programming — learning at the elbow of the internet

Create Lane ⌥⌘N — Logic Pro keyboard command of the day (KCotD)

  Create Lane    ⌥⌘N

The comparison between lanes in the Step Editor and tracks in the Tracks area is helpful.

The Step Editor should not be confused with the Step Sequencer.

The Step Editor allows you to create detailed editing windows for MIDI events that can contain lots of details that need to be attended to.

Logic Pro Step Editor Overview — Apple Support

Lane: Each MIDI event type, be it a note or MIDI controller, is arranged from top to bottom in horizontal lanes much like the track lanes shown in the Tracks area. The type of event shown, and controlled, on each lane is freely configurable. You do this by setting Lane parameters (for each lane) in the inspector. For more information, see Logic Pro lane parameters overview.

Apply Transform User Preset 30 to selected Events — Logic Pro X keyboard command of the day

  Apply Transform User Preset 30 to selected Events

The 30th of 30 — All the transform commands. Think of them as un-named macros or subroutines in a program.

Select MIDI events and apply the 30th preset to them…

Logic Pro MIDI Transform window overview — Apple Support

The MIDI Transform window is a powerful tool for edits that would otherwise be impossible (or tedious). For example, imagine an orchestral project that has been sent to you for editing. The individual violin and viola parts were recorded with a different string library. Two hundred MIDI regions contain aftertouch information that introduces an unpleasant pitch modulation, and some sample layer switching artifacts when played with your string samples. After looking at this aftertouch information, you discover that only a small range of values is causing the problem. Your options: edit your sampler instruments, manually remove all aftertouch information (region by region, or globally, thus losing the performance benefits that the aftertouch information provides), or alter the problematic values in the MIDI Transform window.

Logic Pro MIDI Transform presets overview — Apple Support

The table below describes the operations performed by the MIDI Transform window presets in Logic Pro.

Apply Transform User Preset 19 to selected Events — Logic Pro X keyboard command of the day

#LogicProX @StudioIntern1

  Apply Transform User Preset 19 to selected Events

This is one of the 30 user transform commands. There are two ways to apply transforms — “Apply Transform” and “Select and Operate”. Looking at the Transform window I see that there are the options to “Select Only”, “Operate Only”, and “Select and Operate”. Sort of like PERL for MIDI events 😉

The best introduction I could find for MIDI Transform Sets is the table that describes the pre-defined transforms. The operations and selection criteria help me to understand what is possible.

Logic Pro MIDI Transform presets overview — Apple Support

The table below describes the operations performed by the MIDI Transform window presets in Logic Pro.

Logic Pro MIDI Transform window overview — Apple Support

The MIDI Transform window is so-named because it transforms MIDI events—based on conditions, operations, and values you choose—into different types of events, or events with different values.

⇧ SHIFT – ⌃ CONTROL – ⌥ OPTION – ⌘ COMMAND

Region Automation: Program Change — Logic Pro X keyboard command of the day

Logic Pro X keyboard command of the day. #LogicProX @StudioIntern1

  Region Automation: Program Change

One of the vast array of things that can be automated.

I thought things might get confusing if there were program change events in a region and automation was used to make a program change. No, it’s not. The “automation” is accomplished with Program Change events. If you create an automation point the event is inserted in the region.

The Region Automation commands as found in the Key Commands are not the only things that can be automated. Any MIDI event can be programmed for any channel. It’s a different way of adding events to the MIDI region.

Region-based vs. track-based automation — Logic Pro X

Logic Pro offers two types of automation: track-based automation, and region-based automation. Track-based automation can be applied to the entire track, from the beginning to the end of your project. Region-based automation only applies to the specific region the automation parameters are connected to. With track-based automation, if you re-record, move or copy regions (either to another point on the same track, or to another track) the automation data remains tied to the initial point on the track in which it was created. With region-based automation, if you re-record the region, the automation is lost; if you move or copy the region (either to another point on the same track, or to another track) the automation remains with the region. Region-based automation is particularly useful when you are automating instrument parameters.

Show automation curves — Logic Pro X

Before you can add automation points to a track’s automation curves, you need to show the automation curves. Automation curves are displayed as colored curves and points on top of audio and MIDI regions across the track, running the length of the project. You can choose whether to view and edit automation across the track (track-based automation) or only within the track’s regions (region-based automation).

⇧ SHIFT – ⌃ CONTROL – ⌥ OPTION – ⌘ COMMAND

Command    Key Touch Bar


- Views Showing Time Ruler


Region Automation: Volume


Region Automation: Panorama


Region Automation: Balance


Region Automation: Modulation


Region Automation: Breath


Region Automation: Foot Control


Region Automation: Portamento Time


Region Automation: Expression


Region Automation: Sustain Pedal


Region Automation: Control Change 20


Region Automation: Control Change 21


Region Automation: Control Change 22


Region Automation: Control Change 23


Region Automation: Control Change 24


Region Automation: Control Change 25


Region Automation: Control Change 26


Region Automation: Control Change 27


Region Automation: Control Change 28


Region Automation: Control Change 29


Region Automation: Control Change 30


Region Automation: Control Change 31


Region Automation: Control Change 32


Region Automation: Surround Angle


Region Automation: Surround Diversity


Region Automation: Surround LFE


Region Automation: Channel Pressure


Region Automation: Pitch Bend


Region Automation: Program Change


Region Automation: Note Velocity

Dates and Times — been a struggle since before time began

Scripting News: Saturday, June 9, 2018

One of the things I’m learning is that there is are problems with date-time values. The question is whether or not the date part of the date-time should have hyphens. The Frontier implementation does not. The XML-RPC spec says not. But ISO 8601 seems to say they must be present. The built-in JavaScript function includes the hyphens. I don’t have any other implementations that I can easily check against, so I don’t know what offers the most interop with other XML-RPCs. For now I’m documenting the issue, and leaving the JavaScript implementation as it is, for now. This means in this area it does not interop with Frontier, in that Frontier will not understand the JavaScript date-time values. Going in the other direction there is no problem, because I’ve included a workaround.

Unreal. Fourteen years ago a standard was published (ISO 8601:2004) which clearly defined how things should be. Problem is that software developers do not spend their lives re-implementing “standard” software for the rest of their lives.

ISO gave us (back in 2004) this format 20180609T221145Z

What the world wants now is this format 2018-06-09T22:11:45+00:00 (we avoid timezone abbreviations and geo-political nonsense)

I retired from the big data world in 2004, so I never would have had cause to change my preferred world – 20180609T221145Z. To tell the truth, since just before 2000-01-01 I actually preferred the “Astronomical (Julian) day number (at noon UTC): 2458279.5” which for my machines this morning worked out to 2458279.03405093.

From the wikipedia we see

November 17, 1858, 00:00:00 UT is the zero of the Modified Julian Day (MJD) equivalent to Julian day 2400000.5[23]

and we all basically know that the VMS clock started there 😉 In earlier times (snicker) I discovered the “bad things” that would happen if one entered a proper geocentric clock offset in a TOPS-10 system — I mean, c’mon, I had it right within 200 yards. All hell broke loose in all time-based things. Wonder why it required an OS rebuild to set/change that value.

As a reminder to anyone who uses a database that I have built — 20180609 — is not a date, nor is 2018060915270001 — but it is a very fast integer index 😉 I can’t insert things in my databases faster than 10,000 per second. I learned the hard way that telescope telemetry databases surely can 😉

Ahhh, dates. I would rather slip the bass DI track by 87 samples so it lines up with the bass amp track these days.