Ever wonder what those weird controls at the top of the Channel Strips in Logic Pro are?
Maybe you’ve noticed them in tutorials online. Or perhaps you’ve even seen these controls in your version of Logic Pro.
(Unfortunately, they’re not available to everyone!)
Those buttons at the top of the Mixer and Inspector are the Audio Device Controls. In a nutshell, they allow you to control the inputs of your audio interface directly from Logic Pro.
This includes everything from:
- Preamp/Input Gain
- Analog Input Selection (e.g. Microphone, Instrument, +4 dBu, -10dBV)
- Phantom Power
- High-Pass Filters (if your interface includes this function)
- Polarity Invert (if your interface includes this function)
Even a button for Direct Monitoring!
Instead of hopping back and forth from Logic Pro to your audio interface’s software mixer, you can take control of your interface right from within Logic Pro.
How freaking cool is that?
But here’s the thing…Logic’s Audio Device Controls were introduced back with version 10.1. That was 2015.
8 years later, just about no audio interfaces support this direct integration with Logic Pro.
Why the heck not?!
There are plenty of interfaces out there that offer digitally controlled preamps, including interfaces from companies like Focusrite, MOTU, Audient, Universal Audio, and more.
Yet here we are in 2023, and I believe Apogee Digital is the only company that still offers some level of direct support.
(Though the Audio Device Controls seem to be less of a priority to Apogee as well. Given that there have been no replacements for the discontinued Element and Ensemble Thunderbolt series. Which provided the deepest level of Logic Pro integration.)
So today’s video could be considered a “rant” or a “call to arms.” I’m not trying to be a hater here. But what gives?
Logic’s Audio Device Control feature is an open API provided by Apple for developers to take advantage of. And I think Logic users deserve better from hardware developers.
Check out today’s video above to learn more about this awesome, yet largely ignored feature in Logic Pro.
#endrant
Yes, this absolutely seems stupid. For quite some time, I thought this was some kind of unique feature of Pro Tools + AVID Pre before realizing that Logic had supported this all along!
Yes! Thank you Chris.
100% agree. This would sway my purchasing decision. Here’s my rant to UAD in September 2021 ([email protected]):
“I’ve been using UAD interfaces in remote and in-studio ADR and Voiceover sessions for the last year. Verdict: 10 out of 10 for audio. But we’ve been let down by some of the software implementations. UAD’s competitors offer Apple’s Audio Device Control functionality, to control the most important interface functions from within the DAW (in our case Logic Pro). No such luck with the UAD interfaces. We have to juggle the various UAD Console, Meter & Control Panel dialogs. Not a great workflow, and sadly enough of a hindrance to make corporate decisions in favour of your competition’s hardware.”
They logged this as a complaint, with no result. 🙁