If you've been following my adventures with ambisonics and Logic you will know that I can set Logic up so that I can record and mix with an ambisonic mic (in this case the Røde NT-SF1). However what I am having trouble with is loading pre-recorded ambisonic files into Logic and getting them to play back properly. That is, on the four machines I've been able to try this on the two that are running Logic 10.3.3 will load the files and play them correctly but the two running 10.4 won't (one is on 10.4.3 and one on 10.4.4). This important to me because I want to use a recorder such as the Zoom F4 to record an ambisonic file and move it to Logic for further work.
I was wondering if others could try this out for themselves so that we can tie down whether this is a bug with Logic 10.4 or something in the environment. I'll list the steps you need to be able to do ambisonic work - if anyone sees an error in this I'd be delighted to be told of it as that might explain all
1. Start Logic and make sure you’ve created a project with an audio track, as if you don’t a couple of options in Preferences will not be visible.
2. Go to Logic Preferences and under Advanced set Surround.
3. Go to Logic Preferences/I O Assignments/Output and set Surrround to Quadraphonic.
4. Ditto for Logic Preferences/I O Assignments/Input
5. Go to Project Settings/Audio and set Surround to Quadraphonic.
6. Now create a new audio track in the project with Input and Output both set to Surround (the Surround option might be at the bottom of a very long drop-down list for Input).
7. Finally import an ambisonics file using the Import Audio File option. You can find a suitable file in many locations on the web but Røde's own files are very good for the purpose and can be found here.
The actual test is simply to play the loaded file and watch the meters. If it's worked they should look like this:
If it's failed they will look like this:
That is only two of the tracks out of four will be playing.
One thing I've noticed when importing files is that the File Import screen shows some details about the files. In 10.3.3 it looks like this:
Whereas in 10.4 it looks like this:
I bet this is something to do with it.
So would people run the above test and post here what result they get? It should only take a couple of minutes.
If you want to play with ambisonics (and it's quite good fun) my original thread contains a workaround for getting a file into Logic 10.4 and then you can download the Soundfield By Røde plugin and try it out. It's quite an eye-opener.
I know, I'm a bit of an obsessive on this subject now but if anyone does this and I meet you at a SoSMeet or Synthfest or similar then I'll buy you a pint for sure!
TIA,
CC
