This will open an editor in a new window with three tabs named “Switches”, “Articulations” and “Output”. Let’s see practically how to use this feature works then, I’ll be using as an example the very beautiful Albion V Tundra from Spitfire Audio, this is a fantastic Kontakt based instrument that offer a full orchestra recorded in a very peculiar way (at the edge of silence as they say), and here is their interface for their high woods section: The mapping between an articulation ID and the actual key switch is done on a dedicated mapping editor, and again, since those are essentially control messages you can signal those changes to anything, including external hardware, and decide that the key switches are send only over a specific MIDI channel, for instance. The feature works by recording the articulation ID for each note, so that you can change, per note, the articulation of any instrument plugin. With the release of 10.4 the articulation has received a very useful user interface update and now is easily possible to create articulation sets (and save/recall them as needed), without the need to manually remember and find the actual MIDI note, which is even more useful when you don’t have an 88 keyboard, but a shorter one, at hand! Also, if the key switch is on the piano roll editor, it will appear in the music sheet if you create one from the MIDI data, but of course, this may be a benefit too if you work with other composers by exchanging said MIDI data. Logic has had some form of support for articulation switching for a long time, and of course is always possible to send MIDI CC via automation or to draw key switches on the piano roll editor, but the drawback of this approach is that you need to remember which note for which instrument does what, and if you ever rearrange a section you need to remember to also rearrange the articulation key switch. To understand better what I mean, just try to do the following without ever changing articulations (in particular the fantastic performance at about 7:08 and over): For most Kontakt based libraries this is a key switch on the keyboard outside the playable range of the instrument (a Note On message in MIDI terms).Īrticulations are a great way to enable expressivity, especially when using sampled instruments like orchestral ensembles or solo instruments, because it is very likely that players will be using a multitude of different styles during their performances, and in fact composers do add the common styles in the music notation as part of the performance instructions, and so being able to change them dynamically in your MIDI score brings you a little bit closer to reality, beside being an invaluable inspirational tool. The term articulations refers to the different ways of playing an instrument, styles like flautando or collegno for example, or the use of different brushes and sticks for drums, but of course there is nothing in stone that says that an articulation switch can’t be used to control a patch on your synth or an a MIDI outboard delay unit – particularly in the way they have been implemented in Logic Pro X – since an articulation switch is just a special key switch or trigger (like a CC command) that causes a change in the setting of the target component in some way. I will explore some of those features, in particular the new tempo mapping and the new ARA support (Melodyne anyone?) in future posts as well but I will start in this one with the new Articulations feature. The 10.4 update comes in with an incredible number of features and some welcomed redesign, which I find particularly useful for retina iMacs where the previous versions didn’t exactly feel snappier. Logic Pro X is a fantastic application, not only every new release is packed with features, quality plugins and an awesome collection of sounds and loops, but is also very affordable compared to the alternatives, especially considering the fact that Apple has been giving away for free every release so far, if you bought that in 2013, when Logic Pro X was releases, your investment has costed you a whopping 29 € per year! If you live in Hamburg that’s less than a coffee per month, but even if you happen to come from south Italy where coffee still cost about 80 cents it won’t bankrupt you either! Of course, the cost of the Mac to run this beast may have bankrupted you instead but that’s probably a story for another time, isn’t it?
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