General Audio settings in Logic Pro for Mac
When Enable Complete Features is selected in Advanced settings, the General Audio pane is available with the following settings:
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 for Mac 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 (as in GarageBand) checkbox: When selected, you only hear incoming audio for the focused track, and only if its Input Monitoring button is selected. If you selected multiple tracks, click the track number in a track header to focus that track. When the checkbox is unselected, you hear incoming audio on all tracks that have the Input Monitoring button selected.
Note: The Input Monitoring button on any non-focused track remains gray when selected, and the letter I on the button turns orange to indicate that the button is selected but inactive. The level meter shows the input signal on all tracks that have the Input Monitoring button selected (active or inactive).
Tip: With this input monitoring option, you can set up several audio tracks to receive your audio input and select Input Monitoring on all of those tracks, but you’ll only hear your audio signal on the focused track. This can be helpful when you want to quickly step through tracks to hear your voice or guitar sound with a different patch.
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
Plug-ins inserted on a channel strip may take time to process the audio signal, and as a result, the output signal of a plug-in can be delayed, which is also referred to as latency. To ensure that all tracks in your project play in sync, plug-in latency compensation detects the track in your project with the highest latency and ensures that all tracks are delayed by that amount. See Work with plug-in latencies.
Compensation pop-up menu: Compensates for audio delays that can be introduced when using plug-ins so all tracks play back in sync. Choose one of the following options:
Off: Turn off plug-in latency compensation entirely.
Audio and Software Instrument Tracks: Apply plug-in latency compensation only to audio and software instrument channel strips.
Use this option when you have latency-causing plug-ins only on audio and software instrument tracks. Logic Pro is delaying audio and MIDI regions on audio and instrument tracks accordingly.
All: Apply plug-in latency compensation to audio, software instrument, auxiliary, and output channel strips.
Use this option when you also have latency-causing plug-ins on aux and/or output channel strips. Logic Pro calculates the maximum latency caused by all plug-ins on a track’s signal path and then delays the audio streams of each track by an appropriate amount.
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 Monitoring Mode checkbox: When you turn on Low Latency Monitoring mode, the combined plug-in latencies caused by all plug-ins on a channel strip’s signal path can’t be higher than the value set by the Limit slider. To ensure this, sends are turned off, and latency-inducing plug-ins might be bypassed. This is useful when recording a track with latency-inducing plug-ins inserted in the channel strip.
Note: The Low Latency Monitoring Mode checkbox is linked to the Low Latency Monitoring Mode button in the control bar. The setting affects all open projects, and it’s preserved until you quit Logic Pro. See Change the controls on the control bar.
Limit slider: When you turn on Low Latency Monitoring mode, the Limit slider determines the maximum amount (up to 30 ms) of allowed plug-in delay on a track.
The plug-in button of any plug-in that is bypassed by Low Latency Monitoring mode changes to gray with orange text. Send buttons are also turned off (indicated by the orange text on gray button), and when you Control-click the button, its shortcut menu shows a new item, Low Latency Safe, that you can select to prevent the send from being automatically turned off. See Work with plug-in latencies.
Important: Low Latency Monitoring mode is inactive when you bounce your project.