Getting to Know the Editing Windows

In the last lesson you explored the Arrange window, your doorway into Logic. It's the center of this program, and the window from which all editing decisions are initiated. The rest of Logic's editing windows are all used to either add MIDI and Audio Regions to this window, or to affect them. Since you've already seen what the Arrange window's various parts do, we can now turn our attention to Logic's other editing windows.

A First Look at the Track Mixer

The Track Mixer is a virtual mixing console used to position Logic's tracks "in the mix," or give tracks their own unique place in the aural picture you're painting. Using this window, you can change a track's volume or panorama (pan) position, insert DSP effects like reverb or dynamic range compression, or mute and solo individual channels. The Track Mixer is explored in detail in Lesson 9, "Mixing," but let's take a quick look now.

1.	Open the file named 02Begin.lso, or continue working on your song from the last lesson.
2.	To open the Track Mixer, choose Windows > Track Mixer (Cmd-2). The Track Mixer opens. The Track Mixer is used to mix the sound of audio and MIDI tracks together. It's an adaptive window that mirrors the number and order of tracks in the Arrange window. For example, the Track Mixer currently has several channels, each corresponding to an Arrange window track. Each time you add a track to the Arrange window, it automatically appears in the Track Mixer. If you delete a track from the Arrange window, it also disappears from the Track Mixer.
3.	Click the red Close button in the top left corner of the Track Mixer to close it.

A First Look at the Event List

The Event List presents a catalog of song events, such as MIDI note events or Region start events. This editor replaces the graphic interface of the other editors with a straightforward list displaying a progression of song events over time, and it's covered in Lesson 7, "Editing MIDI in the Hyper Editor and Event List."

1.	To open the Event List, choose Windows > Event List. The Event List opens. The Event List's display area currently shows the start times of all the Arrange window's MIDI and Audio Regions.
2.	Position the Event List so you can clearly see it and the Arrange window at the same time.
3.	In the Event List, click the first House Return Piano event. The House Return Piano event is selectedand the first House Return Piano MIDI Region is also selected back in the Arrange window, as you can tell by the black highlight across its top. This demonstrates an important feature of Logic: When you select an event in one window, the same event is selected in all the other open editing windows. This feature really helps you keep track of what you're editing and where, when the workspace gets crowded with several open editors.
4.	Select a few other events, and watch as the corresponding Regions are selected in the Arrange area.
5.	Close the Event List.

A First Look at the Score Editor

If you're coming to Logic from a formal music background, you'll feel right at home in the Score Editor. This window uses traditional music notation (staves and notes) as an interface for programming and editing MIDI Regions. Using Logic's Print function, you can even print out complete musical scores of the MIDI Regions you program in Logic (including Regions created with any of Logic's other MIDI editing windows).

Due to its reliance on music notation, the Score Editor is suited to a small subset of Logic usersthose who can read music. If you can't read music, don't let this scare you, because you don't need to! Logic's other editors graphically display notes and note events, so there's no need to ever get into music theory. In the next few steps you'll open the Score Editor and take a look around, but this will be one of the few times you'll see the Score Editor in these lessons. For more detailed information on the Score Editor, see the Apple Pro Training Series: Advanced Logic Pro 7.

1.	In the Arrange area, select the House Launch Pad MIDI Region. The Score Editor is a MIDI editor. Before you open it, it helps to have a MIDI Region selected so that Logic knows what MIDI data to display.
2.	Choose Windows > Score (Cmd-3). The Score Editor opens to display the House Launch Pad's MIDI data as notes in a musical score.
3.	Close the Score Editor, and click the Arrange area's background to make sure that no objects are selected in the Arrange area.
4.	Once again, choose Windows > Score (Cmd-3). The Score Editor reopens, but this time it displays two lines of notes. These lines represent the notes from each of the song's two MIDI tracks. This demonstrates another important point about Logic's MIDI editors: If no MIDI Region is selected when you open a MIDI editor, the editor shows the MIDI data of all the song's MIDI Regions, together (the exception to this rule is the Hyper Editor, as you'll see in a moment). This is a great technique to keep in mind, because it allows you to compare or edit the MIDI data of more than one Region at the same time.
5.	Close the Score Editor.

A First Look at the Hyper Editor

The Hyper Editor is a very specialized editor that displays control-change messages, but it can also be used to program drum sequences. This editor is covered in Lesson 7.

1.	Once again, in the Arrange window select the House Launch Pad MIDI Region. Unlike the other MIDI editors, the Hyper Editor will not open unless a MIDI Region is selected in the Arrange area, so this is an important step.
2.	Choose Windows > Hyper Edit (Cmd-5). The Hyper Editor opens. In the Hyper Editor, control-change events are displayed as vertical beams with a black bottom and a gray top. The line dividing the top and bottom sections determines the value of the event.
3.	Close the Hyper Editor.

A First Look at the Matrix Editor

The Matrix Editor displays notes as rectangles along a piano keyboard. Unless you're coming to Logic from a traditional music background (in which case you might prefer the Score Editor), the Matrix Editor will be your primary MIDI editing window. The Matrix Editor is examined in detail in Lesson 6, "Editing MIDI in the Matrix Editor."

1.	Make sure the House Launch Pad MIDI Region is selected.
2.	Choose Windows > Matrix Edit (Cmd-6). The Matrix Editor opens. A MIDI controller keyboard provides the most common way of entering notes into Logic, and the Matrix Editor obligingly provides a keyboard along its left edge. In the Matrix Editor's display area, note events (notes) look like colored rectangles, and their positions along the keyboard show you exactly which notes they represent.
3.	Close the Matrix Editor.

NOTE

As with the Score Editor, if no MIDI Region is displayed when you open the Matrix Editor, it defaults to show the note events for all of your song's MIDI Regions.

A First Look at the Environment

The Environment is a virtual representation of your recording studio. When properly configured, Logic's Environment contains a separate Instrument Object to represent each MIDI device in your studio. Recording studios can be very complex places with lots of equipment that all conspires to make sound, and because of this the Environment is one of Logic's deepest windows. By the time you're done with this book, you'll feel right at home in this awesome and powerful editing window. In the "Customizing Your Setup" section of this book you will strip the Environment down to its bare essentials, then build it back up again. But for now, this quick first look is just to whet your appetite.

1.	Choose Windows > Environment (Cmd-8). The Environment window opens to display a mapped MIDI instrument. The Environment primarily acts as Logic's ears and mouth: It listens for incoming audio and MIDI information, which it then transmits into Logic's sequencer, and it also speaks, or sends audio and MIDI information back out to your synthesizers, samplers, and sound card. It's extremely important to understand that the Environment is Logic's link to the outside world, because without the Environment, Logic could not communicate with your studio's external devices. The Environment itself is organized into layers, much the same as the Hyper Editor. Layers are selected using the Environment's Layer box, which is located directly under the toolbox in the top left corner. You can switch layers by making a selection from the Environment's Layer menu.
2.	Click and hold the Environment's Layer box.
3.	From the Layer menu, choose Audio. The Audio layer appears in the Environment window. This layer holds Audio Objects for all of the audio channels available to Logic, including Audio Instruments, audio tracks, busses, inputs, and outputs. It's a very complex layer, but also essential to the way Logic works, as you'll come to see in Lesson 11, "Setting up the MIDI Environment," and Lesson 12, "Setting up the Audio Environment."
4.	Close the Environment window.

A First Look at the Audio Window

The Audio window holds and organizes all of your song's audio files. You can also use this window to rename audio files and Regions, to optimize files by deleting unused portions, to move files from one hard disk to another, and to change your song's sampling rate. But most important of all, the Audio window is used to add audio files from your hard disks to your song, a process that's fully covered in Lesson 4, "Editing Audio Regions."

Let's look at how this window displays information about audio tracks.

1.	Choose Audio > Audio Window (Cmd-9). The Audio window opens. As mentioned above, the Audio window displays your song's audio files. These files are represented by thin horizontal rectangles that have a disclosure triangle on their left edge. If you click the triangle, it twirls down and the Audio file expands to show its Audio Regions.
2.	Position the Arrange window and the Audio window so you can clearly see both.
3.	In the Audio Window, click the House Slippery Bass Region. The Region is selected, and back in the Arrange window the first Region in the Bass track is also selected. As you might have guessed, this is exactly the same Region in both windows. You saw this interconnection between Logic's editing windows a few exercises ago when selecting events in the Event List. As your songs become more complex, with dozens or even hundreds of Regions crowding the song, you'll find this interconnectivity an invaluable way to locate Regions in Logic's various editing windows.
4.	Close the Audio window.

A First Look at the Sample Editor

The Sample Editor is used to adjust the length and anchor points of your song's Audio Regions. This window lets you make sample-accurate edits to audio files, giving you such precise control that you can edit the individual samples that make up your audio files.

Let's open the Sample Editor and take a look.

1.	An Audio Region must be selected before the Sample Editor will open, so in the Arrange window select the first Audio Region in the Bass track.
2.	Choose Audio > Sample Editor (or simply double-click on the selected Region). The Sample Editor opens. You'll notice right away that this window provides a very accurate view of the Region's waveformand indeed, that's its purpose! It's the Sample Editor, and it lets you zoom right down to the individual sample level of any Audio Region in your song. NOTE Logic is capable of a sample-accurate display of waveforms right in the Arrange window. (Sample-accurate means you can edit the individual samples that make up the audio file.) However, it's often much more convenient to use the Sample Editor to make precise edits to Audio Regions, because it saves you from having to zoom in on Objects in the Arrange window and then zoom back out after you've made your edits.
3.	Close the Sample Editor.