I'm doing a survey to see if any composers who write orchestral music (and hence probably more complex arrangements than your average user) find the Arrange Page in Logic 8 less easy to work with - now that LP7's 'View Region Content' has been removed for apparently looking too noisy.

Personally I find the new appearance to be lacking contrast and I can't see muted phrases etc. any more (which used to appear as lighter grey little notes).

I'm asking this here because somebody at Apple essentially suggested I ask around how many others feel strongly about this. If enough people express dissatisfaction with the new look they may improve it. My immediate thought was to ask fellow VSL users here.

I make my case here:

http://www.patrickwilsonmusic.com/logic8.html

I am not suggesting that Apple go back to the 'little notes' scenario necessarily. I just think that as it is, it's harder to see what's going on in the most important musical areas. ie. pitching/phrases and gaps. Maybe there's a better way of doing it? Any suggestions?

I agree on both accounts (contrast and region content), but in all honesty my opinion isn't strong enough for this to be a factor for me. All I really want from that display is an indication where the notes are - I've never looked at the display more closely than that. What I'd like is for the display to work with folders as well.

Hi Patrick,

 

I preferred the Logic 7 look of View Content. I must say I do like the little notes as they give a kind of mini-score feel to the arrange window if one zooms in. Perhaps many Logic owners do not read music and prefer the Logic 8 new look which resembles a mini-piano-roll display of stripes, as opposed to a mini-score of notes. Ideally, there should be a preference where one could choose between the two.

 

Looking at your website:

I don't seem to have the Hyperdraw problem that you experience, nor the Tempo list issue. 

 

If you have a "hotline" to Apple, GO FOR IT!!

 

Regards - Colin 

 Hi ,

 

I use L. Pro 7 and was thinking of upgrading . Though I have to say I much prefer the little notes in the arrange window compared to the more minimalist style appearance in Logic 8.

 

Tony 

yes, I'd like a "little note" option, as well as the option to view content of folders. Where do I sign up? Perhaps you can start an online petition?

Hi, eventually I will forward the relevant comments here to one of the Logic developers at Apple (who emailed me and actually saw my POV). I also posted on The Logic Pro 8 forum at http://discussions.apple.com/forum but the thread was removed by the moderators for some reason. If you feel strongly about some missing feature (like the removal of the 'View Region Content' option) it's a good idea to email Logic's Apple developers directly at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/logicpro.html They apparently do read the feedback.

JT3_Jon:

yes, I'd like a "little note" option, as well as the option to view content of folders. Where do I sign up? Perhaps you can start an online petition?

JT3_Jon:

yes, I'd like a "little note" option, as well as the option to view content of folders. Where do I sign up? Perhaps you can start an online petition?

There's no point in starting a petition - Apple  don't seem to take notice of such things. Just go directly to the Logic Feedback web page as Patrick said.(You can always find this link in Logic 8 in the Help menu - "Provide Logic Pro Feedback")

 Who knows....maybe they DO read input from there?

Patrick Wilson:

I also posted on The Logic Pro 8 forum at http://discussions.apple.com/forum but the thread was removed by the moderators for some reason.

 

The Apple forums are totally intolerant of anything that even vaguely resembles criticism. I've had several threads and posts removed by the Apple Sanitation Police.

 

They say it conflicts with their forum policy.......God forbid anyone should ever say something bad about Apple

Hi Patrick,

I agree wholeheartedly that the removal of the notehead overview in Logic 8 was a huge mistake. I posted about this on apple.censorship.com a while back (I referred to the piano roll display as 'birch bark').

Aside from being able to see a 'mini score view', the other advantage of the L7 display was that muted notes within a region could be clearly seen. Not so the case with the L8 "piano roll" display.

Furthermore, once the range of a part exceed some threshold or other (which I couldn't be bothered to investigate), the piano roll display will "tranpose" the pitch-position of notes. The result is an inaccurate reflection of the relative pitch-positions of notes within the region. One way to see this for yourself would be to play an arpeggio that spans several octaves; the piano roll display will likely show a pattern of notes that appears as two or more distinct arpeggios instead of one.

It's encouraging to know that the Logic programmers actually responded to you.

Almost all of my work these days is orchestral in nature, and considering the current state of L8 (not just the lack of notehead display but other aspects of L8 which hobble my workflow) I've decided to stick with L7.1.1. The only exception I'll make is if I get a scoring gig for an indy where the frame rate is 23.976 and the music I write needs to be metronomic or hit lots of hitpoints. In that case I'll have no choice.

BTW, how did you make out with that whacky tempo problem? If you remember, I'm the guy who forwarded your file to "the powers that be" at Apple/Logic. Please email me and let me know how you made out.

Hi Peter, I had an initially promising exchange with your contact at Apple who said he'd have my 'wacky tempo' problem looked into by their technicians. To this end he requested I send him the song file which I did. Unfortunately I have not heard a peep since which is rather disappointing. Whether they simply have not got around to it or have simply drawn a blank is anyone's guess. I do think it's rather impolite not to have replied at all especially since last month I followed up with an email asking if there'd been any progress. Maybe you could remind him if you're in touch. I'd be grateful.

I have so far only a suspicion that the problem was related to tempo markings in the score page which I've deleted. The problem may have been something else of course because I deleted a lot of other info that was not essential and the problem seems to have gone away so far. I had a pretty good score for that piece within Logic but even Logic could not cope with the demands of that piece so I used Sibelius in the end - which rocks as far as I'm concerned.

We clearly share the exact same misgivings about the appearance of the arrange page in LP8. I still maintain it should be a switchable option to see the 'note view' which was more useful to me than the 'birch bark' he he. I am soldiering on with Logic 8 on my native set up but have kept my old G5 rig with Protools and Lp7 frozen in time at OSX 10.4.7. I simply have a load of tracks to finish on that platform which will take a year or so to get around to. in the meantime I'm having quite good fun on LP8 with loads of new native plug-ins!

Thanks for remembering me...it's good to hear from you again

best

Patrick

Patrick,

Not getting a reply from "the contact" at the Rotten Apple doesn't suprise me. That is their way. Their policy is silence. And that's not conjecture, conspiracy theory, or the rantings of an unsatisfied customer... it's an unfortunate fact which I've confirmed via several insiders. The main reason I use my inside contacts at Apple sparingly is because I don't want to suffer the frustration of not hearing back from them on serious issues. I've been in the same boat -- submitted bug reports and a file and heard nothing back. Not even a "thank you". And even though I have an open-door to submit bug reports, etc., at the end of the day it's not worth the frustration. So I'm sticking with Logic 7 which more or less works and I'm being productive.

Funny, I booted up an old computer yesterday running OS 8 on an old G3. Man was its GUI snappy! Made OSX on a Quad seem downright sluggish. Same with Logic 8. Running on a PPC Quad G5, it's soooo pokey compared to the response of Logic 7 on the same computer. So the price of "progress" often results in performance ending up in the red, not to mention the life-drain of new learning curves.

But, back on topic. Since you said that someone from Logic got back to you regarding the notehead display... if you wouldn't mind, would you please send him an email saying that another heavy (and long-time) score user wants it back too?

-=PS=-

Hi Patrick, I'm just doing the transfer across to Logic 8 and just encountered the lack of region noteheads. I'd come to absolutely rely on them as part of the arrange display and the uninformative "lines" that replace them pretty much have no meaning. I hope there is a future preference for notehead display and please add my name to any stuff you forward to Apple. I have lodged a feature request on the feedback page. Thanks Julian

Put me on the list of film composers who miss the old note head system in the midi regions. I find it a bit confusing when ascending intervals are shown inverted. I suspect that the idea behind the new version is to better present the note lengths. I think the new system would be fine if it would simply present the notes in their proper high/low position. An option to switch between the two would probably be best and easiest to (re)-implement.

 For Logic 8 users, you can get the latest update here:

http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/download/

 

All the info (long list) is here 

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1086 

 

A user at the Apple Logic forums claims that the note heads now appear once more. I can't seem to find any new pref or setting for this. Please post here if anyone has more info. 

 

Regards - Colin

I could not agree more. I need to see the notes. I may even switch to another program because of this. Dennis