How-to

In this week’s episode of The Logic Pros, we are going to be creating our own custom-made Apple Loops. One of the most underused features of Logic Pro X, the Apple Loops browser not only houses thousands of free stock audio and MIDI clips, but also our personal libraries. The elastic nature of LPX’s in-house loop format allows us to create tempo-flexible audio clips that can be used at any time in future projects directly from the built-in browser and more:
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As expected, Apple’s release of OS X El Capitan for Macs was less about adding major new features than “refining the experience and improving performance” from Yosemite — in other words, under-the-hood optimizations to make any Mac run more reliably than before. Thanks to El Capitan, my older (mid-2011) 27″ iMac is running better than it has in years: fast, quiet, and cool enough that it might as well be fanless. Rarely does the volume level in my office climb above a whisper, an experience I’ve come to love so much that I’d never want to return to a loud computer.

“WAIT!,” you might be saying. “My Mac’s fan is on all the time. Apple didn’t start selling iMacs with silent solid state drives (SSDs) or hybrid Fusion Drives until late 2012. How could your older Mac be that quiet?”

Below, I’ll walk you through seven steps that will help you bring your older Mac to a hushed, zen-like state. The first four involve mostly free software, and the last three are small hardware upgrades…

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With the debut of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus last month, Apple introduced several new features that are exclusive to the latest iPhone hardware. However, as in previous years, the recent release of a jailbreak for iOS 9 has allowed some of these features to be activated on older devices without requiring a new iPhone.

While you won’t be able to get things like the increased performance afforded by the A9 chip or the ability to record 4K video, you will be able to get a few strictly software-based features. Keep reading to learn how to enable 3D Touch shortcuts on your Home screen and Live Photos in the Camera app.

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When Apple ceased development of Aperture, a lot of serious photographers were very unhappy about Apple’s attempt to palm them off with Photos instead. Many headed instead to Lightroom, the photo cataloging and editing app Adobe created from the ground up specifically for photographers.

If you’re new to Lightroom, our review covers the process of converting from Aperture – everything from importing your existing photo libraries to where to find equivalent features. This piece is about getting the most out of Lightroom – especially when it comes to speeding up your workflow – via some recommended tweaks and tips.

Let’s start with my recommended settings … 
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In this week’s episode of The Logic Pros, we are looking at one of LPX’s most over-looked features, the MIDI FX Arpeggiator. A somewhat new option for Logic users, these FX offer a number of interesting ways to create patterns, sounds and more on any Audio Instrument in your library:
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With the first of the 3-month free trials for Apple Music set to expire tomorrow, many users will have their credit cards charged automatically for the $9.99/month service going forward (or $14.99/month for the family plan). If you’ve decided that you don’t want to continue with Apple Music experience and want to avoid being charged for your first month, we’ve put together quick and easy instructions on how to cancel your subscription to keep it from auto-renewing (which is on by default when you sign-up). Otherwise, Apple will charge the credit card linked to the Apple ID that you used to sign-up for Apple Music. 
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One of the biggest complaints from users of Apple’s new streaming music service is that the user interface is often confusing and hard to navigate. The radio service, promoted as a standout feature of Apple Music, hardly gets front billing in the app, and non-techy users are often perplexed about where Apple Music and the radio service start and their own music collection ends. And what user inputs effect personalization in the app and where? To help answer some of these questions, Apple today published a series of Apple Music guided tours to help walk users through using the service.
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With the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus officially going on sale and delivering to pre-order customers over the weekend, it’s just a matter of time before you smash your display to pieces and drain your battery’s capacity. While some screen breaking and defective batteries might be covered under AppleCare and the 1 year hardware warranty included with all iPhones, otherwise you’ll need to refer to one of these handy guides from our friends at iFixit.
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In this week’s episode of The Logic Pros, after looking at some high quality hardware over the past few weeks or so, we are going back to basics with busses, aux tracks, sends and more. While Apple has made it about as easy as we can imagine for new users jumping into Logic for the first time, from Garageband or otherwise, a general understanding of these features can make a huge difference in the quality of a composition. The basic but powerful features allow creators to get a lot more mileage out of their DAWs, while providing features commonly used by professional producers/engineers on a daily basis:
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In this week’s episode of The Logic Pros, we thought it was time to look at the Komplete Kontrol S-series controller keyboards from the folks over at Native Instruments. While NI already offers a wealth of software powered controller gear for DJs, the stellar Maschine systems and more, the Kontrol keyboards bring deep hardware integration for the company’s best-in class software instruments/effects into a more familiar form factor then ever before.

We have spent some hands on time with the Kontrol S49 model alongside Komplete Ultimate 10, the latest version of the company’s flagship software bundle. It is time to see how deep and user friendly the hardware/software integration goes, how well it gets along with Logic Pro X, and whether or not it warrants the comparably steeper price tag…
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With the launch of iOS 8.4 earlier this summer, Apple removed support for Home Sharing, prompting the users to voice their dissatisfaction with the company’s decision. Eddy Cue then revealed that Home Sharing support would return with iOS 9, and sure enough, it did. The process for using it is similar to what it has always been, but let’s go through the steps…

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iOS 9 marked the first major version of the iPhone and iPad software that Apple opened up for public beta testing after a similar trial run with iOS 8.3 last year. As many users have noticed, Apple’s public beta program is continuing with the upcoming iOS 9.1 release available as an OTA (over-the-air) update for non-developer testers, but many users will surely want to hop off the beta train and onto the stable release cycle with today’s iOS 9.0 release.

Several readers have already asked about downgrading from the iOS 9.1 public beta to today’s iOS 9.0 release, and while it’s possible it does come at a cost: potentially losing some important data. If moving from iOS 9.1 public or even dev beta to today’s official iOS 9.0 release is worth it for you, read on for a detailed guide for doing just that.
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With iOS 9 launching later today, it’s worth taking a look at how you should prepare your device for the new operating system. Before installing the update, it is recommended that you have a backup of your data. This how-to is going to walk you through backing up your iOS 8 device and transitioning it over to iOS 9:

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Transferring files from your old iPhone to a new iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus isn’t difficult, but after a reader emailed about the many, many hours he expected to wait for the old-to-new iPhone transfer process to complete, I realized that his experience has become more common — even though it’s not necessary. Years ago, iTunes was the only (and fairly straightforward) way to transfer one iPhone’s contents to another. But now, between iCloud, larger device capacity sizes, and iTunes encryption options, there are certainly ways to turn a simple process into a day-long ordeal.

This quick How-To guide is designed to save you a wasted day by helping you select the best options in iTunes and get most of the work done ahead of time. I’ve used this process more times than I can count, and beyond working perfectly each time, it requires far fewer hours than relying on iCloud…

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One of the downsides of being early adopters of new technology is that we tend to buy the best system available at the time, only for a better one to come along later. I’m sure we’ve all been there.

That was the case for me with wireless audio. I wanted, many years ago, to be able to stream music to two other rooms in the house. I invested in a couple of Logitech Streambox Booms, which did the job. My Mac acted as a music server, and I could stream both my music library and Internet radio to the Logitech boxes.

But it was a clunky setup, a scrollwheel used to select artist, album and track in much the same way as the original scrollwheel iPod – though viewing only one line at a time. AirPlay, when it came along in 2010, was a markedly better solution, but also came with a far higher price-tag.

However, the upside of Apple neglecting AirPlay is that there are a lot of heavily-discounted discontinued products around. It was only when writing that opinion piece that I noticed just how low prices on these had fallen. That means that you can now put together a multi-room AirPlay setup for way less than it would have cost when the system was launched … 
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In this week’s episode of The Logic Pros, we are putting a hold on hardware month for the Logic Pro X 10.2.0 update. Apple is back at it again with another incredibly substantial offering. After it acquired Camel Audio back in January, hopes were high that some of the company’s world-class production software would make its way to Logic and Garageband, and now it has:
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