Using LogicEase
Introduction
First up, Kudos to Chi Kim and the Flo tools team who laid the groundwork for this project. If you’ve ever used Flo Tools before, you may want to skim this section, paying particular attention to the section below entitled “The heart of LogicEase” then, you may want to skip straight to the Full list of key commands, and get going. Otherwise, keep reading right along.
Your first steps in LogicEase
Right, so you’ve learned that you can turn LogicEase on and off with shift slash. This enables you to use LogicEase with whatever key map you’re currently using with Logic and LogicEase won’t get in the way of it, just turn it off with shift slash whenever you need to. You’ll particularly need to do this when you want to type, some text, when saving your project for example.
LogicEase has some general key commands most of which use the command key in combination with the function keys. These are shown below.
You can speak the position of the playhead with command f1.
You can speak the left and right locators with command f2 and command f3 respectively.
Speak the playhead position in hours minutes and seconds with command F4.
Speak the division value with command f6.
Speak the tempo with command F7.
Speak the time signature with command F8
Speak the current display mode with command F12.
increase the tempo by 10bpm with option equals.
Increase the tempo by 1bpm option shift equals.
Decrease the tempo by 10bpm option minus.
Decrease the tempo by 1bpm option shift minus.
Turn replace on or off command option r.
Although Logic already has a key to turn replace on or off, (numpad slash by default), pressing this key doesn’t let you know whether you’ve just turned it on or off whereas pressing command option r does tell you that.
LogicEase enables you to double tap some keys. Fore example, try double tapping command F8 quickly. This enables you to use the menu to change the time signature. Like wise, double tapping command F6 enables you to change the division value by opening the division menu.
You will see this double tapping feature frequently throughout LogicEase.
Working with tracks
LogicEase has many features which will make it much easier and faster for you to work with tracks. You can speak the name of the selected track by pressing the t key. You’ve already learned that you can use command up and down arrows to change the volume of a track. You can also use command left and right arrows to effortlessly change the pan of a track. Pressing the v key will speak the volume of a track and pressing the p key will speak the pan.
You can adjust the volume and pan in smaller increments by adding the option key. Option command left and right arrows adjusts the pan by 1. Likewise, option command up and down arrows adjusts the volume by the smallest amount possible.
You can reset the pan to the centre by double tapping the p key and you can reset the volume to unity gain by double tapping the v key.
You can speak the input of the track with i and the output of the track with o. and, double-tapping these keys drop the respective menus enabling you to select the input or output of your track without having to interact with the channel strip.
Another cool feature of LogicEase is that when you press the left and right arrows to move to the regions of a track, region names are spoken as they are selected. I’ve wished Logic did that for the longest time and now with LogicEase, it does! You can also press the e key to speak the name of the selected region.
LogicEase also has a split region under playhead feature which you can access with option command t. Pressing this key makes sure that the region under the playhead is selected before splitting it – very useful if you’re not sure whether the region that is playing is selected or not. After splitting the region LogicEase will announce the name of the selected region so that you know that the split actually happened.
If the playhead is not over a region and you press option command t, LogicEase will say “region not selected”
Of course, you’ve still got the regular split region by pressing command t, but give option command t a try, I think you’ll like it.
And, speaking of regions, LogicEase allows you to control region gain. You can speak region gain with command g. Double-tapping command g will reset it to unity.
You change region gain with command ctrl up and down arrows, and you can change it in smaller increments with shift ctrl up and down arrows.
As of Logic version 10.78 We’ve now got key commands built into Logic itself that allow you to change region gain, so of course, it is up to you whether or not you wish to use those instead, however they are not mapped by default and there is no Logic key command to speak or reset region gain. What matters though is that you can now control region gain from the keyboard, happy days.
There are 2 kinds of clip level information that you have control over with LogicEase. Pressing l will speak the clip level of the selected track. Double pressing l will reset the clip level. You can also use command l in the same way to obtain the clip level of the associated output of the selected track which is set by default to stereo out.
So, a handy little work flow is press l to check that your track isn’t clipping, then press command l to check that your track hasn’t caused your project to clip. You add command up and down arrow keys in there to change your levels, and you’ve got yourself a very efficient mixing workflow.
If you’ve got a compressor on your track, You can find out the current gain reduction by pressing g.
You can speak the current quantize value by pressing option q and you can drop the quantize menu and change it by double-tapping option q.
Getting around in the main window
You may be wondering why we’re only talking about this now. Well, that’s because, we hope you won’t feel the need to jump around so often once you’ve got to grips with LogicEase. However, there are always going to be those times when you want to quickly get into the channel strip or the inspector to do something, so here’s how you can do that in LogicEase.
These keys all work in conjunction with the option key.
Option t, takes you to your currently selected track inside the tracks header group. From there, you can use the arrow keys to move through your list of tracks as you probably know. The good thing hear is that it’s one keystroke, no uninteracting and moving the VoiceOver cursor to get back to your tracks list, and you can do this along with these other commands from anywhere you happen to be in the main window.
Next, you can quickly get into the channel strip with option x. This will take you to the setting button at the top of the channel strip.
If you need to get into the inspector, you can do this with option i. This will take you to the region table inside the inspector. From here you can vo-left or right to get to the different options in the inspector, or if you need to change anything inside this table, you can interact with it and do that.
Similarly, you can press option c to get to the Controlbar group which is inside the control bar tool bar. You can interact with this if you need to or you can move through the options in this tool bar with vo left and right arrows.
Either way, you can effortlessly move between your track list, the inspector, the channel strip and the control bar tool bar with ease.
Finding and renaming tracks and regions
If you’ve ever tried to find a particular track in your session when you can’t quite remember what it’s called, you know that this can be a slow and tricky business especially when working in a large project. However, LogicEase comes to the rescue with it’s handy find track feature.
Just press command option f to bring up the Find Track dialog box then type all or part of your track name and press the return key. LogicEase will then take you straight to that track.
you can search for “pad” for example and LogicEase will take you to your first track with the word pad anywhere in it’s name.
If LogicEase can’t find the track it will let you know that the track can’t be found, and, it won’t find tracks that are inside closed track stacks.
Oh, and there’s one more thing, When you type command option f, LogicEase is smart enough to know that you want to search and so will let you use the keyboard to type your search without you needing to turn LogicEase off, type your search and then turn it back on again – nice!
And, talking about that one more thing, LogicEase has another couple of features which enable you to type without having to do the switch off switch on shuffle.
You can quickly rename a track by pressing shift return. This, I’m sure you know, but when you do this in LogicEase, a rename track dialog box pops up where you can type your track name. When you’ve type the name, press enter to rename your track. If you prefer, you can turn LogicEase off with shift slash and then press shift return for the workflow that you are used to.
Likewise, you can press shift n to rename regions on a track and as LogicEase speaks region names as you move to them with left and right arrows, I find that I’m doing this more often than before.
Making selections
There are many ways to make selections in Logic and LogicEase targets the one most favoured by sighted users and that is Marquee selections.
By making use of marquee selections, you can copy parts of your track without creating unnecessary regions. You can also listen to just the selection without the project continuing to play until you stop it, very handy when editing.
To get this working though, you’ll need to have the “Set Marquee to Selection” key command mapped to command shift backslash.
You may find that this has already been done for you if you downloaded a key map, otherwise, just map this key yourself, you’ll be glad you did.
So how do you make marquee selections in LogicEase? put the playhead at the start of the selection and press shift left bracket, then move to the end of the selection and press shift right bracket.
That’s it, you’ve made a selection which you can delete cut, copy and yes, make a region of if you want to.
To remove a marquee selection press shift D, and, finally, you can change the start and end points of an existing marquee selection by pressing command left bracket to reset the start point and command right bracket to reset the end point. Be warned though that the last 2 key commands only work when you’ve got a marquee selection, if you press them when you don’t have a marquee selection, you’ll be changing the start and end points of your region – not what you want.
Do give this a try though, it’s a very nice way to work.
The heart of LogicEase
as you’ve already seen, LogicEase uses many key commands to enable you to work efficiently with Logic. We know that you’ve got better things in your life to do than trying to hold down command option shift and control with every key command you use and so in LogicEase we took the decision to minimise this by introducing the scope concept.
All of the keys you’ve been using up until now are available in “track scope”.Whenever you turn LogicEase on with shift / or when you start Logic, you’re in track scope.
However, there are other Scopes you need to know about, the most important of which is “Plugin scope”
Now, remember in the overview we said that you can press the 1 key to find out what if any plugins are in that slot for the selected track? Well, what we didn’t tell you is pressing a number key puts you into plugin scope with a completely separate set of key commands.
To get back into track scope. Press the t key. That will not only speak the name of the selected track but it will also activate track scope.
This is going to open up possibilities down the line with LogicEase without running out of available keys to use. So, try this now. press a number key, then press t to get back to track scope.
“What scopes are currently available in LogicEase?” Glad you asked. Well, at present we have track scope which you’ve seen. Plugin scope which is up next, we have send scope, EQ scope, compressor scope and Piano Roll scope which you can read about below
Plugin scope
No prizes for guessing that plugin scope lets you work with plugins like a boss. Here’s how it works.
Firstly pick your plugin slot by pressing a number key. If there’s a plugin in the slot, you can open it by pressing o. Do your thing with the plugin and then close it with command w in the normal way. Once you press command w, the plugin window will close and you’ll be put back in track scope.
Instead of opening the plugin, you can change the plugin in the slot by pressing c. This will drop the plugin menu, allowing you to change or remove the plugin in the usual way.
you can add a plugin to the end of the chain by pressing A.
So, as you can see, adding an insert to a track using LogicEase is a simple as pressing 1 to get into plugin scope, then pressing A, to drop the plugin menu and select your effect.
Bypassing a plugin is achieved with the b key. Pressing the b key will say “enabled” or “bypassed”, letting you know the bypass state of the plugin. Double pressing b will change the state and either bypass or enable the plugin.
Finally, pressing the i key enables you to insert a plugin between 2 existing plugins. It always inserts the plugin above the selected slot, so, to insert a plugin between slot 2 and slot 3, press 3 to make it the selected slot, then press i to add a plugin just before it but after slot 2. You can insert a plugin at the start of the chain by pressing 1 to select the plugin in the first slot and then pressing I to insert a plugin above it.
You can only insert a plugin above another existing plugin. So, if you press a number key and there’s no plugin in there, then pressing i will have no effect.
remember that these keys only work in plugin scope which is activated whenever you press a number key. So, if you want to see which output is assigned to this track, you’ll have to get back into track scope first by pressing t. Once LogicEase as announced the name of the track, you’re now back in track scope and the o key will announce the out put you’re using rather than opening the selected plugin.
When a plugin window is open, LogicEase also allows you to press p to speak the current preset being used and to double press p to drop the presets menu to save load or select a preset.
Send scope
Send scope acts in a very similar way to plugin scope. You can find out which sends have been set by pressing shift number keys. Like plugin scope, as soon as you press shift and a number key, you’re now in send scope.
You can add a send by pressing A
You can bypass a send by double pressing B or single press b to see if it’s bypassed
You can change a send by pressing C
Finally, you can change the send level with command up or down arrows and you can speak the current send level by pressing the v key.
EQ scope
EQ scope enables you to work with Logic’s channel EQ lightning fast. To get into it, you open a channel EQ using the o key from within plugin scope. So, you’ll press your number keys until you find where the channel EQ is, then you’ll press o to open it.
To get out of EQ scope, simply shut the EQ with command w.
Now for EQ scope to work you need to be viewing the EQ in controls mode. Most VoiceOver users have this setup as a default but you can always put your EQ into controls mode by going to the top of the window, vo-ing across to the view menu button. Open the view menu and choose controls.
To EQ your track, first pick an EQ band using the following keys. A double press of the key will turn the band on or off.
Low Cut press l
Low shelf press k
High shelf press j
High Cut press h
bands 1 to 4 press the number keys 1 to 4 respectively
Next choose what you want to change for your selected band using the following keys
Increase the gain using command up arrow
Decrease the gain using command down arrow
speak the current gain by pressing g
Increase the frequency by pressing command right arrow
decrease the frequency by pressing command left arrow
Speak the frequency by pressing f
increase the q by pressing shift right arrow
decrease the q by pressing shift left arrow
Speak the q by pressing q
You can add the option key to all of these commands to change each parameter in smaller intervals. For example you can change the frequency in smaller intervals by using option command left or right arrow.
You’ll notice that the EQ does not speak its changes as you make them. This is so that you can EQ your track without VoiceOver interfering with what you’re doing. If you want to know the exact numbers, use f to speak the frequency, g to speak the gain and q to speak the q.
Compressor scope
Using the Logic stock compressor in your project is a breeze with LogicEase. Firstly, you’ll need to open it from plugin scope, so find your compressor with the number keys and press o to open it.
Once your compressor is open you can adjust the threshold with command up and down arrow.
You can adjust the ratio with command left and right arrow.
You can change the attack with shift up and down arrow.
You can change the release with shift left and right arrow.
You can pick your circuit type by double pressing c.
In addition to these commands, you can:
Speak the threshold frequency with t.
Speak the ratio with r.
Speak the attack with a.
Speak the release with e.
Speak the circuit type with c.
Finally, which is typical of LogicEase, if you want to adjust your compressor settings in smaller intervals, simply add the option key to your arrow key commands. For example, you can adjust the threshold frequency in smaller intervals by using command option up and down arrow keys.
Working with the mixer
Once you’ve got all of the above workflow enhancements under your fingers, I hope you won’t feel the need to open the mixer nearly as often as you used to. However, you’ll be glad to know that LogicEase works in the mixer window as well, enabling you to quickly adjust all of the channel strips that don’t appear in the main window such as aux channel strips, your output and master channel strips etc.
Firstly, to get this working, you’ll need to open the full mixer window with command2. This is better than opening the mixer tab with x because, when you use command 2, you’ll automatically be placed on the channel strip of the currently selected track. If you use x to open the mixer, you’ll be taken to the mixer group and then you’ll have to interact with it and then you’ll have to interact with the mixer layout area, so command 2 is definitely the way to go here.
Once you’ve got the mixer window open with command 2, you can use vo left and right arrows to get to the channel strip you want to change.
When you get to the channel strip you want to change, maybe it’s your mix bus or your reverb aux, you can simply use LogicEase commands such as command up and down arrows to change the volume or command left and right arrows to change the pan.’
The key thing here is that you don’t need to interact with the channel strip, simply vo left or right arrow to the channel strip you want, then use Logicease, You’ll find that this is a much quicker and easer way to work with the mixer.
Piano Roll scope
Are you using the Piano Roll to edit and compose your MIDI in Logic yet? Well, you’ll find it easier to do this when using the Piano Roll scope, Which is the Brain child of Liam Hackett who has generously contributed this feature to LogicEase.
To get into Piano Roll scope, you need to open the Piano Roll in full window mode by pressing command 4. Pressing p to open the Piano Roll tab will not work.
To get out of Piano Roll scope, simply close the Piano Roll window with command w.
We would recommend using a full keyboard with Logic and here’s one of the reasons why, all of these key commands are easily accessible from the numeric keypad. But don’t worry if you don’t have one because we’ve still got you covered.
So, what can you do with Piano Roll Scope?
Firstly, you can edit notes. To do this you need to select the notes you wish to change. The easiest way to do this is to make sure you’ve got a MIDI region selected before opening the Piano Roll. However, if you’ve got some MIDI on the track which is not selected, you can interact with the Piano Roll layout area to see and select the notes as usual.
Now, once you’ve got something selected, you can move through the notes by pressing numpad 3 to move to and play the next note or numpad 1 to move to and play the previous note. You use right and left arrows respectively to do this.
Once you’ve found the note you wish to change, you can transpose the note up by 1 semitone with numpad 8 or down by one semitone with numpad 2. Option up arrow and option down arrow will do this.
You can transpose the note up and down by an octave with numpad + and numpad – respectively. Option shift up arrow and option shift down arrow will do this.
You can move the selected note left or right by the current nudge value by using numpad 4 to move the note left or numpad 6 to move the note right. option left arrow and option right arrow will do this.
Depending on the key map you’re using, you may find it easiest to set your nudge value by setting it to your division value with ctrl option d. In LogicEase, double pressing command f6 will drop your division menu so you can pick the division you want from the menu as you may find that key commands have not been mapped to do this in your key map.
How about lengthening and shortening the selected note? This can be done with keypad 9 to lengthen and keypad 7 to shorten the note. Again, the note will be changed by your nudge value. Option shift right arrow and option shift left arrow will do this.
As well as the handy features detailed above, Piano Roll scope still has a few neat tricks up its sleeve. For example, you can Speak the velocity of the selected note with the v key, and you can quickly change it with command numpad 8 to increase the velocity and command numpad 2 to decrease it. Add the option key to change the velocity in smaller amounts. Alternatively you can use command up and down arrows to change the velocity, adding option to change it in smaller amounts.
How about using the Piano Roll to compose? Well, you can make a copy of the selected note in the exact same spot as the selected note by pressing numpad 5 or option c, the point being that this allows you to quickly make chords because you can then transpose the copy and build those chords up.
In fact, Piano Roll scope can make major and minor triads for you. Simply select your note and then press ctrl numpad 4 or option m and boom, there’s your major triad. You make the minor triad by pressing ctrl numpad 5 or command option m.
You can also copy the selected note to the next nudge value along, great for creating high hats at 16th note intervals. Once you’ve set your nudge value, simply select your note and then you can repeatedly tap numpad 0 or command option c to get a string of them spaced as required.
As you can see, Piano Roll scope is a cool tool so, give it a try for all your MIDI editing needs.