Logic Pro 9 What's the word on Flex?

Rafa

Logician
Dear Logic colleagues,

I'm starting this thread to gather information about this new feature in Logic 9. I know lately I've been kind of a maniac, posting every single issue I had with it, but Flex is a major novelty and I think everybody would benefit from a general discussion about it.

Even with very limited Flex time experience, I must say I have no intention of going back to "scissors & crossfade editing", everything that actually got done with this tool sounded amazing! Considering the "tight - loose" spectrum of editing possibilities, Flex allowed me to reach, with very little effort, intermediate stages in this range - something I have never even considered possible before L9.
The problem for me is that Flex tool seems to be riddled with bugs! So I'm starting this thread to encourage Logic users to share their Flex time experiences, good and bad, so that in a near future we can all benefit from a smoking, top notch upgrade!

So what's the word on Flex?

:confused:
Rafa
 
Random pops

Sometimes, after I activate Flex on a channel, it will produce random pops on the track.

I have no idea how to reproduce it, and I must say it happens very rarely. The strange thing is that the pops are appear to be written in the audio file. Others have reported the same thing.

Here's the thread started by daveboy:
https://logic-users-group.com/forums/threads/flex-audio-leaving-random-pops.1415/

Macbook Pro 2.53Ghz Intel Core Duo, 4GB Ram, MOTU Ultralite mk3,MacOS 10.5.8, Logic 9.
 
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Re-appearing Flex markers

Sometimes Flex will split a note in two with an unnecessary marker. And very often, when I try to drag that note, a new flex marker appears exactly where it was previously (always over a transient line) after I deleted it.
This happens all the time. What I do now is: I move the note and delete the marker after.
Maybe this is how its supposed to be, but if it is, it's certainly very weird.
 
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Merging regions in grouped + flex activated tracks

I've tried to "merge regions per track" on tracks that were grouped and flex activated, and it NEVER works. The "old, unmerged" regions stay beneath the newly created audio file, and it's also impossible to separate them by dragging because they always get dragged together.

The only real safe way I learned to use flex is in flattened and merged comps.

A similar difficulty was reported by akinch in this thread: https://logic-users-group.com/forums/threads/take-folders-flex-wackiness.1586/
 
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Glue tool + flex = magic!

This is my latest discovery.
I muted the pop created by Flex on a bass track and carried on with my editing. After a lot of turning Flex on and off, moving notes about I found out that the region I created around the pop was gone, there was just a blank space over where it was supposed to be. I can't really say that I didn't do it myself, accidentally, but very rarely (almost never) I mess up my own edits, so I have some reason to believe that it happened by the obscure forces of Flex.
So i gave up trying to eliminate the pop during the editing process, and decided to leave it there. When I tried to heal the separation I created in order to mute the pop, all my subsequent edits from that point on vanished! No more green and orange notes, gluing the regions together made edits disappear.
This happens ALL THE TIME. 100% reproducible.
 
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Is This a Bug?

As Flex is new to me I am not sure if what I am experiencing is a bug.

I started with a new LP9 project, and imported 2 waves on seperate tracks that need 'slight' timing adjustments. I turned on flex view and then selected monophonic, LP 9 then analyzed them, and when it was done my waves were highlighted in Orange?

Doesnt this mean I stretched them? which i did not, i didnt even touch them. I recall the book showing the wave just greyish, then turning green if you squash, and orange/red if you stretch.
 
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Rafa said:
Sometimes, after I activate Flex on a channel, it will produce random pops on the track.

I have no idea how to reproduce it, and I must say it happens very rarely. The strange thing is that the pops are appear to be written in the audio file.

Whenever experiencing pops or other artifacts using Flex, I always recommend double-clicking the region to open it up in the Sample Editor and making sure all the Transient Markers are where you want them to be. If you find that some of the Transients were detected off the beat or the like move them manually. This will help you get the best results.

Orren
 
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Originally Posted by akinch
I turned on flex view and then selected monophonic, LP 9 then analyzed them, and when it was done my waves were highlighted in Orange?

Are they all orange all the way through, or just a few notes?
 
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perplexed with da flex

ok, it is 2 seperate mono wave files. I recorded an acoustic gtr with 2 mics. hence the grouping to keep phase aligned. I just looked again and basically the colors are totally random. for instance the top wave starts off orange thru a bunch of transient markers, then no color thru a bunch of transient markers, then some green thru a bunch of transient markers. the bottom wave has orange then some green in same spot where the top wave has some red...lol, and then get this, there are some spots where the color changes from orange to green BETWEEN transient markers :errr: again brand new project, only 2 wave files in it.
 
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This is new to me--I'm in an older project (from 8), and I press the "Flex" button, and nothing happens--the little buttons don't pop on the channels. I need to speed up this project. It's worked fine up to this point on old projects.
 
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okay--after a restart, i can now select flex mode on the channel/track dropdown menu to the left, even though the buttons don't come on under the channels. This wasn't available earlier, only "follow project tempo," which aliased the bass really bad...guess it's working.
 
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akinch, you've just won first prize on the "Flex conundrum contest"! I was stunned to hear that the colors change by no apparent reason, but how come there are red lines over the waveform in Flex view?

Did you try setting some of the markers to neutral position?
 
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so it is a bug

ok, I wasnt sure if what it was doing was right or not. Im not sure if it is red or orange, its redish orangish......what ever color, it is saying I compressed the wave but i did not? anyone have any ideas?

if the transient marker info is stored in the wave file itself, could it be that when i imported the wave, since it was not 'recorded' in LP9, there was info added to it previously??

also in the manual I couldnt find the difference between the lite grey markers, and the solid white ones....
 
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I just encountered similar issues on a session last night. Flex started colouring waveforms in a pretty random pattern, later I found out that it was a graphic glitch, in my case the sound wasn't compressed at all. I've been having this issues since L8, where the graphics get messed up by apparent reason, so I scroll up and down and it gets fixed.
Same thing happened with Flex last night, the waveforms were coloured randomly, but with a bit of scrolling about it vanished (which is very freakin' weird and kinda nerve-racking, but O.K, If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around...)
 
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Originally posted by akinch

ok, I wasnt sure if what it was doing was right or not. Im not sure if it is red or orange, its redish orangish......what ever color, it is saying I compressed the wave but i did not? anyone have any ideas?

Did you try setting the markers to neutral position?
 
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Get yo freak on with da Flex

Hello dear friends!

I have more news from the twilight zone, from the sheriff of freakville, the master of illusion, the lord of the wring - the Flex tool!

I'm sending two screenshots, the first shows two regions with a x-fade between them. The second show what happens to the x-fade when Flex is on. This really sucks when you're trying to remove the pops generated by "Mr.X da flex"

Cheers
 

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