Quick Tip: Supersize Your Plugins

Quick Tip: Supersize Your Plugins

Tutorial Details
  • Difficulty: Beginner/Intermediate
  • Time: 10 minutes
  • Requirements: Logic Pro

Is their such a thing as too big? Apple don’t seem to think so! They’ve gone and supersized their plugins! Crazy!

Step 1: Where’s My Glasses!

If you’ve ever used a laptop live you’ll know that squinting at the screen to find a parameter to tweak doesn’t say, “Look at me, I’m a rockstar!”. It says, “I need some new glasses!”.

Well the people at Apple sympathize with you and your street cred and have come up with a mind blowing solution!…Supersized plugins!!!

normal

Regular please…..No thank you!


Step 2: Look At The Size Of That Thing!!!

Grab the bottom right hand corner and drag with any of Logics built in plugins and….Blam! A giant Behemoth of an interface will fill your screen. I swear you can see it from fifty feet away!

supersize

That’s not a plugin…..this is a plugin!

No more squinting at the screen for you my friend! You are now able to run about on stage or point aimlessly into the crowd whilst drinking a beer knowing you’ll always be able to find the Filter Cutoff at a glance!

As yet this is only possible with native Logic plugins but maybe we’ll see support in 3rd party ones too. It’s going to put a whole new spin on Native Instruments Massive!


Step 3: Panel Problems?

Speaking of laptop screen real estate, this is a problem that bugs me. The Region Parameters (I use these heavily) cut off the top of my channel strips in the the Inspector and hinder plugin tinkering. You either need more than 800px height on your monitor or a way to view both.

panelCut


Step 4: Float that Parameter Box!

The cure! Go to Options -> Region Inspector Float. Turns the panel into a floating window allowing you to obscure important audio and MIDI regions. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all!

floatPanel


Step 5: The Holy Grail of Display Prefs?

One final thought on the topic of Display preferences. Will Logic ever let you set a custom image as your background? I mean they they let you choose bright orange!…so why not a custom image? You can do it in Mainstage after all.

ultimate

Is this the future in Logic Pro?……I doubt it!

Now I think about it that’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard…or thought of! Although I’m sure at times though we could all use a picture of our neglected loved ones on screen as a reminder to stop spending all our time in the studio!

regret

Background images in Logic Pro…….You’ll regret that drop down in the middle 8!

Till next time! :)

Tags: Tips
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Discussion 7 Comments

  1. Deems says:

    The region parameter trick will come in handy. Not sure if I will be using the custom background though. ha.

  2. Custom background = very windows.

    Never been totally convinced with the resizing plugins either, they just blur out and make them unuseable. But it could come in handy in some cases. I live on the sun.

  3. Björgvin says:

    Hilarious! Love the dog!

  4. DJ Lupus says:

    Hi, Is there any way to change the default grey GUI to any other color, May be blue in Logic Pro 9????

    • Toby says:
      Author

      Sure is, it’s in Preferences / Display / Arrange. Select Custom from the dropdown and click on the oblong colour picker.

      Try out a nice orange! :)

  5. Boris says:

    My Logic Pro bundled plugins won’t resize… Their window will get a little wider so there’s a little more dark grey background on both sides, but that’s about it.
    I’m using Logic Pro 8.0.2
    Any ideas?

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