Hi, In Jonathan Perl's excellent training videos on 'Trillian' & 'Omnisphere', he twice refers to dragging in midi files to groove lock your arpeggiation(s) to. (One of these, in Trillian I think, he's even created the midi file from an audio drum loop). I'd love to know how he created a midi file from an audio source file, as this expands the potential use of the groove lock feature a lot. Can anyone shed any light on that, ideally working in Logic 9? In the Omnisphere video, extracting the velocity & timing midi data from his track's drum loop and saving it as a midi file, then dropping it into the arpeggiator via groove lock really integrated his synth riff nicely, but unfortunately, the video doesn't give any tips on the midi file preparation for dumbos like me. Any pointers would be appreciated. Obviously, this is straight forward if your working with a midi drum loop, but audio? That's smart. Thanks!

I haven't seen the video, but the first thing that comes to mind is this: use the Audio to Score function and create a MIDI part that matches the impulses from your track (might require some cleanup after the process is over, to remove any spurious notes or to fine-tune the timing, but the actual pitches of the notes that are generated won't matter). There's another method that utilizes beat mapping. Post back if you want details.

Thanks Ski. Both 'audio to score' & beat-mapping are new logic territory for me, but sound as if they'll nail it. I'll have to check the Logic manual on audio to score, but it sounds as if it will be straight forward and worth knowing. I did work through an interesting exercise on beat-mapping in David Dvorin's Logic training book, I've long since forgotten most of it. If it's easy to post any further hints or tips, please do so. Again, thanks.

Audio-to-Score takes a bit of getting used to, but it can do a really good job of translating audio transients (and even pitches) into a series of corresponding MIDI notes. How well it works is dependent on careful setting of the various parameters. As far as beat mapping goes, the process for doing what you want is a little lengthy to explain, but here goes! The process involves: - beat mapping the section of audio that you want to emulate the groove of - recording a MIDI part which will be quantized to the tempo changes generated from beat mapping that part - doing a bunch of operations to finalize what is to become your groove template So... First, SMPTE-lock all regions in your song. This will prevent things from shifting around as you do your beat mapping operations. The next step is to open the global beat mapping track, select the audio track playing the groove, and hit "analyze". Now you're going to beat map the section of audio playing the groove you want to emulate. You'll have to judge for yourself how much beat mapping is necessary. For example, if it's an 8th note groove, be sure to map every 8th note in that section of the track. This will result in a tempo map where the tempo changes every 8th note. Next... on an instrument track, load up a sound -- something percussive or with a sharp attack -- and record yourself playing along with the groove. Your timing doesn't have to be perfect, though it should be close. Now, quantize that MIDI part (in this case, to 8th notes) and its notes will conform to the timing of the tempo map. Play back the track to ensure that your MIDI instrument sound plays tightly with the track. If it doesn't, you may have to fine-tune the position of the beat mapping lines in certain areas. The final steps: SMPTE-lock the MIDI region and delete all of the beat mapping lines except for the first one. If you do it right you'll end up with only one tempo -- the original tempo of your track (view the tempo list to be sure). Now SMPTE-unlock everything and use that MIDI region as a Groove Template.

Thanks for taking the time to post that. It's sounds like it's just what I need, along with a bit of practice.

Nice advice Ski! Just to let you know that Beat Mapping and Audio to Score are covered in Steve H's Logic 201 - Logic Master Class #1: [url]http://www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/logic9201[/url] :) Thanks! Rounik

Thanks Rounik! See, that's why they pay me the big bucks... (as they say) LOLOLOL!!