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Going Pro With Logic Pro 8 by Jay Asher

Peter Alexander — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:19:00 +0000

With his first book, Going Pro With Logic Pro 8, Jay Asher joins a small fraternity of authors, myself included, having devoted time, effort and endurance to producing, hopefully, effective training for Logic users. This isn’t easy with Logic. It wasn’t when it was C-Lab Notator and it’s not now for Logic 8. What makes Logic tough to teach, in print or onscreen, is that it’s super feature rich. To instruct effectively, you have to, or should, ask what I call the James Michener question, “Where’s the beginning?” And with that, “Whose the audience?”

“Where’s the beginning?” is a thorny question because there’s no data base that I’m aware of which defines how many of the current Logic installs are new to Logic, then, are new to sequencing as a whole, then, are most skipping sequencing and going straight for audio recording. I tested my book, The Street Smart Guide to Logic 8, with two composers converting to Logic from Digital Performer and two teachers one of whom was learning it new for the first time, while the other was migrating upwards from Logic Express. But that’s just one segment. There’s also a who group of users doing remix, hip-hop, straight recording, et al.

One teaching path is trying to teach both MIDI and audio at the same time. Another is teaching in segments starting with MIDI recording first, and then moving up. I’m in the second group. I like this procedurally driven approach because once you’ve finished teaching sequencing, you’ve finished teaching sequencing. You can now move onto recording live, or working with editing loops, effects, notation, etc. One aspect about this approach is that the reader/student has a sense of accomplishment. They’ve finished Block 1. Now Block 2.

Going Pro With Logic Pro 8 is procedurally driven, which is a good thing. And Jay’s book comes in at a different angle of instruction which is the consultant/problem solution style that’s, fortunately, highly product/problem solution driven in its approach. Which is also a good thing, providing you have the product covered in the book!

I had some of it.

Going Pro With Logic Pro 8 is not a beginners book (whew!). It presumes a basic level of operational knowledge with the program and in several places, with OS 10. It’s reader is someone who has gone beyond the vast array of effects and plug-ins that come with Logic and is now working with 3rd party hardware, effects, and plug-ins.

That would be me. And I don’t mind admitting that since I moved from the PC using Cubase to Logic a while back. So there’s plenty I have to relearn from the viewpoint of how Cubase works vs. Logic, especially in the area of multitimbral setups.

Going Pro With Logic Pro 8 is organized under four chapters and 32 tutorials. As a publisher, I see it as four sections with 32 chapters. But that’s me. The four chapters are:

Techniques for Customizing
Techniques for Composing and Editing
Techniques for Recording and Mixing
Techniques for Integrating Third-Party Software and Hardware

All four chapters are eminently pragmatic.

Several tutorials which struck me as being universally appealing (and a good reason to buy the book) are:

#8: Modifying Your Orchestral Template for Score Printout
#9: Advanced Quantize Techniques for Natural Sounding MIDI Parts
#12: Using the Arpeggiator
#18: Plotting Hit Points
#19: Wise Gain Structure Techniques
#21: Creating a Customized Click Track
#26: Using Kontakt 2/3 as a Standalone
#27: Using StormDrum 2 (actually any PLAY library) in Standalone

As I read the forums and look at my own next learning steps, these seem to be the most common issues I personally confront or read about, and Jay has covered them in Going Pro With Logic Pro 8.

I have one disappointment which I wish Jay had dealt with as many are struggling with it, and that’s having a generic tutorial, product-specific independent, explaining how to set up Logic multitimbrally with 3rd party software synths so that each channel strip operates independently for MIDI editing. One tutorial that comes close to this is the one with Spectrasonic’s Stylus RMX, which is a great tutorial if you have Stylus RMX. I don’t. So it seems that the back door implication is that with Kontakt and PLAY it’s best to operate them in stand alone mode. Here, one additional tutorial would have been useful showing how to effectively setup several 3rd party virtual instruments in stand alone mode using the freeware program Soundflower.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR A FIRST TIME AUTHOR
For his very first book, Jay has done an excellent job. His writing demonstrates him to be one of the very few who are gifted in teaching in print. So I hope there’s a second book sometime.

Even so, a few points for author and publisher to consider.

The chief reason I decided to publish the Street Smart Guide to Logic 8 as a PDF is because I could teach using 4-color screen shots. With the PC, you have the luxury of a great screen capture program called SnagIt from Tech Smith where you can shoot for print at 300DPI. But SnagIt isn’t available on the Mac. Grab, which comes with the Mac, and SnapZ, which is a separate purchase, do screen shots at 72DPI. While Logic looks great onscreen and is easy to work with for hours at a time because of its GUI (graphic user interface), screen shots print badly in black and white. Some of the illustrations in the book are just difficult to read. This isn’t Jay’s fault. That’s a Logic issue. But I do think that Cengage (Jay’s publisher) should strongly consider offering a separate PDF version just to provide the color shots.

Having said that, I think that some of the tutorials should have been longer with more screen shots, just because Logic is Logic and the more you see stepped out visually, the easier Logic comes across as being.

Soon I’ll be reviewing the Logic DVD training from Eli Krantzberg and Dave Zangar. Something I picked up from their DVDs and which I saw with my own book, and now here with Jay’s, is that Logic is one of those programs that needs both print and video instruction.

For example, with both Eli and Dave, I thought they needed printed notes to go with their vids. With my book and Jay’s, it was really evident to me that no matter how simple you think you’ve made something to learn in Logic, sometimes watching a video is really needed just so the reader can see that using Logic is easier than the book reads.

So I think Jay and Cengage would be wise in collaborating on a support DVD for Going Pro With Logic Pro 8. I suggest this because people who aren’t pros buy Spectrasonics, PLAY and Kontakt products, and seeing some of these tutorials visualized would be incredibly useful.

For completeness, it would be good to see a Vienna chapter for using the Vienna Instruments and the Vienna Ensemble 3.

OBSERVATION
Because of Mr. Asher’s extensive background in film scoring, there is a book in the wings that Jay would be uniquely qualified to write, and it’s something that could easily be turned into a two-day seminar – Film/TV Scoring With Logic. The information for this book is bubbling within the current text. It would require more basic writing than perhaps Jay is wanting to do, but it would be a guaranteed staple for as long as Logic is published.

SHAMELESS PLUG
Jay is Certified Level 2 Logic Trainer. He knows what he’s doing, too! If you need consulting or help, you can reach him at his web site.

CONCLUSION
If you’re a very beginner learning to work Logic and figuring out what the Environment is, this book isn’t for you. If, however, you’re at the next step and buying third-party programs (including Reason, Recycle and others), then having Going Pro With Logic Pro 8 by your computer would be a very wise decision.

Orchestration, An Anthology of Writings

Peter Alexander — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 04:04:49 +0000

Because of my work in writing orchestration books, the folks at Rutledge publishing sent me a great book by Paul Mathews, Chair of the Department of Music Theory at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. Orchestration, An Anthology of Writings, is a refreshing joy to read as it’s filled with many treats working professionals will appreciate thanks to its inclusion of comments from Gustav Mahler to a young composer, Stravinsky, Gevaert, Steve Reich, Percy Grainger (on writing for Concert Band), Charles Koechlin, and others. Some of these articles have not previous been available in English until now.

Paul has organized his Anthology in six sections:

I. The Early Nineteenth Century: Beethoven’s Orchestration

II. The Late Nineteenth Century: French and German Orchestration

III. Interlude: Orchestral Possibilities on the Eve of the New Music

IV. The Turn of the Twentieth Century: French and German Orchestration II

V. The Early Twentieth Century: Klangfarbenmelodie and Texture

VI. Later Twentieth Century Innovations

Too often in our pursuit of, “bigger is bigger” in film scoring, we forget that orchestration has had a progression of writing development influenced by technology innovation and better manufacturing standards. The strings were the first section to be organized and complete as we know them while the woodwinds, brass with valves and percussion evolved over time to become the instruments we know and use today. As standardization of instrument design became accepted, writing techniques followed. Consequently, without a little study, we forget that the dramatic coloristic writing we’ve grown so accustomed to in film music progressed from the Russian composers through the French with Debussy, Ravel, Satie, and others.

This brings us to a very subtle point of Paul’s book – how do you really teach orchestration? And then, how do you really teach orchestration when using electronic and physical modeling libraries that attempt to replicate the real thing? Within these questions is the hidden, “But who should I study first?”

In his First Lesson: Preliminary Instruction, Belgium teacher F.A. Geveart makes a practical observersation.

The orchestra of the early symphony does not admit of chiaroscuro or mixed colors; the various groups of instruments are juxtaposed without marked transitions. Since intense passages are almost excessively filled by bright timbres (violins, oboe, trumpets), the sonority is all brightness, sometimes even a little crude. Wind instruments seldom appear in the foreground and are mostly restricted to harmonic filling. Thus, by studying the symphonies of Haydn the student will not initiate himself with refined, unforeseen combinations. But the student will learn there, better than anywhere, how to assemble the various parts of the ensemble and how to obtain a vigorous and honest sonority with thin resources: qualities which it is wise to acquire before being tested with more ambitious enterprises.

For the composer wanting to score for film, he will have to study Haydn on his own. Having read through the syllabi of many schools with orchestration classes, one does exercises for grades, not symphonic analysis to build scoring skills. To even find a Haydn/Mozartian library to work with, one must buy what some manufacturers insist on calling a “chamber strings” library when in point of fact the recorded instrumentation isn’t too far from the string section size used by Mozart.

Berlioz, in his Treatise on Instrumentation, has a slightly different take. His advice to the young is to look at contemporary scores first to know what’s happening, then go back and look at Haydn.

Having examined my own learning path in this area, I think on reflection that Geveart is really on to something, especially when most sample string libraries start you out with the full-sized Hollywood orchestra. It takes concert attendance to find out just how big a sound with effective linear writing can be created with 12 violins, 4 violas, 4 cellos and 2 basses plus winds and brass.

Mahler’s letter to young Max Marschalk is a thought provoking, wise piece of writing.

What struck me most is the feature that you also emphasize in your letter: at present you are still going in very much for ‘tone and colour!’ This is a mistake made by all gifted beginners now composing. I could show you a similar phase in my own development – Mood-music is dangerous ground.

Believe me: we must for the time keep being good to the old principles. Themes – these must be clear and plastic, so that they can be clearly recognized at any stage of modification or development - and then varied presentation, holding the attention above all through the logical development of the inner idea, but also by the genuine opposition of contrasting motives.

That is all still blurred in your work. Next, you must shake off the pianist. None of this is a movement for an orchestra – it is conceived for the piano – and then rearranged for orchestra without getting free of the trammels of that instrument.

I suffered from that ailment once myself. – All of us nowadays start out from the piano, whereas the old masters’ origins lay in the violin and the voice.

How true today as well are Mahler’s comments!

Mathews then provides us with a wonderful excerpt from Charles Koechlin’s four volume Treatise on Orchestration, published by Max Eschig in Paris, in classical French on 9 x 12 pages in 9 point type and smaller. I was delighted to see this excerpt. Several on the A-list studied with Koechlin before his death, including Lalo Schifrin (Mission: Impossible theme and many others). I’ve had parts of this book translated for me. And at one time at Alexander Publishing, we tried to negotiate with Eschig to work out the translation rights. Eschig is difficult to work with, as Paul Mathews told me he also discovered.

A class mate of Maurice Ravel’s and an individual who also orchestrated Khamma for Debussy, Koechlin had his own thoughts about where a student should begin.

The first question to treat after studying the resources of each individual instrument [editor's note: instrumentation] is that of the balance of instruments with one another and instrumental groups with one another. Beginners sometimes write sonorities that are stronger or heavier than they would prefer, – or sonorities that combine but leave gaps in the orchestra; one notices unintentional oppositions, inconsistencies, inequalities; an instrument predominates when another was intended, etc.

Koechlin’s observations are still true today, again, especially when starting off with sample libraries. Even when an experienced orchestrator tries to work with samples, getting the right balance is a time consuming frustrating chore. Then when going from sampled orchestra to live orchestra, the young composer is often in shock as to how “small” the live orchestra actually sounds in comparison to the samples.

Paul Mathews Orchestration, An Anthology of Writings, is a timely book for those of us engaged in the practice of writing for deadlines. It should also be a bugle call to academic institutions to seriously review the holes in academic instruction of orchestration, the art we live and die by in L.A.