AT ONE POINT THE EMAGIC SOFTWARE KEPT MUTING ALL OF THE R-BUS CHANNELS AND I WAS UNABLE TO RECORD. I KEPT DE-SELECTING MUTE AND SAVING THE CONFIGURATION, BUT THEN IT WOULD SET ALL OF THE CHANNELS TO MUTE AGAIN. I ALMOST PULLED MY HAIR OUT AFTER I TRIED TO RECORD SEVERAL TIMES FINDING THAT THE SOFTWARE HAD ONCE AGAIN AUTOMATICALLY MUTED ALL OF THE CHANNELS! THIS WAS MY FAULT. I DIDN'T SET UP THE ROLAND CONTROL PANEL PROPERLY

Another time, after getting 6 audio tracks up and running CLEAN AND CLEAR, I saved all of my work to find that the next day playback was GRITTY with digital noise and POPS. I found that hitting SHIFT/F1 ON THE VM-3100 will reload the Logic configuration and fix the problem. This is always the quickest way to get back to the DEFAULT settings to get the hardware interfaces working properly.There are so many combinations of options when you put the Emagic software together with the MIXER. I could have chose MIXER INTERNAL CLOCK, or Roland BUSS Clock or PDIF clock ON THE MIXER. Then I could select INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL from my computer CONTROL PANEL. WOW the possibilities are endless AND CONFUSING. So remember SHIFT/F1.

The Sample Editor

I'm familiar with COOL EDIT and usually use it, but there are times when you must hear the EDIT IN CONTEXT with the other tracks.So I played with it. Here is what I found out.

1) IN THE DEFAULT SETTING "Updating Overview" can't be turned off and will slow you down because every time you make an edit it creates this long file for nothing more than a thumb nail view!

2) As you move the Song Position Pointer on the Transport, the wave doesn't scroll horizontally, EVEN WHEN "CATCH" AND "LINK" are on. The audio view won't CATCH up to the pointer until you hit the PLAY button on the Transport. This makes it difficult, at best, to place the cursor on exactly the right spot.

3) There isn't a PASTE OVER function. If you paste, it will be either INSERTED at the cursor line or PASTED OVER another selected area. Now this is very tricky because if your selected area isn't exactly the same size as the COPY from the CLIPBOARD, then all of the samples following will move off location. This is further complicated because there isn't a SNAP TO GRID function to help select EXACTLY 4 BARS , for an example. In comparison, the 3 year old Cakewalk Pro Audio 8 will snap to grid. Now if you could select exactly 4 bars when you COPY and then exactly 4 bars before you PASTE, you would be able to nicely PASTE OVER without messing up the timing of the rest of the wave! Now why couldn't they do that? This whole LOGIC-RPC version makes wave editing a nightmare. It would be easier for me to play the whole 8 minutes of drums over again than to COPY AND PASTE A SINGLE 4 BAR PHRASE using the Sample Edit Window in LOGIC-RPC. COOL EDIT has both PASTE and MIX PASTE functions and you don't need ANCHORS ,to complicate things further. So having said all of that...

4) I would like to HAVE MY OWN FAVORITE AUDIO EDITOR OPEN INSTEAD when I double click on the WAVE TRACK! There doesn't seem to be a way to do that with this package. If you have another sound card ,as I do, you can open up COOL EDIT in a separate window. In comparison, the 3 year old Cakewalk Pro Audio 8 has COOL EDIT listed directly on it's TOOLS MENU and will open the HI-LIGHTED section of the wave in Cool Edit.

NOW WAIT. AFTER PLAYING WITH THIS ANOTHER WHOLE DAY I HAVE LEARNED THAT LOGIC HAS A BETTER WAY THAN CUTTING UP YOUR WAVES TO COPY AND PASTE A SINGLE 4 BAR PHRASE

The thing to do, for this type of editing, is to go to the ARRANGE WINDOW.

THE ARRANGE WINDOW

Besides basic MIDI arranging, the arrange window can be also used to cut and dice COPIES of the wave files. If you recorded your WAVE FILE AUDIO while listening to a MIDI clock reference such as a METRONOME , or MIDI DRUMBEAT there is a good chance that you will be able to make cuts on 1/4 NOTE or BAR lines. This greatly speeds up editing. Even though you can't see the wave, (this bothered me at first) the cuts will be suprisingly ON TIME. For most ROUGH CUTS, this will relieve the tedium of using a wave editor. However if you want to do something intricate such as remove a breath from a vocal the wave editor would then be the choice.

PUTTING THE COMBO TOGETHER

When all of the parts are working together, this package can get very complex indeed. You can have effects inserted before the mixer or after the mixer. You can insert effects after the mixer but before the recorder. When you play back, effects might be recorded effects or they may be added later. You really need to keep track of where you are. You may be thinking that an effect is recorded to the .WAV file, burn it to CD and find that your CD is DRY. This can happen when your monitor is in the wrong place. If your monitor is after the mixer, you may be listening to POST EFFECTS. (effects generated after the mixer BASIC output) What complicates the whole matter is that you have MULTI-USE BUTTONS, MULTI LEVEL MENUS and MIXER BUTTON COMBINATIONS to do all of this switching. Besides the effects built into the VM-3100, you also can insert DIRECTX effects using the LOGIC-RPC software. You must work with this thing on a regular basis or you will forget and not be able to QUICKLY execute, for instance, a patch from the INPUTS DIRECTLY to your MONITOR. The EASY ROUTING button is a help, BUT NOT A PANACEA.

THE INSTRUMENT EDITOR

IT DID'T WORK. It asked me to insert the CD to authorize and after I inserted the LOGIC CD, it still didn't work.

THE EVENT EDITOR

I have carpul tunnel syndrome, so I like to escape from the mouse once in a while. Something that should be intuitive, is a text editor, which you might say that the Event List is! It is for fine tuning things by typing the exact Velocity , Time, etc. directly into the Editor. Something simple as using the DOWN ARROW should work right? Wrong! If you try to move down the list by hitting the down arrow alone sometimes the ENTIRE LIST OF TRACKS will move up and down. Once you are at the track name that you want to modify try and hit "ENTER" AND THE MUSIC STARTS PLAYING. Try to hit "E" for edit or INSERT KEY and nothing happens! THE BACKSPACE KEY will nicely DELETE a track! The easiest thing is grab the mouse again and click on the TRACK. So you go back and forth from mouse to keyboard while in THE EVENT LIST.

PUTTING THE MUSIC TOGETHER/ MIXDOWN BOUNCE TO CD COMPATIBLE .WAV FILE

This was a little difficult at first, but once I realized that all channels were to be routed to the same OUTPUT the process went smoothly. I heard a few BURPS (gliches, clicks ,skips or pops) while my system simultaneously played 6 TRACKS OF 24 BIT AUDIO while recording A MIXDOWN STEREO FILE in 24 bit format. However, the finished 2 TRACK STEREO file played back without a burp at all. This is to be expected in certain cases with FRAGMENTED HARD DISKS, AND slower computers such as my 700 MHZ. After I de-fragmented my hard disks, there were no burps at all! So then I pushed up to 7 tracks of 24 bit audio and even used 3 of the emagic DIRECTX EFFECTS while bouncing. Once again I was back to a few burps, BUT THE FINISHED PRODUCT WAS GREAT!

CLICK HERE FOR a few more TIPS ON BOUNCING TO CD COMPATIBLE STEREO .WAV FILE