Logic Pro: Flashback Capture

Screen 1: The Flashback Capture button lives next to the usual Record button, but will be greyed out until there’s something to recover from the Flashback buffer.

With Flashback Capture, you need never lose a magical take again!

Like in Citizen Kane or Pulp Fiction, interesting things happen when a story is subjected to a flashback. Imagine you’ve played something brilliant, but were not in record. Wouldn’t it be useful to step back in time and capture those inspired moments? Echoic memory is all very well and good — that aural image in our short‑term memory that might help us remember what we just played — but all too often, the more we grasp at the musical idea that once was, the more we’re aware that that particular moment of magic, that unique combination of phrasing, dynamics, note choice and intonation/inflection, has passed. Could Flashback Capture be the answer?

Sliding DAWs

Logic Pro’s Capture Recording feature was updated in version 11.2, and renamed to Flashback Capture. The original Capture Recording function wasn’t particularly prominent, but was incredibly useful nonetheless. Indeed, whenever I showed it to students in workshops, even in its original incarnation, it would always elicit audible gasps of amazement — perhaps more than any other feature.

The way Logic instantly and seamlessly reveals a fully intact region containing all those nuggets of nice notes does seem like magic.

It’s a function I use every time I record myself. I detest the red light and the tyranny of the ticking metronome. It unnerves me. I much prefer just happily jamming along until I feel I’m getting somewhere. And if I haven’t yet played well enough, it doesn’t matter, I’ll just go again. But once I’ve come close enough to getting the part right, I simply press Shift+R and... hey presto! The way Logic instantly and seamlessly reveals a fully intact region containing all those nuggets of nice notes does seem like magic. And not a single red light has reared its beastly head.

You Don’t Have To Put On The Red Light

As a producer, I’m constantly striving to capture that elusive musical magic, to trap that lightning in a bottle. When working with any artist, I tend to record absolutely everything. I leave the tape running, as it were, even whilst setting levels and warming up. Why? Because unique moments of magic can and very often do happen when an artist performs for the first time. In these precious moments, they’re not necessarily focused on attaining a perfect technique. They might be looser, more inventive, more daring, more instinctive.

The trouble is, something shifts in our brains when the red light comes on and we shift into ‘record mode’. Is it the fear of being chronicled for posterity; our truths, our stories, our ephemeral outputs made concrete? A permanent record of our skills, our technique, our choices, our taste? Is our entire legacy at stake? Argh! French soprano Régine Crespin once said, “The microphone waits, unpitying,...