Tag: VCA

Show/Hide VCA — Logic Pro X keyboard command of the day

  Show/Hide VCA

Shows or hides the VCA section on the channel strips. When a channel is assigned to a VCA it will appear in the VCA _slot_ (I don’t have a better term for it).

The VCA _slot_ is a pop-up control that will let you assign a channel to a VCA, create a new VCA, or remove the VCA assignment.

I would normally use a Folder Stack to create a VCA for several **tracks**, but that limits the ability to place those tracks into Summing Stacks.

I would use a VCA to control volume (after processing) and muting. Given the particular problems of stacks it would probably be easier to put the channels in a group and limit what actions the group does.

It really depends on what will be done with the channels.

Use VCA groups in the Logic Pro Mixer — Apple Support

Hardware mixing desks sometimes contain separate channels designed specifically to enable the engineer to submix—in other words, to route and control the signal flow of multiple channels at once using a single channel strip. Analog mixing desks often utilize Voltage Controlled Amplifiers (VCAs) in their circuitry for these submix channels, hence the name “VCA groups” for this kind of channel strip. You can use VCA channel strips to control the volume, or automate a submix, of tracks that are assigned to the VCA group.

Flatten Track Stack for Selected Channel Strips — Logic Pro X keyboard command of the day

  Flatten Track Stack for Selected Channel Strips

Removes the tracks from the track stack, and remove the stack channel strip from the mixer. NB that when you remove a stack the channel strip _moves_ to the normal location for an AUX channel or a VCA.

I assume that there is a separate command for this when working in the mixer since there really aren’t any tracks to work with.

In the standard configuration of Logic Pro X the ‘Flatten Stack – ⇧⌘U’ command has no overloaded commands, so you could assign the same keyboard sequence to the ‘Flatten Track Stack for Selected Channel Strips’. I have done this and don’t see any particular downside. The same can be true for ‘Create Track Stack for Selected Channel Strips — ⇧⌘D’.

Four VCA Channel Applications — PreSonus Blog

A VCA is a useful tool. In Logic Pro X you can create a VCA with a “Folder Stack”.

Four VCA Channel Applications — PreSonus Blog

A VCA Channel has a fader, but it doesn’t pass audio. Instead, the fader acts like a gain control for other channels, or groups of channels. In some ways, you can think of a VCA Channel as “remote control” for other channels. If you assign a VCA to control a channel, you can adjust the channel gain, without having to move the associated channel’s fader. The VCA Channel fader does it for you.

Select Folder Stack Tracks — Logic Pro X keyboard command of the day

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

  Select Folder Stack Tracks

In the Arrange window (commonly called the Main Window in the documentation)

Select all of the Folder Stack tracks. There is a ‘Select Summing Stack Tracks’ command as well, which selects all of the Summing stacks.

One additional command that is of interest is the ‘Select Sub/VCA Tracks’. This command will select all of the Folder Stacks as well as VCA tracks, if any.

Folder Stacks get created as “Sub” tracks and have VCA channel strips created in the mixer. The nice feature of the Folder Stack is that the VCA channel strip/track is included in the Arrange window and can be moved around on the mixer.

You can create tracks for VCAs which you can position in the mixer, but the Folder Stack version makes for a convenient ‘spill’ of the tracks affected by the VCA.

Track Stacks overview — Logic Pro X

Folder stacks let you combine multiple tracks and control them as one unit, without changing the audio routing of the individual subtracks. When you create a folder stack, the channel strip assigned to the main track is called the stack master. Using the main track or the stack master channel strip, you can mute, solo, and adjust the volume level for the folder stack. This is similar to the way a VCA master fader functions on a hardware mixing console.

⇧ SHIFT – ⌃ CONTROL – ⌥ OPTION – ⌘ COMMAND

Create Folder Stack ⇧⌘H — Logic Pro X keyboard command of the day

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

  Create Folder Stack    ⇧⌘H

The naming of the folder stack (default) is somewhat misleading, I guess. When I see “Sub 1” I think of a sub-mix more than a VCA. A folder stack looks like a VCA, and appears in the mixer just like a VCA except that it is located in position in the Arrange window.

Using folder stacks makes it much easier to gain control of VCAs from my control surface. Normally VCAs are located at the far right of the mixer. With the VCA “in-line” I don’t have to bounce around the control surface as much, or switch the surface to “output” channels.

As I investigated just how many VCAs I could have (more than 32) I decided to look at the Environment to see what VCAs “look like”. A VCA is a sub-channel of the master channel named “Sub 1”, “Sub 2”, etc.

Not sure what I would do with more than 32 VCAs, but there could be situations where it might be plausible — a performance with hundreds of channels.

Track Stacks overview — Logic Pro X

Folder stacks let you combine multiple tracks and control them as one unit, without changing the audio routing of the individual subtracks. When you create a folder stack, the channel strip assigned to the main track is called the stack master. Using the main track or the stack master channel strip, you can mute, solo, and adjust the volume level for the folder stack. This is similar to the way a VCA master fader functions on a hardware mixing console.

⇧ SHIFT – ⌃ CONTROL – ⌥ OPTION – ⌘ COMMAND