General Audio preferences in Logic Pro

When Show Advanced Tools is selected in Advanced preferences, the General Audio pane is available with the following preferences:

“Display audio engine overload message” checkbox: When selected, displays an alert message in an overload situation. Otherwise, playback simply stops without displaying an alert.
Sample Accurate Automation pop-up menu: Determines which parameters, if any, are automated with sample accuracy. This type of automation is very processor intensive. It places higher overheads on system resources, which may affect performance (depending on the nature of your projects, and available computing power). This is most likely to happen during heavy project sections where a lot of software instruments and effects are in use. Logic Pro offers three settings:
- Off: Minimal overhead on computer performance for automation playback. Automation is less precise when this setting is active.
- Volume, Pan, Sends: Only these parameters are automated with sample accuracy.
- Volume, Pan, Sends, Plug-in Parameters: All of these parameters are automated with sample accuracy. Not all Audio Units plug-ins can be automated in this way.
“Automatic Bus Assignment uses” pop-up menu: Choose whether automatic bus assignment uses all busses, or only busses above a certain number (in multiples of eight).
Software Monitoring checkbox: Turns software monitoring on or off. In most situations, you should leave it on (default).
Note: When Software Monitoring is on, the audio signal is processed via software, and a certain amount of audible delay (commonly referred to as latency) is inevitable.
If you’re listening to the recorded signal through your mixing console, or your audio interface supports hardware monitoring, you should turn this option off.
“Input monitoring only for the focused track, and only when input monitoring is enabled, (like in GarageBand)” checkbox: Limits input monitoring to the focused track in the Tracks area, as it is in GarageBand. When this is enabled you only hear incoming audio, during playback or recording, for the selected track and any additional record enabled tracks.
“Independent monitoring level for record-enabled channel strips” checkbox: Allows the use of an independent monitoring level for record-enabled audio channel strips. This is off by default. After record-enabling a track, you can adjust the fader to the level you like. The original level is restored when you deselect the Record Enable button.
Note: Adjustments to the fader do not affect the recording level; they only affect the monitoring level.
Dim Level slider: Sets a discrete level for the Dim function. You can set a dim level from 0 dB to –30 dB. The level chosen here is used when the Dim button is activated from the Master channel strip.
Plug-in Latency Compensation pop-up menu: Compensates for audio delays that can be introduced when using plug-ins. Plug-in latency compensation (also called plug-in delay compensation) is useful for software effects plug-ins, and is particularly important for DSP (digital signal processing) accelerator hardware (such as products by Universal Audio and others).
Use the pop-up menu to activate plug-in latency compensation for either:
- Audio and software instrument tracks
- All (audio, instrument, auxiliary, and output channel strips)
You can also turn off compensation entirely.
“Playback pre-roll” checkbox: When selected, all Play commands start playback a little earlier. The exact pre-roll value depends on the current plug-in delay compensation value. This option ensures that transients that fall exactly on the start position are played back correctly. If this option is unselected, transients that fall precisely on the start position can be missed or seem to fade in.
Low Latency Mode checkbox and Limit slider: When you enable Low Latency mode by checking this box or clicking the Low Latency Mode button in the control bar, the Limit slider determines the maximum amount of allowable plug-in delay. In Low Latency mode, audio is routed around latency-inducing plug-ins to ensure that all delays (across the entire signal flow of the current track) remain under the Limit slider value. This is useful when you want to play a software instrument with several latency-inducing plug-ins inserted in the channel.

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Logic Pro User Guide

General Audio preferences in Logic Pro