Exploring the Hyper Editor

The Hyper Editor is arguably one of Logic's least used MIDI editors, and that's a shame, because the Hyper Editor excels at two particular tasks:

• Adding or editing control-change data in individual MIDI Regions, such as pan settings, velocities, or even program-change messages that tell your synthesizer which sounds to play.

• Creating drum sequences.

The secret to the Hyper Editor is its ability to organize MIDI events along a user-defined time grid, which in turn enables you to quickly program rhythmic MIDI Regions. Let's open the Hyper Editor and take a first look.

1.	From this book's companion DVD files, open 07Begin.lso (in the Lesson 7 Project Files folder), or continue working on your song from the previous lesson.
2.	In the Arrange window, click the top of the MIDI Region in the Drum Kits Audio Instrument track to ensure it is selected. Because HyperDraw is enabled for this sequence, you must click the thin beam above the blue HyperDraw area to select it. If you click the blue HyperDraw area, you'll accidentally add HyperDraw nodes!
3.	Choose Windows > Hyper Edit (Cmd-5). The Hyper Editor opens.
4.	Make the Hyper Editor wide, and use the horizontal and vertical zoom controls to zoom in until you can clearly see the pan events.

Erasing Events in the Hyper Editor

Take a close look at the Hyper Editor and note the curves in the pan events. These are the curves you entered using HyperDraw in the previous lesson. Right now there are a lot of individual MIDI eventsin fact, there are so many it's hard to tell where one pan event ends and the next begins. Let's use the Hyper Editor to erase the current pan events in preparation for adding a new, cleaner pan curve with fewer MIDI events.

1.	From the Hyper Editor's toolbox, select the Eraser tool.
2.	Drag across the pan events to erase them all.

TIP

You can also erase events by selecting them and then pressing the Delete key.

Modifying an Event Line's Time Grid

Now that the old pan events are gone, let's modify the time grid. By default, the pan event grid is set to 1/16-Notethat's 16 events per bar. In the following steps we'll increase this resolution to make the pan events sound smoother.

1.	Make sure that the Pan line is selected in the Hyper Editor.
2.	On the left edge of the Hyper Editor, from the Event Definition Parameter box's Grid menu, choose 1/32-Note. The Pan line changes to display a 1/32-Note grid.

Using the Crosshair Tool to Add MIDI Events

The Crosshair tool is used to create straight lines of MIDI events. It works in a very particular way: You must first click to create the beginning of the line, then release the mouse button and drag out the event line, and finally click to create the end of the event line. Let's try it out now.

1.	From the Hyper Editor's toolbox, select the Crosshair tool.
2.	Click and press the Crosshair tool at the top of the Pan line's first 1/32-Note. Notice the help tag that appears under the pointer. This help tag tells you the pan value at the point you've clicked.
3.	While still pressing the mouse button, refine the value at the beginning of the Pan line by dragging up or down until the event value displayed in the help tag is close to 120.
4.	Release the mouse button and move the pointer to the last 1/32-Note in the bar. A line extends behind the Crosshair pointer. Once again, watch the help tag to see the exact pan value under the pointer.
5.	When the Crosshair pointer is where you want the last event to be, Ctrl-click the pointer. TIP Don't just click the Crosshair pointer. To lock in the changed events, you must Ctrl-click. A line of events is drawn.
6.	Click the Arrange window to make it the active window. Notice the line of pan events in the MIDI Region's HyperDraw area. It is a straight line with one node every 1/32-Note. TIP If you can't see the line of events in the HyperDraw area, select the actual sequence in the Arrange window by clicking just above the blue HyperDraw area.
7.	Make the Hyper Editor the active window once again.