.

2) Cutting and trimming: the "marquee" tool lets you select across multiple tracks.

3) Inputs and output naming: just name the jacks you use most often.

4) Input level meter: I use outboard mic pres if I need to set accurate levels.

5) Pasting at original position: select "paste at original position."

6) Recording more than one song: if you can't stop between songs, split the session into as many separate projects as you have songs before you start editing it. You can use Waveburner to string it all together when your individual songs are perfect.
 
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Quickest fading:

Select all drum (audio) tracks in arrange.

In the Track Inspector, to the left, go to Fade - Out and to the right of those items click and drag the mouse to determine length of the fade-out.

Adjust the curvature of the fadeout by clicking to the right of "Curve" (below), and dragging to adjust the value.

Quick and simple.
 
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Quickest fading:

Select all drum (audio) tracks in arrange.

In the Track Inspector, to the left, go to Fade - Out and to the right of those items click and drag the mouse to determine length of the fade-out.

Adjust the curvature of the fadeout by clicking to the right of "Curve" (below), and dragging to adjust the value.

Quick and simple.

This is the way I do it unless I want to create an aux. Although if I did have 10 drum tracks ,90% of the time I would create an aux for them
 
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it appears to be great for midi ****, but not for audio, at least compared to my 4 year old software that i use everyday, that is.

This is typical of what I say when I first switch to a new piece of software and expect it to work in the same way as what I'm used to. I find it takes quite a bit of sitting down and reading the manual rather than expect it to do things in the same way. Often I find it does all the things I need (and often quicker), but I just need to learn to find those different ways of working and get used to them.

One problem is often the that the nomenclature is different, in which case the manual can be quite frustrating. I even find it frustrating looking up words in the Logic 9 manual index that have changed since Logic 7.
 
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Exactly Pete. Paperttigerbob, the problem is that when you have software for 4 years that yo use everyday, it trains you to think the way it thinks, so when you go to another app and it does things differently on a gut level you think, "Well, that's wrong!"
 
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The "crossfade" tool does a good job of adjusting individual fades. For multiple tracks, I click "view" in the arrange window, then turn on "track automation." This example is for volume automation. The red colored tracks can be assigned to a group if I want the node edit to affect all the tracks. If I take the same tracks out of a group, I can modify each volume automation individually.


The dark shaded areas represent fades created with the "crossfade" tool, the yellow lines the volume automation.
 

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Regarding the meter, there is a very useful free meter - Free-G from Sonalksis:
http://www.sonalksis.com/freeg.htm

I haven't tried it on an Input Channel Strip, but I usually have Free-G and/or Waves PAZ on the Output Channel Strip to keep any eye on levels (PAZ also gives other information, such as phase and stereo spread).

Cheers,
mk3
 
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Chuckled when I read the complaint that Logic won't fade multiple tracks in one move, because that is one of the things that used to bug me about Pro Tools compared with Logic - unless you "Group" the tracks in PT, the fades are independent. In Logic I always select the regions I want to fade and type in the number in "Fade Out" (or "Fade In") in the track inspector in the top left corner of the screen. So easy to (for example) select a whole track full of chopped up bits and crossfade them into each other all in one step!
 
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I guess there still are a few lingering DP niceties like the fade thing that I miss when using Logic but these days if I'm in DP I feel slow and clunky. It definitely used to be the other way around. I'll have to try the fade tool on folder trick. That sounds like it won't work but I'll give it a go!
 
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