Man, I’ve gotta say – Track Alternatives have become one of my absolute favorite features in Logic Pro.
And to be honest, when Track Alternatives first arrived, I felt quite different about them. In fact, I actively ignored this amazing tool!
Because in my mind Track Alternatives brought Pro Tools, playlist-style editing to Logic Pro. And because I’m such a fanatic for Take Folders and Quick Swipe comping (and anything Logic Pro), I was like:
But I take it all back. Track Alternatives are awesome. Especially for writing and producing music.
Track Alternatives allow you to record and audition tons of creative ideas on a single track. And then you can flip through those different ideas like flipping through photos on your phone.
For example – let’s say you’re laying down some keys for your song. But you’re not 100% committed to a single idea yet.
With Track Alternatives you can record a bunch of different “takes” to a single track. And even though you’re recording to a single track, each “take” has its own “track” within that track.
Meaning you don’t have to create a new track for each idea you want to lay down.
But there’s so much more to Track Alternatives beyond auditioning ideas. It’s actually a fantastic way to keep your sessions organized.
In fact, I love to use Track Alternatives to leave a “bread crumb trail” as I edit and manipulate tracks. For example, for a single track I’ll have:
- A Track Alternative for Comped Take Folders
- A Track Alternative for Flex Time Edits
- A Track Alternative for Flex Pitch Edits
- A Track Alternative for Selection-Based Processing edits
And if you start your Track Alternative system early enough, you can Group an entire Project’s worth of tracks. This could be fun for saving each stage of your Project’s evolution 🙂
So today I’d love to show you why I’ve come around to loving Track Alternatives. Check out the video above to learn why you should love them too.
Okay, darn you! Now I have got to revisit track alternatives. I am a mastering engineer for audiobooks. In that capacity, I also create music and/or sound effects for the open/close and occasionally for dialogue as well. When I create music, I use Logic Pro. I wish it was as good for mastering as Studio One. It is not. First it is not convenient to work in mono. Second and most importantly it will not recognize .flac and .ogg files. No excuse at all for this. If these two things were corrected I would never use anything over Logic. However, I love Logic and gotta say, Logic Pro Almost Rules.
As for you, Chris, I NEVER miss one of you weeks. I have learned much from you and please just keep up the great work.
Another fantastic video…one of the most useful yet. Thanks, Chris.
Am I correct in assuming that only the active alternative is using resources on the track? I noticed that there is no on/off button for the unused alternatives except when you expanded them. Then there was an on button for the selected alternative while all the others looked off.
I often to forget to enable a track when I go back to it and spend 5 minutes wondering why I’m not hearing anything. Or I hide but forget to turn off a resource-hungry track and wonder why my fan is so loud. Track alternatives looks like it solves those problems for me (in addition to all the great things you mentioned of course)