Logic Pro 9 MIDI recording fail

peterlemer

Logician
Controller is seen by transport meter, in the Environment the monitor sees input MIDI, I can see the channel strip meter react and I can hear the sound!

Ditto if I create a new instrument track.
Ditto if I try recording on my trusty Klopfgeist track.

but...

when in Record no region is created.

Loading another song, everything works as it should, it's specific to this song, which has been fine for several daysworth of working.

SO either something in the project settings is amiss or I have a corrupt song or I've missed something stupid.

any ideas?

pete
 
If you want to upload it, I can try and take a look and see if anything jumps out at me that could be the potential cause of the problem.
 
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Hi Eli, thanks for offer. I've stripped the project down to a minimum, all there is is a clicktrack - I still can't record on it, although it responds to my keyboard input.

Here it is:

pete
 

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Juan - not sure I understand.... any track I select is bright grey. If I hold {shift} and select another track, then both are bright grey. Is this a key command I don't know about?

pete
 
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Whenever I record onto a regular (i.e., non-software instrument) MIDI track, I record an audio track (of the same instrument) at the same time. That way, I can monitor the audio track without having to deal with the latency introduced by monitoring a software instrument. When the recording is finished, I edit the MIDI track, then copy it onto a new software instrument track. I mute the original audio and MIDI tracks, and bounce the software instrument track when I want to burn a CD.

I had a similar problem with the MIDI track not recording when only the "arm track" red button was illuminated. If I [shift-click] the original audio and MIDI tracks, it seems to work more consistently. This is not something I found in a manual, but it may be mentioned somewhere. It is just what works for me.
 
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Hey Pete,

I just opened your project and found the problem right away. And I found it quickly only because I was suffering from a similar situation just today during a looong session!

Your autopunch locators are enabled. Just disable them and you'll be fine. It's easy to miss it when they are off screen and you don't have the autopunch indicator visible in the transport. Customize your transport to show it and you can easily see when it is on and then just as easily disable it. When autopunch is enabled, it reserves recording for only that specifically defined range.

I was doing a vocal recording session today with a million punch ins. I was doing some as punch on the fly, and other tight ones with autopunch. And inevitably after an autopunch recording we'd move on to another section of the song where I planned to punch in on the fly and forgot to turn autopunch off. D'oh!!! :brkwl:
 
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Amazing! I never use autopunch, which is why it isn't on my transport.
However, the Key Command is 'D'! is that a standard default?
I must've pressed 'D' on my travels and fallen into this hole 🙂

That command is now deleted!

thanks a mill...

pete
 
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Jaun - that's an interesting workflow.
Can I assume that you're using an external MIDI instrument and basically recording its audio output along with a MIDI backup? I certainly do that when I'm recording with a band where my external instrument is part of the setup. The audio is in synch with the band, and the MIDI is there to help with any edits.

However, in that scenario I monitor the actual external instrument, since that's what I and the other players hear.

Is this something like you describe?

pete
 
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Hey Pete,

In Logic's old days, autopunch used to be called autodrop, or just "drop" recording. So, maybe some incarnation of Logic had D as the key command for "drop". I'm not sure what the default is. I use command option P (for punch). That way it's not something I can easily hit accidentally.

Except I still have occasional accidents! I have Control Option P set for toggling pre fader metering; and sometimes my finger's "muscle memory" goes to the wrong modifiers 😀
 
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The first word processor I learned only had hotkeys, there were no menu drop-downs (that was at a time when I needed a Z-80/CPM alternate processor/OS setup on an Apple IIe). My next word processor used a totally different set of hot keys, but it had a robust set of drop-down menus, so I moved away from the hot key thing. Logic has so many "shortcuts" that a slip of a finger can make all sorts of windows start popping up..and change things from what a user has become accustomed to.

[Peter...]

Juan - that's an interesting workflow.
Can I assume that you're using an external MIDI instrument and basically recording its audio output along with a MIDI backup?
Yes, I use an external keyboard, a Yamaha P-155. I also have a Kurzweil 2600x, but its touch does not emulate an acoustic piano's as well as the P-155.

Monitoring the output of the keyboard itself would certainly be possible, but there is virtually no discernable delay using software monitoring. It also means overdubbing additional tracks while monitoring the pre-recorded ones is no problem.

I have several ways of setting up latency-free monitoring using external gear, but the method I described was actually for my wife, who has never read a Logic manual! The idea was, if she could not hear the piano (the P155 is muted by inserting a dummy TRS plug into its headphone output), she would not waste time thinking she was recording a great take..only to discover she forgot to enable the red "record" button.

She also records her piano composer buddy. Neither ever use a click track. The score editor is totally out of whack, and the piano roll editor also does not line up in perfect corn rows. But neither of them are playing in strict tempo. Molto rubato y appassionatamente, s'il vous plait.
 
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She also records her piano composer buddy. Neither ever use a click track. The score editor is totally out of whack, and the piano roll editor also does not line up in perfect corn rows. But neither of them are playing in strict tempo. Molto rubato y appassionatamente, s'il vous plait.

ha! I'm just about getting proficient at making those dots and blobs line up to make sense and printable. 🙂

hate the work, though

pete
 
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I still have occasional accidents! I have Control Option P set for toggling pre fader metering; and sometimes my finger's "muscle memory" goes to the wrong modifiers 😀

what we samurai need is a heads-up display of all key assignments and status.

🙂

pete
 
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what we samurai need is a heads-up display of all key assignments and status.

A color coded keyboard, with all Logic's key-commands is available, but I use both Pro Tools and Logic, and to buy both of them would be over $200. It is also possible to map the Logic key-commands to the Pro Tools key-commands, but that would be too easy. Why not just keep it incomprehensible so there is always something to change in the upgrades?

Isn't [option-K] the key command into all the current assignments? The search command in there is helpful when doing the same thing over and over again. I went to a trackball after [click-holding] the mouse selections whacked my wrist.
 
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> Why not just keep it incomprehensible so there is always something to change in the upgrades?

My defence against incomprehensibilityness is to stick to the original key commands from Creator ( or was it steinberg pro-16?) and keep a clove of garlic by my monitor

pete 🙂
 
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