The Environment
Hey friends,
It’s been a while since I’ve last updated. Mostly because of the holiday season (Christmas and New Year’s).
The song has been stagnant. I can’t really record since my brother’s at home. Yeah, the condenser mic picks up keyboard and mouse clicks so it’s totally impossible to record with him playing LOL all day long. (That’s League of Legends for the uninformed - it requires lots of clicks and typing). Anyway, now that school’s started, I can finally get down to recording vocals then moving on to the effects and synths which I’m really excited to get down on.
Whenever I’ve got some free time I kind of go online and read tutorials on Logic and I think it’s safe to say that I’ve read quite an adequate number of articles that would allow me to finally produce a decent track on the DAW.
Well, a little about Logic Pro,
The DAW is surprisingly a lot deeper than I would’ve imagined. After I bought the software together with the MacBook I kind of grew anxious since I wasn’t working with the industry standard in recording (Pro-Tools). So I kind of thought that maybe I made the wrong choice. However, after reading countless tutorials on the software, I’m assured that Logic is definitely the DAW for me.
One of the most eye-opening things that I’ve discovered in Logic Pro is this window called ‘The Environment’. I know right, sounds totally intimidating. The manual doesn’t really do a good job in explaining what it does and does an even worse job at telling you how to use it to it’s maximum potential. Needless to say, I had to resort to friendly YouTube uploaders for some information on the topic.
Well, for those of you who are interested, and I definitely hope that at least a few of you out there are interested in recording if not you wouldn’t be reading this giant block of text, here’s a brief description of what The Environment is.
Basically, in the old days, when synthesizers had just recently been gaining popularity, it was dominated by cables and analog oscillators and all that jazz. A synthesizer usually consisted of a simple keyboard connected via cables to a giant control board, on which you control the intensity of your oscillators, amplifiers, envelopes, etc. If you wanted to put some effects on it, you had to send your signal out to an external effects module, then sent it back into the control board which would then sent the signal out to the speakers or whatever output.
In short, it was a really tedious thing, synthesizers. Apparently, synth players in those days who had a set list to play on stage had to memorise or write down the countless positions for each cable corresponding to a sound that they would need.
So, what does this have to do with ‘The Environment’? Well this window is, essentially, a virtualisation of all that jazz dumped into a space called the ‘The Environment’. In it, you’re able to connect virtual cables between almost every single element there is in Logic Pro. If I wanted to, I could construct the above set-up in virtual space, or I could construct something totally different involving multiple instrument tracks, monitors, buttons, multiple keyboards. I mean the possibilities are literally endless.
Mostly, The Environment is used by modern producers to play with MIDI data. For example, I could play a C note on my MIDI controller (Keyboard-like thing) and have it control volume, play a chord, play a sample, arpeggiate, play a section of my full track, and so on and so forth. I plan to use some of these abilities in the next track.
Quite simply, ‘The Environment’ puts Logic Pro at the forefront of modern DAWs and is definitely a force to be reckoned with. (Sadly, I’m not really good at using it yet, but I’ll get to it).
Yup, quite a long What-I-have-learnt-from-reading-and-watching-tutorials-about-Logic monologue. I mean I thought it was quite exciting.
Anyway, I’m really excited about getting the new track done. I mean, after learning so much about the software I’m using, I really hope that it’ll turn out better than my previous song. I mean it should. If not I would be sad. Not very sure whether I can record vocals this week since my schedules packed again.
Till next time.
