Yes, I do drive a Mazda. But cool and elegant zooming can happen in Logic 8 as well as in car commercials. Logic has always had excellent zooming functions. The magnifier tool and zoom presets, in addition to the standard zooming key commands are great; as are the plethora of excellent key commands designed around zooming based on region selections. And now in Logic 8, finally mouse gestures have been added to fully round out and complete access to zoom functionality in every level of operation.

 

New in Logic 8, you can zoom in and out by click holding and mouse dragging at the top of the actual Playhead (was song position line). In normal view mode, the new Playhead displays a triangle in the portion that intersects with the bottom of the bar ruler. When the display preferences are set to the “wide playhead”; the triangle icon disappears, and the Playhead line appears thicker. But regardless of the state of the Playhead display preference, this new zooming function will work.

 

Basically, all you need to do is grab the topmost part of the Playhead, the part that actually lies inside the bottom part of the Bar Ruler, click hold, and drag up or down. The screen will zoom in/out horizontally respectively. This works in the Arrange Window, Piano Roll, and Hyper Edit. It does not work in the Score Window, since this window does not usually respond to horizontal zooming. It zooms vertically.

 

So there you have it - zooming can now be accomplished with tools, key commands, and now simple mouse gestures with no specific tool involved. Zoom Zoom Zoom = tools, key commands, mouse. And of course, car commercial slogans.