Emagic Logic Audio v4.5

Paul White evaluates the latest Logic Audio update and discovers that as well as a host of new features, Windows users also get a brand‑new audio engine.

The really gratifying thing about sequencing software is that it is constantly evolving to include new features or better implementation of existing facilities, usually at little or no cost to the user. Emagic's Logic Audio 4.5 is the latest incarnation of a popular, high‑quality piece of MIDI + Audio sequencing software and, as usual, the upgrade includes a number of major features plus a far greater number of minor tweaks and bug fixes, and some general tidying up. In this instance, the biggies are the ability to produce surround mixes in a number of formats, plus the addition of live input channels enabling any source to be fed into the mix alongside the existing recorded audio tracks. This latter addition is long overdue.

Windows users may also be pleased to hear that the audio engine has been rewritten to bring it more up‑to‑date compared with its Mac counterpart, while the Mac version now fully supports the Emagic EASI driver protocol (in effect, Emagic's answer to ASIO). The new Windows audio engine means shorter latency times, faster fader response, improved VST support and an overall improvement in performance. However, the previous Windows audio engine included a number of workarounds needed to get around some third‑party incompatibility issues and Emagic say that these couldn't all be implemented in the new engine. This means that it is possible that some soundcards and/or drivers may now be incompatible, in which cases users will have to stick to a pre‑4.5 version of Logic Audio or change their soundcard or drivers. Anyone in this situation can send an email direct to support@emagic.de with the subject New Windows Engine. Include a complete description of the problem, including which audio hardware and drivers were used and the Emagic tech support guys will try to come up with an answer.

Other useful updates include lower latency when working with Audiowerk cards, new parameters for some of the plug‑ins and support for up to 16 virtual instruments. Global tuning has been added allowing all virtual instruments to be tuned at once (providing they support global tuning), virtual instruments are now displayed separately from effect plug‑ins and Logic now has the ability to use virtual instruments in conjunction with Yamaha's DSP Factory.

Live Audio Inputs

Logic Audio v4.5's new Live Input Object, which allows external audio signals to be brought directly into the Logic virtual mixer.

The new live audio inputs have a number of uses: you can, for instance, use them as effects returns when passing Logic audio tracks through external effects units, and you can use them at mixdown to combine the outputs of synths and sound modules with your Logic audio tracks within Logic, without having to record the synths' outputs as individual audio tracks first or use an external mixer.

These new audio objects look very much like the existing virtual mixer channels, except that they can only be routed to the outputs or the busses. As on audio tracks, there are insert points where virtual effects can be set up, but as yet there's still no way to record via a virtual effect; this is apparently planned for a future update. In addition to allowing live sounds or outputs from external mixers and effects units to be added to a mix, audio inputs may also be bounced along with other tracks and plug‑in effects may be used when bouncing. The inputs are supported by Mac AV, PC AV/EASI (Windows), Audiowerk, Direct I/O, Stud I/O, Korg 1212, EASI and ASIO drivers.

Surround Mixing

One of the major new features in Logic Audio Platinum v4.5 is provision for surround mixing in all the major formats.

The new version of Logic Audio Platinum provides surround mixing using PC AV (including EASI and EASI MME), Audiowerk, Direct I/O, Stud I/O, Korg 1212, EASI or ASIO drivers. All the common surround formats are supported, from LCR right up to 7.1, but to get surround signals out of the machine, the soundcard and audio drivers must support the required number of physical outputs.

No surround encoding or decoding takes place, and nor is the filtering for any sub‑bass speakers (LFE) added automatically. You need to drop a suitable filter plug‑in into an insert point to do this, and similarly, any surround delays have to be added using plug‑ins too. In effect, surround mixing controls the relative volumes of the different output channels, but leaves you to handle any encoding that may be necessary for production purposes.

All the channels and busses can be set to any desired surround mode, though in most instances, it probably makes most sense to use the same mode across a whole mix. You can change the surround settings of all selected channels simultaneously if required. When Surround is selected in the output menu, the pan control is replaced by a virtual joystick, while a separate window with an enlarged version of this joystick opens up if you double‑click the surround control. This new window shows the speaker positions around the edges of the circle. The pan position is indicated by a dot that can be dragged using the mouse and this works either in the standard channel view or in the surround panner window. Within the surround panner window is a pull‑down menu that can be used to select from the available surround options. As with other Logic functions, all surround mixing moves can be automated.

The LFE output is essentially an additional post‑fade aux send, but as stipulated, you need to patch in a suitable low‑pass filter plug‑in to act as a crossover filter. LFEs usually work at 120Hz and below. In the surround settings, it's possible to define which soundcard output will function as the LFE output.

As with stereo mixes, a surround mix may be bounced to disk and Logic uses a file naming system to identify specific elements within a surround mix (an extension of calling stereo files Left and Right, really).

Virtual Instruments

Though there are no new plug‑ins with v4.5, some of the existing ones have been modified to add new parameters, such as the modulation options in Tape Delay.

Logic Audio allows for up to 16 virtual Instruments to be used simultaneously, whether they are Logic‑specific plug‑ins such as ES1 and EXS24 or generic VST Instruments. Audio instruments are now listed separately from VST effects, but Emagic still haven't come up with a way for virtual instrument patches to be selected from the track parameter box in the Arrange page in the same way as MIDI instruments. Nor have they got around the problem that prevents virtual instrument tracks from looping — the first occurrence plays fine, but the looped sections remain stubbornly silent. As the Loop function of Logic is one of its most endearing tools, this shortcoming needs fixing sooner rather than later.

Another feature yet to be implemented is the sync'ing of virtual instrument parameters, such as arpeggiators, to Logic's tempo. Similarly, there's no obvious means of connecting Logic's own arpeggiator (or MIDI delay) to virtual instruments.

Finally, while I'm in wish‑list mode, why can't we have some way to adjust the levels of audio tracks from the arrange page as you can with synths? Ideally this would function as a type of Trim control so that any level automation already applied would be scaled up or down accordingly.

Audiowerk & Latency

It seems ironic that just as Emagic have really got the latency issue well under control for Audiowerk8 users, they've discontinued the card. However, existing users running Logic Audio Silver, Gold, or Platinum under Mac OS can set a smaller buffer size to further reduce latency without affecting audio performance. This also speeds up the response of virtual instruments. How much the buffer size can be reduced depends on your computer, but on my system I was able to better than halve the latency, bringing it down to a value that really could be considered negligible.

Crossing Platforms

Good news for anyone wanting to move songs between different systems that use different audio hardware or drivers is that Emagic have now included something they call 'Automatic Conversion of Compatible Audio Configurations of Songs'. This snappily titled feature works in both Mac and Windows versions of Logic Audio, and its aim is to simplify the tedious switching of drivers for each individual audio track/buss/virtual instrument that you'd normally have to do when moving between systems. Emagic provide an example in their support notes that illustrates how this facility might be employed. "If you load a song that has been created with, say, PC AV or Mac AV with Logic Audio 4.5, running on a machine currently using ASIO (for instance), Logic will ask whether to switch from PC AV or Mac AV to ASIO. Thus, the song can be played back immediately, without reassigning all the audio objects used (tracks, busses and audio instruments) manually. The plug‑in effects used will be recognized with all their settings."

OMS

Anyone who has MIDI hardware or applications that need to run under OMS previously had no choice but to configure Logic to use OMS also. From version 4.5, however, it's now possible to run Logic's own MIDI drivers in parallel with OMS. The advantage of this development is that external MIDI hardware can still be controlled with the timing accuracy of Emagic's AMT MIDI interface (if you have one) — a feature that's lost if Logic is forced to use OMS for its own MIDI inputs and outputs.

Plug‑Ins

Though there are no new plug‑ins with version 4.5, some extra plug‑in parameters have been introduced into the Gold and Platinum versions. New parameters are only accessible when the plug‑in view is switched to Controls, so you won't see them in the ordinary full‑on graphics view. The compressor now has a clipping limiter fitted with soft, hard or off options, the oscillator can now produce a pure sine wave, and Tape Delay now includes modulation for adding chorus. Autofilter LFO is finally sync'able to tempo, but as with VST Instruments, no tempo support has yet been provided for VST‑format plug‑ins that use it.

While on the subject of plug‑ins, most are now either mono‑in, mono‑out or stereo‑in, stereo‑out. However, when you're sending mono channel aux sends to a stereo buss channel into which effects are being inserted, what you really need most of the time is for the delay and reverb effects to be mono‑in, stereo‑out. As it is, if you want to use stereo effects, you have to place one of the three mono‑in, stereo‑out effects (Gainer is a safe option here) in the signal path before any stereo‑in effect, otherwise you can only insert mono effects.

A Mixed Bag

Version 4.5's major new features as far as Mac users are concerned are undoubtedly surround mixing and the live inputs, though some of the less high‑profile amendments could make a huge difference to specific users, such as those who rely on OMS or those with Yamaha DSP Factory systems. For PC users, the rewritten audio engine is the really big deal, though as pointed out, this may exclude some audio hardware that was 'kludged' to work under earlier versions of Logic Audio.

All the improvements in v4.5 are worthwhile, but I'm a little concerned that Emagic have not taken this opportunity to fix some of the more fundamental and niggling aspects of the program. Don't get me wrong — I still think Logic Audio is the best thing since organic wholemeal bread fresh from the oven — but some fixes are long overdue. In particular, the linking of tempo information to VST plug‑ins and instruments needs sorting, as does the issue of Logic's arpeggiators and delays, which still don't work with any virtual instruments. Even more frustrating is that looping within tracks still doesn't work for virtual instruments — and while I'm on the subject, there really should be access to virtual instruments and their patches directly from the Arrange page just as there is with hardware MIDI instruments. Emagic are aware of these 'issues', but I'm hoping that the more often I mention them, the more quickly they'll get around to fixing them!

However, one shouldn't look gift horses in the mouth, and Logic 4.5 includes some serious new features and a completely new audio engine in the PC version, all for the bargain price of — zilch. If your version of Logic Audio is v4.0 or higher, the update is free and can be downloaded right away from the Emagic web site. Those with older versions can update for the same price as moving up to Logic Audio 4.0.