User guide

958 Chapter 38 Working in the Environment
Important: If File > Project Settings > Audio > Automatic Management of Channel
Strip objects is active (it is on, by default), you can not create channel strips in the
Environment. This setting, when active, means that use of the track and channel
creation options in the Arrange window will automatically create a corresponding
channel strip object in the Environment (and therefore, remote control channel strips in
the Mixer and Arrange).
In a general music-making sense, you will not need to access the underlying channel
strips shown in the Environment. In fact, the only time you will open the Environment
Mixer layer is when you need to reconfigure channel strips at a system level; re-routing
them to different audio hardware, or perhaps to other applications.
Although channel strip objects are not part of the MIDI signal flow, they still allow MIDI
messages to control aspects of audio and software instrument playback in
Logic Express. Any MIDI object can be cabled into a channel strip object, thereby
feeding control data into it.
Channel Strip Parameters
When you click on a channel strip of any type (audio, instrument, aux, output, master,
and input or bus channels, discussed below), the following common parameters are
accessible:
Icon
Enable the checkbox to make the channel strip accessible in the Arrange Track
Assignment menu (Control-click the track list).
Choose the desired icon for the channel strip from the pop-up menu accessed by
clicking on the icon.
Device
Click the visible device name (CoreAudio, for example) to reassign the selected channel
strips to a different hardware device.
Channel
Click the visible channel name (Audio 1, for example), and choose the channel strip
type from the sub-menus. This is how you can reassign a (newly-created or existing)
channel strip object (an audio channel strip is the default for new objects) to other
channel strip types. You can choose from:
 Audio: The default channel strip type, used as the destination for Arrange audio
tracks.
 Input: Primarily used for compatibility with projects created in earlier Logic Express
versions (see “Input Channel” on page 959).
 Aux: Auxiliary channel strip, used as send returns for all channel strips (via Sends), as
sub-group channels, and as individual output destinations for multi-channel software
instruments (EXS24 mkII, for example).