Hi eveyone,

I've been playing with logic Pro X for quite some time and I feel the need to abandon Pro Tools for the simple reason of hating to be held hostage to avid and their games lately especially their last upgrade of PT 12. It was a joke. Second reason is, I hate midi editing in Pro Tools. Not saying it's PT problem or lack of functions. It's just me.

Back to my question. I miss the point in Logic having a main output track, where you could apply your last chain of plugins when mixing and or mastering, and a Master Track.

Why Logic works this way instead of having a master track like PT or ST 1 etc.... This is confuses me a bit. What's the purpose of having a master track that you can't use except for adjusting the valume while you can do that on your main output track?

Forgive my ignorance, if you feel my question is stupid.

thanks for your time and waiting to hear a reasonable explanation

 

The master track is useful if you want to easily adjust the master volume if you have outboard summing with multiple output pairs from logic.
It's also good if you have done stuff like fade automations on the Stereo Out volume, and don't want to mess with the automations.

 

"From Edgar Rothermich" -

Output Track vs. Master Track is a very important and often misunderstood concept in Logic. Besides the user interface (which one is displayed where) you have to understand the concept and their difference first. Then, it makes much more sense why one or the other is displayed that way.



Here is an excerpt from my graphically enhanced book "Logic Pro X - How it Works" where I explain all the details how:





From a signal flow point of few (it helps if you are familiar with reading signal flow diagrams), the Output Channel Strip is just the summing Channel Strip. The signals from all the Channel Strip that send their output to that specific Output Channel Strip will be "summed" ("mixed") together and you have the final controls available (Fader, Plugins) to tweak your "mixed" signal on the Output Channel Strip. Each Output Channel Strip (yes there might be more than one), represents one physical output channel of your selected Audio Interface, that's where the signal is going to.

The Master Channel Strip is just an additional "Offset" gain control that you can use (but shouldn't under basic mixing situations). It has more functionality and use when you are working with surround sound. For a stereo situation make sure that it is always at 0dB (unity gain), because that component is always there, no matter if you use it or not (know about it or not). Technically, the Master Channel Strip is nothing other than a Track Track (a Folder Stack).



Hope that helps

 

Hi, I'm Edgar Rothermich, the author of the book "Logic Pro X - How it Works", the excerpt on the previous post was taken from (I think I posted that originally on Apple's Logic forum).

One thing I might add: The screenshot was from the book based on a pre-10.1 Logic version (now the book is updated based on the 10.2 version)."Back then", Logic didn't have the official "VCA" feature, or let's say it didn't use the terminology. Technically, the concept of of Folder Stacks and the Master Folder were always based on VCA Faders, and in v10.1 Logic introduced the additional VCA feature in the Mixer.

Regarding the original question about the difference between Output Channel Strip and Master Channel Strip (in a stereo project): The Master Channel Strip functions as a VCA Master Fader. for (all) Output Channel Strips (with the exception of the Output Channel Strips that are set to Solo-Safe!)

 

Thanks all for taking the time to help

great answers and very informative