This week’s post is for the producers out there.
You know what’s awesome about writing music in Logic? 2 things immediately come to mind:
- The huge array of instruments included in LPX, and
- How fast and easy it is to lay ideas down that sound great
But before I really grew to appreciate the songwriting tools in Logic, I was a band guy. Played guitar and bass forever. When I first heard about synths and MIDI, I really didn’t know what to make of it.
(If we’re being honest though, the idea of writing music with MIDI and virtual instruments intimidated the heck out of me.)
The idea of writing entirely on my Macbook seemed a bit crazy to me. Writing music… with only a computer?
For a while I overlooked the amazing array of production tools in Logic. But now I can say I see the light!
Between Alchemy, Drum Machine Designer, and all the other instruments in Logic, it’s hard to not create something out of thin air.
With so many great sounds, it really just boils down to catching that lightening as fast as you can while you hear it.
The worst thing that can happen while you’re writing is slowing down. Slowing down to:
…tighten up your performances…
…lay down that 32nd note fill for the 50th time…
…editing velocities and timing for a more natural feel…
These things matter. But they put the brakes on creativity. They hijack your producer spirit and put you back into “engineer” mode.
So today I’d like to show you 4 Logic features that can streamline your creative flow.
These 4 features in Logic can dramatically speed up your workflow. Instead of clicking and fixing, you can keep your ears focused on the goal – catching that lightening.
- Have Logic quantize your performances automatically as you record them
- Record multiple MIDI takes to the same MIDI region
- Lay down perfectly repeated notes easily using Note Repeat
- Add humanity and vibe to your instrument tracks using Logic’s Humanize feature
- Tighten your performances without quantizing them to death by using Smart Quantize
Thanks Chris
This tutorial proved that an old dog CAN learn a new trick.
Dan
Thanks Dan! Glad to hear there’s more WLPR can add to your tool kit 🙂
I agree with Dan. I like learning another way of doing something thats faster and easier than the way I was doing it.
Note Repeat, just like NI’s Maschine and note hold. And how cool is Smart Quantize. Alchemy is another LPX feature that hardly gets the props it deserves.
I also watched through about 6 hours of a new Universal Audio video for one of their recent product releases. Most of the series was done demonstrating on LPX, that is until Vance Powell came in and switched to Pro Tools.
Needless to say, Vance wanted to type in many 4-letter words in the system crash comments box being that Pro Tools crashed about 4 or 5 times during his one session. We should all be thankful LPX is really stable. I can count the number of crashes Ive had this year on one hand.
Being that Im here in Nashville Id be more than happy to hang out with Vance and help him get familiar with LPX. Maybe the old dog might be ready for a new DAW. He was not happy with Pro Tools that day, not happy at all. You could tell how seriously disappointed he was in Pro Tools.
I spent 12 years on Pro Tools and switched to Logic in two days after spending two hours on it at another studio. I didnt think it was hard to pick up at all, not a difficult learning curve.
Thanks for the comment Jimmy! I LOVE hearing about all of that.
I feel bad for Vance having to deal with crashes on camera :/ Wouldn’t wish that on anyone. But it’s SO cool to see how far Logic has come. It’s very interesting as well how many 3rd party companies are starting to feature their products in Logic, and not PT. Companies like iZotope and Output.
I think what we have in Logic right now is only scratching the surface of what’s to come. We shall see 😉