Notation Guide
Having worked with Logic and its predecessor Notator SL since 1988, in the summer of 1995 I began participating in the Logic Users Group, an internet mailing list. I wrote a lot about Logic's notation part there and shared my knowledge with other Logic users. In the fall of '95 Gerhard Lengeling contacted me (via internet) and asked me to become a beta tester for Logic. So I became a "long-distance-beta-tester" and contributor of ideas for Logic's development, mainly its score part. My contributions to the Logic Users Group continued, and after Len Sasso released his Environment Guide and the Logic Internet community obviously supported this project, I had the idea to write such a book about Logic's notation part. A first "poll" testing general interest for such a book (again, on the Logic Users mailing list - many thanks to Fokke DeBoer!) showed me that quite a few people were interested. Also Len Sasso helped me a lot by telling me about his experiences with his own book and encouraging me to go for it (Thanks a lot, Len!). So in the spring of '97 I decided to write it.
Some time after that, Emagic asked me to completely rewrite the notation part of the Logic manual and also to write a score tutorial for beginners. I did both, but did not stop working on this book - I only changed my plans concerning its concept: From an alternative to the Emagic manual which it would have been initially it became a mixture between a higher level tutorial and a tips&tricks collection.
The Logic Notation Guide (LNG) is not intended to replace the score chapter
of the Logic manual - since I wrote that myself, this would not make sense.
This book requires at least the knowledge covered in the Emagic Score Tutorial
(which is a beginner's introduction to Logic's score part). That tutorial was
a PDF file which could be downloaded for free from Emagic's webpages.
The LNG also is not written for people who distrust manuals in general: You will even find that I refer to the manual and to the tutorial sometimes, especially for basic reference. I tried my best there to explain things, so why should I write everything a second time? (Besides, nobody would want to buy such a book.) If I did write about something which is described in the manual, I tried to explain it from a different point of view. Apart from that, this book contains a lot more practical examples, and many sections are based on tutorials using the song files on the supplementary disc.
In general I tried to structure the contents rather according to their musical and notation-related context than to the technical structure of the program. Nevertheless in an integrated software package like Logic it is necessary to understand the basic structures that all parts of the program are based on. A lot of this is covered in chapter View Modes, Display Levels And Instrument Sets, which begins on page 11.
Last but not least the LNG goes beyond the level of the manual quite often: Advanced concepts are introduced, most descriptions go very much into detail, and quite a few tricks, hints and workarounds are supplied which enable you to do things with Logic's notation part that would not be possible with the regular functions described in the manual.
Since Logic is a very flexible program, there are different approaches for
working with it. This book describes my own way of working. Although this
might not be the ideal approach for everybody, it should still be possible
for every interested reader to gain additional knowledge and get new ideas
for his or her own way of using Logic as a notation-based sequencer and as
a notation program.
Concerning older versions of Logic: The major part of this book will also
be useful for people who work with older versions of Logic, especially the
chapters describing the more basic functions.
In the book there are detailed explanations how these scores can be created. In addition the scores shown here are also included as Logic files on the supplementary disc.
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(go to top of page)1. HOW TO USE THE ADDENDUM 4
2. WHAT'S NEW IN LOGIC 4.7? 5
New Look, Language Options 5
New Menu Structures 5
New Score Functions 5
Logic for Windows - User Interface Changes 63. CHANGES BY CHAPTER 7
4. SCORE AND PARTS 15
Setting Up the Full Score 16
Part Extraction 17
Separate Layout Parameters for Score and Parts 17
Part Layout 18
Additional Tips for Score and Part Layout 19
Another Example File... 19
Problems and Possible Workarounds 205. CROSS-STAFF BEAMING 22
Tutorial for Cross-Staff Beaming 22
Additional Examples for Cross-Staff Beaming 246. UPDATED TEMPLATE FILES 25
Bigband Template 25
String Quartet Template 25
If you want to get in touch with me, click here: lng@prischl.net