>Sidechain - > >I couldn't find any documentation in the help section.. and OMG! there's a >help section! heh.. if anyone has any info on the sidechain could you email >me? Sidechains can potentially be used to feed extra audio channels to effects in order to use that auxiliary audio signal to trigger something (like a gate) or modulate an effect (like ducking), or other possibilities, but I don't know that any of Logic's plugins or any 3rd party ones out there have implemented such features yet. What you can definitely use it for now is for getting MIDI messages (notes & everything) sent to VST effects that handle MIDI & also instruments that can process audio input. You load the effect or instrument onto an audio instrument track & then choose an audio track as in the sidechain menu & the stuff on that audio track will be routed into the instrument track plugin. Realize that you may want to turn the volume of the feeding audio track down in order to avoid doubling the signal. For plugins that offer MIDI CC control of parameters, you can now do that in Logic thanks to the sidechain. And there are also effect plugins like a few of mine, Auto-Tune 3, & FXpansion's MIDIcomb that let you affect the processing of an audio signal using MIDI notes. So as far as I'm concerned, this is a really exciting new feature because I particularly use my own effects a lot & they've never been fully compatible with Logic (had to create some workarounds)! >Performance > >Felt a little more solid - except even when idle , the cpu meter jumps >around drastically (is that for the scrubbing buffer??).. it doesnt seem >affect anything. That could be an issue with some plugin that you're using. Plugins on busses, master, & selected audio instruments tracks are always active. Plugins that feature IIR filters & that don't do anything to protect against denormalized floats will go CPU crazy if they get an extended stream of silent (zero) audio samples. Umm, don't worry if that didn't make sense to you, just realize that this could be a plugin problem, so try bypassing some effects & see if the problem still occurs. Marc -- [ Destroy FX - http://www.smartelectronix.com/~destroyfx ]

Thoughts from the mind of Marc Poirier, 01-04-2002: >Sidechains [...] >I don't know that any of Logic's plugins or any 3rd party ones out >there have implemented such features yet. Compressor, Expander, Noise Gate, Silver Compressor, Silver Gate, AutoFilter are the Logic Plugins offering a sidechain. >What you can definitely use it for now is for getting MIDI messages >(notes & everything) sent to VST effects that handle MIDI & also >instruments that can process audio input. You load the effect or >instrument onto an audio instrument track & then choose an audio >track as in the sidechain menu & the stuff on that audio track will >be routed into the instrument track plugin. Isn't this a bit backwards, conceptually? The track to be manipulated is picked as the sidechain, and the track controlling the plugin is where the plug is actually inserted... Wouldn't it make more sense if you could insert such plugins in an audio track -- as you do with any audio-processing plugins -- and you would then get e.g. a sidechain menu in which you can pick a midi track? Not that I care much, but it's just a thought... -- Hendrik Jan Veenstra <h@...> Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html