Without a shadow of doubt, Key Commands are crucial to your success in Logic.
But what are Key Commands?
A Key Command is when you press a key on your Mac’s keyboard, and that key provides you with a function or result.
Of course the Apple mouse and trackpad are brilliant tools. They both give you a tangible way to touch what you see on your screen.
But mousing around for every function in Logic isn’t the best way for you to spend your time.
In fact, it’s a huge waste of your time.
Mousing through menus is like fumbling your way through a maze again and again. Sure, you can get better and faster each time you walk through the maze. But why not skip the hassle altogether?
Key Commands are your shortcut to a lightning fast workflow. And today, I want to give you my top 10 Logic Pro Key Commands to know by heart.
A Logical System
The great thing about Logic’s Key Command system is how logical it actually is!
While other DAWs use weird, disconnected keys, Logic is the opposite. Instead Logic makes it a point to connect it’s Key Commands to the word you’re thinking of.
For example, say you’d like to record a take. In Pro Tools, you could do one of the following:
- Press F12
- Press Command – Spacebar
- Press 3 on the Numeric Keypad (if you have one)
While in Logic, you can simply press R.
R stands for Record.
That’s the first level of learning Key Commands in Logic. And when you think about it – it’s brilliant.
It’s way easier to memorize Key Commands when they’re somehow connected to the idea you have in your head. And when the Key Command matches the word you’re thinking of, your workflow speeds up considerably.
Take a look at some of the basic key commands in Logic:
- R for Record
- X for MiXer
- K for ClicK
- C for Cycle
- O for LOOp Library
- Z for Zoom
- P: Piano Roll
- L: Loop Region
- Y for LibrarY
- F for Finder
Pretty awesome, right?
While not every key matches the first letter, the system works quite well.
Modifying the System
But of course, there’s only 26 letters in the alphabet. And since Logic has 1000+ Key Commands, 26 isn’t quite enough.
Luckily, Logic is totally capable of expanding on this logical system. And it does this by way of modifiers.
A modifier includes one of the following keys:
- Shift
- Control
- Option
- Command
If you’ve been on a Mac for any length of time, you’ve most likely have used modifiers. For example:
- Command- S for Save
- Command- Z for Undo Last Action
- Command – Q for Quit
Once you get the hang of this, Key Commands soon become a breeze to learn.
So go ahead – try hitting some keys!
I can wait.
Once you get used to the basics, it’s time to move into some advanced territory 😉
10 Logic Pro Key Commands That Will Rock Your Workflow
So now you’ve been rocking Key Commands for a bit. And you recognize how easy and beautiful life can be.
There are a ton of Key Commands that you can learn and use in Logic. And I invite you to do so as much as you can.
In fact, there’s a great intuitive website dedicated to help you learn them.
But when I stop and consider, there are 10 Logic Pro Key Commands I just can’t live without. And if you make it a point to learn them, you’ll fly through your sessions.
Let’s dig in:
1. Control – Option – Click and Drag to Zoom with the Magnifying Tool
What I love so much about Logic is how fluid it is for navigating a session.
For years I’ve poked around in other DAWs. But every time I try out a new DAW, I just can’t get past the zoom functions.
While every other DAW feels mechanical in the way it zooms, Logic feels effortless. The magnifying tool feels like a rubber band instead of a grid.
But you don’t want to pull up the mouse Tool menu every time you need to zoom in.
Instead, hold Control – Option, and then Click and Drag around the area you want to zoom in on.
Fast and easy!
And if you need to zoom out, just hold Control – Option, and click without dragging over an area.
2. Command – U to Set Locators By Region
Very often when you’re writing or mixing you’ll want to listen to one part again and again.
It’s a pain though to constantly start playback, stop playback, and then start it up again to hear that same part.
So we have the Cycle strip that lets us play one part over and over without stopping!
But even setting the Cycle strip can be tedious.
Instead of mousing over the Cycle area, what if you could set the Cycle automatically?
Easy peasy! Click on the audio region you want to cycle so it’s highlighted. Then hit Command – U, and voila! Your Cycle strip sets itself to the length of that region.
3. Control – Option – C to Set Locators By Marker
This is the next step up in Cycling. Instead of using audio or midi regions to set the Cycle, you can use Markers.
Markers are handy navigational strips in the Global Tracks section. You can create Markers to note which part is which. For example:
- Intro
- Verse
- Chorus
Now say an audio region doesn’t match the actual part you want to cycle.
Well you’ve got two options:
- Highlight the marker in the Global Commands section, and hit Control – Option – C, or
- Place your Playhead in the desired section, and hit Control – Option – C
Your Cycle range will lasso around the part you want to focus on.
4. Command – Shift – D to Create a Track Stack
Track Stacks are so awesome it’s hard to not gush over them.
At its most basic, Track Stacks are busses for groups of instruments. It’s like as if you highlighted several tracks, and set their Output all to Bus 1.
But the difference is that:
- Track Stacks automatically add the bus to the Arrange page, and
- Track Stacks also double as folders on both the Arrange page and Mixer.
By clicking the little disclosure triangle on the main bus, you can open and close the Stack. This makes it very helpful for organizing your sessions.
You know what makes Track Stacks even more awesome? By creating a whole new stack with 3 keys:
- Highlight the instruments you want in your Stack
- Hit Command – Shift – D
- Use a Summing Stack (that’s my preferred Stack)
And a Track Stack emerges! Logic uses the next available bus for the input on the Stack.
5. Control – B to Bounce in Place
Whether you’ve Flexed, played some software synths, or chopped up some audio – someday you’ll need to bounce.
Bouncing means to create a new audio file from a current one. Often that means creating a whole new audio file with the plugins, edits or instruments you’ve carefully crafted.
Bouncing tracks can relieve your Mac of processing power and prevent System Overloads.
Plus it’s always good practice to commit to edits you’ve made. Just in case your Mac decides to get fickle the next time you start it up.
By using Key Command Control – B, you have swift and easy access to Bounce in Place. Just make sure to highlight the right Audio Region when you do.
Go ahead, commit to those edits or software instruments.
6. Control – H to Hide Tracks
Logic projects can balloon in size damn quick. Especially if you’re bouncing down Flex edits and software instruments!
Over time, some of your tracks will stay muted or get powered down. You don’t want to delete those tracks, but you also don’t need them.
So why not Hide them instead?
Hiding is a fantastic way of cleaning up your session. As the name implies, Logic removes the hidden tracks from view. Simply select a track and hit Control – H to hide it.
But if you ever need to return to that track, hit H to reveal all the hidden tracks.
7. Shift – R to Capture Midi Recording
Let’s get serious for a moment when it comes to Midi.
How often have you been playing along to your project and you land a killer take?
The only problem is Logic wasn’t recording when genius flew from your hands.
Face meet palm, right?
Wrong! It turns out that Logic is always listening. So that killer Midi performance isn’t lost.
The only caveat with this Key Command is when you use it.
So you’re playing along, and you realize Logic’s not recording. No biggie, just keep going.
When you hit Stop, that’s your chance to recover your performance before it disappears forever!
Hit Shift – R, and watch your Midi performance magically appear.
8. Option – C to Open the Color Palette
Organization is huge when you’re mixing and recording. The more organized your session, the easier it is to get down to music making.
So I make liberal use of Logic’s color palette to organize tracks and regions by color. There’s something so satisfying about being able to tell the bass track from the drums.
Sure, you could go into the Toolbar at the top. But real estate can be precious on your Mac’s screen.
Instead, I highlight the regions I want to change and then open the color palette with Option – C.
Select the color you prefer, and use Option – C again to close the palette.
9. Shift – Click to Close All Open Plugin Windows
This is very new Key Command in Logic. And it couldn’t have arrived soon enough!
It’s easy to accumulate 5 or 10 plugin windows all floating about. We can Hide or Show all plugins by using Key Command V. But what if you don’t need those plugins anymore?
Before it was a long and tedious process of closing out each plugin:
But now you can close them all out with one click! Hold Shift when you click the “x” in the top left corner of a plugin.
Lo and behold, every plugin you had open is now gone.
10. Option – K to Open Key Command Menu
Last but not least, have unfettered access to the Logic Key Command menu!
Look – Logic has a ton of Key Commands. Even with the best laid plans you’re not gonna remember all of them.
With Option – K, you can easily open the Key Command menu and scout for any command you need.
Conclusion
Logic’s Key Command system is both intuitive and thoughtful in it’s approach.
By focusing on a logical system of letters and symbols that match your intent, you get a ton out of it. There are many commands to choose from, and here are my top 10:
- Control – Option – Click and Drag to Zoom with the Magnifying Tool
- Command – U to Set Locators By Region
- Control – Option – C to Set Locators By Marker
- Command – Shift – D to Create a Track Stack
- Control – B to Bounce in Place
- Control – H to Hide Tracks
- Shift – R to Capture Midi Recording
- Option – C to Open the Color Palette
- Shift – Click to Close All Open Plugin Windows
- Option – K to Open Key Command Menu
Hi Chris,
Thanks once again for your excellent work – there are a few in your list of 10 that I hadn’t been aware of and which are excellent.
In case it’s of use, I find Command, Shift, G better in creating a Summing Stack. It cuts out the middle man – straight to the point.
Regards,
Edward
Love it! Thanks Edward, Shift – Command – G is far faster and to the point 🙂
Ha, ha. Glad to be of assistance dear guru. 😀
I’m more and more looking forward to your blogs – great material – such useful and helpful insights.
Thanks Edward 🙂 Always looking for opportunities to be helpful. Make sure to follow up on anything you’d like to see a post about!
Very powerful your shortcuts are. Great content!
Happy to help 🙂
My toddler pressed some buttons on my husbands logic pro x screen and now his music will not play through his headphones. The music will play through the computer speakers but not through his headphones. Is there a command key that my toddler could have pressed that would cause the music not no longer play in the headphones???
Hi Mandy, sorry to hear about your troubles! Your husband’s Mac has 2 different sets of audio controls – one for the computer speakers and another for the headphones. Try plugging in the headphones and pressing the Mute, Volume Down, and Volume Up keys in the upper right hand corner of the keyboard or on Touch Strip if you own a newer Macbook.
As a veteran Logic user (started at v 3 or 4 i think), there were a few nice Logic X surprises in this list that somehow escaped me so far.
V and Shift-click to close/hide plugins
ctrl-cmd to zoom (face palm) – i do use the cmd opt left/right to auto zoom horizontal/vertical a lot -handy to have instant overview.
Thanks!!
Hi great tips thank you! I’m coming from mainly using Pro Tools. Does anyone know an equivalent to the pro tools shortcut control + click on a region when dragging that region to a new track ? This shortcut locks the region in place on the grid so it can’t move forward or back in time just vertically between tracks. I can’t find how to do this in Logic Pro X.
Hey HB, welcome to LPX! You have 2 options to pick from:
1) When you select a region by clicking on it with the mouse, you can then hold Shift to lock the region so it only moves vertically without shifting to the left or right.
2) Go to Logic Pro X > Preferences > General, and select the Editing tab within the General Preferences menu. Close to the bottom of the menu are 2 options you can enable. Limit Dragging to One Direction in either:
– Piano Roll and Score
– Tracks
By selecting both, you won’t need the Shift modifier. Instead, Shift will disengage the locking.
Hope that helps!
Hi thanks for the reply !
I tried both of these and neither seemed to work. Am I missing something ? Shift clicking , doesn’t allow me to move the region , it just acts like I’m going to select multiple regions & when I tried those settings under editing preferences I could still drag regions around freely.
I’m on Logic Pro X 10.3 if that makes a difference.
Try pressing Shift after you start dragging.
Shift-R Hi, when I capture midi recording Shift-R Bunches all the notes that i played into one very fast cluster.
Help please,
Thanx
I’ve noticed in other DAW’s that Ctrl-Z will undo the last instrument setting that you tweaked, but in Logic, Ctrl-Z will undo something outside of the instrument, such as a deletion of a track, but if you moved a setting and don’t remember where you moved it from, there doesn’t seem to be a way to undo the slight move of a slider or a setting while inside of an instument. Do you know of a shortcut undo that will undo a tweak to an instrument setting? Thanks.
This drove me crazy for a while until I figured out the solution. Hit Command-2 to open your Mixer window. Click the Edit menu in the top left of the screen and click “Include Mixer Undo Steps In Project Undo History”. And voila, command-z will now undo mixer changes as well as the normal editing changes. Have fun!
NOTE: this is a PER PROJECT setting so until you make the change and set that as your default for creating new projects, you will have to perform this action for each new project you create.
Great article. I’ve run into a strange problem. I was almost done with the project and was doing some work with EQ. The EQ window was open on top of my project, and I wanted to close it, but instead by mistake I closed the main project file.
Now when I try to open the project in Logic it only opens up the EQ window, and doesn’t allow me to see or edit the main project window where all the tracks are. What should I do?
Thanks for your help.
Hi Lk Gupta, thanks for the kind words! Open your Project, and in the menu bar at the top go to Window > Open Main Window. You can also use the key command Command-1. I hope that helps!
This one caught me a few times, took a lot of effort to figure out. Maybe you could do a video on all the strange predicaments a key or mouse stumble could cause?
Thank you! Works 🙂
Very, very cool – great info – thank you so much. I have been using Logic for years and you provided a few real nuggets that I was never aware of. Dragging a region without having it move sideways is a great tip – but I could only get it to work if I start dragging BEFORE hitting the shift key as you suggested.
Thanks again,
Lance
Hi Chris. Thanks for your tips. Been using Logic for many years but one thing always has irritated me. I often toggle the piano roll (using the comma key) in and out, but when I’m working on a particular measure in the main window, then toggle in the piano roll, it doesn’t go to that measure. Frustrating! I have to hit the spacebar twice to get it to the right measure, or use the catch playhead button. Something I’m missing?
Chris, huge fan of your site and channel. THANK YOU for providing this wealth of amazing resources!
Control-Option-Drag to zoom is also one of my FAVE shortcuts. Oddly, in just one single project file that a friend sent me, this function is behaving strangely and will zoom in horizontally on the selected area, but not vertically as it usually does. So far I:
– Verified zoom shortcut still behaves normally in other project files
– Imported project settings from a known good project file
– Discovered that if I use the zoom function to select an area of an audio track that I added to the project since receiving it, zoom behaves normally, but not on any of the tracks that were there already when the project file was sent to me.
Have you ever seen this before? Would love any tips you have for getting my beloved zoom shortcut to behave normally in this project. Thanks so much!
David
Superb article Chris. I transitioned from Cubase (very gradually!) a few years ago and solely employ Logic these days (everybody should!). One thing that I do find more constrictive is the keyboard s/c for transport options, in particular right/left scrolling.
Also, is there a way to select midi regions by clicking the first selection and then selecting ‘along’. In Cubase I believe it was CTRL+right arrow, or similar, but can’t find anything that work this way in Logic.
Fantastically useful. I’ve been using Logic for a long time, without the benefit of this BASIC MADE SIMPLE information – where this tutorial succeeds where many others fail.
Hi Chris, many thanks for this incredibly helpful article! Just to note that for some reason the images on this page are not displaying (in any browser) on my Mac M1 / OS 11.4, although I can click on them and they display on a new browser page which is odd. I haven’t tried on another system yet.
Really loving your Finish the Mix course BTW, couldn’t recommend it enough!
Hi Thomas, thank you so much for letting me know! It might be because of some tools I’m using to speed up the website. Google is prioritizing speed for mobile devices, so I’m playing with some features. It’s probably due to the “lazy loading” of images on the page. The website postponed loading images until the visitor moves to that part of the page. But it might be not functioning correctly. So thanks again. And so glad you enjoy the course! 😁