LOGIC PRO X 101 - #01 Getting Started in Logic 10.3 Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

hey everyone this is music tech help guy
and welcome to part 1 of my new Logic
Pro 10 101 course I'll be doing a 101
and 201 course as well as eventually
more advanced 301 and 401 courses with
each course being roughly ten parts and
link the 101 course is going to cover
the basics of getting started in logic
building basic arrangements using
software instruments and MIDI recording
and editing audio using plugins and some
basic mixing and mastering as well for
all of these examples I'll be using
Logic 10.3 and specifically I'm using
version ten point three point two this
video is gonna cover getting started in
Logic Pro 10 downloading and installing
the sound library setting up your audio
interface turning on the advanced tools
understanding the layout and navigation
of logic using the transport bar zoom
controls and using the workspace area
building a basic instrumental idea with
loops the drummer instrument and a
software instrument and finally bouncing
the project as an audio file alright so
once you've purchased and downloaded
logic from the app store you can open it
up by going to the launchpad on your
dock and selecting Logic Pro 10 or you
can make a dedicated dock icon like I
have the first time you open logic
you'll get this message stating that
it's downloading an essential collection
of sounds so just give it a few minutes
and let it download during the download
you can choose I am new to Logic Pro and
it'll take you to some get started
documentation or you can choose I have
used logic before and it'll take you to
an overview of some new features at the
end of the download it's going to ask
for your administrator password to
install these essential sounds after
this is installed you'll be prompted to
install some additional sounds you can
do this now or later but I recommend
just getting it done now you can still
work in logic while these are
downloading so select download more
sounds this will open the sound library
manager where you can select all and
installed sounds to download the entire
logic sound library also make sure to
scroll to the very bottom and check the
legacy and compatibility icon for some
additional Jam packs GarageBand sounds
and some sounds from older versions of
logic this
gives us a grand total of sixty seven
point nine five gigabytes of loops and
samples so it's a pretty big download
after you click install you'll get a
list of the new features and you'll be
prompted to choose a project for now
let's just go with an empty project
you'll be prompted to create a new track
for now I'll just choose a software
instrument track and if you hover over
this blue bar up here you'll see that
the sound library is still downloading
in the background so you're free to use
logic while this downloads but any of
these sounds with the spinning wheel
next to them are in the process of
downloading and can't be used until the
download is done so I'm gonna wait for
this to fully download and install
off-screen and I'll be right back
alright so now that sound library is
installed you can go up to Logic Pro 10
sound library and go down to open sound
library manager and you can verify that
all of the sound library has been
completely installed next let's check to
see that all of our loops have installed
properly you can do this by clicking
here to open up the loop library you can
also press o on the keyboard to open and
close the loop library if it's the first
time you've opened the loop library
logic may have to index the entire loop
library so this may take a minute just
wait a bit and eventually all of the
loops that we just downloaded will show
up in the library alright so I'll close
the loop library for now and the next
thing I want to do is turn on all of the
advanced tools you can do this by going
up to Logic Pro 10 preferences advanced
tools now if you see that any of these
additional options or advanced tools are
turned off you don't want this because
when you have your advanced tools turned
off logic more or less turns into a
glorified version of GarageBand and we
don't want that we want all of our tools
turned down so I'm going to turn on my
advanced tools or show my advanced tools
and then enable all of the additional
options so that we have all of our tools
available now there's one last thing we
need to do before we can start making
music and that's set up our audio
interface an audio interface is a
tabletop or a rack mounted hardware unit
that allows you to input signal from a
microphone or a DI input like for guitar
or bass and also allows you to output
the signal from logic to a pair of
speakers you don't
have to have one in order to work in
logic but you do need one to record
audio into logic in this video we're not
going to be recording any audio yet
we're just gonna be using the sounds
that are already in logic to create a
short musical example but if you ever
want to record anything that's di like
guitar bass or keyboard or you want to
record with vocals or instruments with a
microphone you're gonna have to get an
audio interface okay to set up our audio
interface we're gonna go to Logic Pro 10
preferences again and we're gonna go to
audio from here we're gonna make sure
that we're on the devices tab and you'll
see two devices one output device and
one input device it looks like logic has
already connected to my focus right
liquid sapphire 56 audio interface but
no matter what kind of interface you
have whether it be USB firewire or
Thunderbolt you should be able to select
it here logic may not automatically
connect to it but it should show up in
these menus and if you'd still don't see
it in the list what you can do is make
sure that you've installed the proper
drivers for your device first so make
sure that logic is quit install the
drivers then reopen logic and it should
show up now if you're not using an audio
interface like you're just monitoring
audio on headphones you might see an
option for headphones here as well so if
you're gonna use headphones and you're
not going to be recording any audio
you're gonna choose headphones or
built-in speakers as your output device
and you're gonna set your input device
to none but since I'm using an audio
interface two input and output signal
via my sapphire interface I'm going to
choose sapphire for both of these now
one last thing here is the i/o buffer
size for now just keep this on a lower
setting like 32 or 64 I'll explain in
more detail in a later video what these
numbers actually mean and how they
affect your session but in short if you
use a higher buffer size you'll have
more additional latency on your signal
and since we're gonna be doing some
basic midi recording in this video and
some audio recording in the next video
we don't want that right now after
you've done all that you can click apply
changes if there are any and go back to
the main window alright so it takes a
little bit of time to get going but now
we're finally ready to start making
music and no you won't have to go
through this entire process
every single time all of the changes we
made in the preferences are global so
they'll stay the same when we open other
logic projects later alright so first
let me familiarize you with logics
layout and how to navigate the main
window let's drop in a loop from the
loop library so we have something to
listen to as I go through all these
different examples when it comes to
Apple loops there's three main types the
green ones are MIDI loops the blue loops
are audio loops and the yellow loops are
drummer loops which the drummer loops
are actually a new thing they didn't
used to have those before the drummer
plug-in you can sort your loops by their
specific loop pack up here but you can
also sort your loops by a specific
instrument genre or mood so I want to
start with a base instrument so I'm
gonna click instrument and then I'm
gonna click synth bass and it'll give me
a list of loops that fit that instrument
type you can click on any loop to
audition what it sounds like and then
you can click on it again to stop the
playback when you find a loop that you
like you can drag it into your
arrangement by dragging it below your
lowest track in your workspace so I like
this alpha matrix base so I'm gonna drag
it below my lowest track in my workspace
just like so and it'll create its own
dedicated track for that loop once the
loop is in the workspace you can press
spacebar to start and stop the playback
[Music]
all right let's talk about our playback
controls they're all up here in the
transport bar so from left to right you
have rewind forward stop play record and
cycle mode and when your playhead is
somewhere other than the beginning of
the session the stop button becomes a go
to beginning button so the cool thing
about these is that you almost never
have to actually click on them with your
mouse because there's very easy
shortcuts for these that you can use
instead so like I said before play and
stop is spacebar
goto beginning is return forward and
rewind are the greater than and less
than keys in the keyboard these are also
the same keys as period in comma you can
also hold shift while using these to
jump forward or backward by eight
measures at a time so this is really
cool if you want to jump ahead or jump
back to a specific measure to record you
hit R on the keyboard I'm not gonna do
that yet because we're not quite ready
to record yet but we'll get there in
just a moment and then C will turn on or
turn off your cycle mode now cycle mode
is very useful what it does is it sets
two locators a left and right locator
and you can also change the length of
your cycle range and what this does is
it allows you to play back a very
specific spot in the song and also loop
that spot in the song
[Music]
another trick with the cycle mode is you
can click on a clip and press command
you to set the locators to that clip
next let's talk about zoom controls you
can adjust the individual track height
or track zoom by clicking and dragging
on the bottom of the track header
there's also two sliders over here for
vertical and horizontal zoom and you can
also auto zoom vertical and auto zoom
horizontal one of my favorite zoom
shortcuts is clicking on the background
to deselect everything and then pressing
Z and what this does is it autosomes
everything in your workspace to fill the
workspace window there's other zoom
shortcuts as well if you hold command
and press left and right you can zoom in
and zoom out horizontally and if you
hold command and press up and down on
the arrow keys you can zoom in or out
vertically you can also adjust all the
track headers to be the same size by
holding shift and clicking on the bottom
of the track header and you can delete a
track by clicking on its track header
and pressing delete on your keyboard all
right so let's play around with our loop
in the workspace view here if you want
to loop the loop what you can do so you
can hover over the upper right corner of
the loop clip and you'll get this little
icon you can click and drag to the right
to loop it as many times as you want so
let's loop it a total of four times now
if you move the audio loop around you'll
notice that it snaps to bars and beats
automatically and that's because we have
our snap mode set to smart now there's
multiple different snap modes that we'll
go over in future videos but for this
video we're just gonna stay with smart
on the track itself you'll see a mute
button a solo button a volume control
and a pan control the pan controls
whether the signal is going over to the
left speaker and more towards the right
speaker or more Center note that when
you select a track and adjust its volume
or pan it also gets changed down here to
this whole area here is called the
inspector and you can hide and show it
by pressing I on your keyboard or by
clicking this button up here the
inspector shows a channel strip version
of the track that you have selected as
well as the stereo output which is
essentially like a master fader that
everything in your session is going to
for now we're going to leave this alone
and when it comes to faders and
nobs and logic you can reset them to
their original value by holding option
and clicking on them there's also a
record enabled button and input
monitoring button on the track and
channel strip too but we'll come back to
those in a bit another option that might
be on is the quick health button the
quick help basically is a nice feature
to have on if you're new to logic and
you're not sure what something is if you
hover over something the quick help will
pop up and explain what it is I'm gonna
turn this off though
all right let's add a drumbeat to our
song we're gonna create a new track to
do this so you can press the plus button
here to create a new track or you can
use the key command option command n
this will pull up that new tracks dialog
that we saw at the beginning let's
choose a drummer track and we're going
to choose the electronic genre this will
start us off with a premade drummer
region the drummer plug in instrument is
something that's new to logic 10 it
allows you to choose various different
drummers with different styles and
grooves you can also adjust the loudness
and complexity with the XY pad down here
so let's see how this beat sounds with
our bass
okay so obviously the base is a bit too
loud let's pull that down considerably
and blend it in a bit better
[Music]
okay so it measure 9 the drumbeat ends
so what we can do is hover over the
right side of the drummer region and
click this plus button and it'll add an
additional drummer region I'll click on
the drummer region and select a
different drum beat from the beat
presets down here now I'm gonna use the
XY pad to simplify the drum beat a bit
let's give this a listen with both drum
beats back-to-back
[Music]
all right that sounds pretty good what
we're going to do now is add an
additional instrument to our arrangement
and this instrument is gonna be a
software instrument so I'm gonna press
option command and again to create a new
track and we're gonna choose to create a
new software instrument now by default
usually what happens is this will say
default patch and what that will do is
it will load an electric piano with some
effects already on it
I want to start from scratch so I like
to change this instrument to empty
channel strip so we can start with a
clean slate
so I'll hit create and it creates an
empty software instrument track now
before we even select a software
instrument from the library what I want
to do is make sure that my MIDI keyboard
controller is connected properly much
like an audio interface takes in and
takes out audio signals a MIDI
controller is essentially a piece of
hardware for inputting MIDI data I'm
using an ovation impulse 49 keyboard
connected via USB most USB MIDI
controllers don't require drivers to
work so you can usually just plug them
in and play one way I like to check to
make sure I'm getting a MIDI signal is
to click on this down arrow here and
change the display to the custom view
what this does is it shows things like
the timing of the session 128 is the
tempo of the session and it shows us the
meter and grid division as well but over
here where it says no end no out these
are the MIDI in and MIDI out monitors so
if I play a few notes on my MIDI
controller you'll see that the MIDI in
lights up and shows me the individual
notes that I'm pressing another sort of
cool feature about this is that if you
play a chord let's say I play C minor
it'll actually extrapolate the chord
it'll also extrapolate more complex
chords so something like a minor 7 with
a flat 5 shows up as well ok so now that
I know my MIDI keyboard is working let's
choose a softer instrument patch from
the library you can hide or show the
library by pressing Y on your keyboard
or by clicking this button up here so
I'm going to go down to synthesizer I'm
gonna go over to plucked and I'm going
to scroll up and I'm going to choose an
instrument called 16 millimeter dream
sequence and what it'll do is it'll load
that channel strip setting on the
channel with all of the effects and the
instrument
and we'll go over how to break this down
with all this means later but it'll load
this setting from the library on our
software instrument over here so now
what I can do is I can click on the R
button here to enable recording and I
can play a few notes I'm a MIDI keyboard
to make sure that we're getting sound so
I have an idea in mind that I want to
add but before we record this this is
just a tip a really a personal
preference of mine I never start my
songs on measure one I always start on
measure two so I'm going to select and
grab all of this and move it over to
start on measure two now the reason why
I do this is that if you ever record
MIDI and you're even early just even by
a tiny little bit early before the first
bar the first note will get chopped off
and it won't be recorded this way it
gives you one measure of buffer before
you start playing so now if I hit R to
start recording you'll see that you get
one bar of counting plus one additional
measure of buffer before we play any
notes you can toggle on or off the count
in by clicking on the one-two-three-four
button up here or pressing shift K and
you can also turn on or off the
metronome by pressing K but by default
the metronome is always turned on while
recording and turned off while playing
so let's go back to the beginning and
I'm gonna hit R to record and I'm going
to play in my musical idea for my
synthesizer
[Music]
[Music]
all right so that turned out pretty good
but what I want to do is I want to clean
up my MIDI recording a bit so I'm gonna
double click on my MIDI region and this
is gonna open up what's called the piano
roll editor you can also open this up by
pressing P on your keyboard now you'll
notice if you look at my MIDI notes here
the MIDI notes are not right on the grid
they're a little bit ahead of the grid
at times so what I'm going to do is I'm
going to apply quantization to this so
I'm going to quantize the timing of each
note in my MIDI sequence so I'm going to
hit command a to select all these notes
I'm gonna go over to time quantize and
the fastest rhythm I played in the
sequence was an eighth note so when I
choose an eighth note from over here
you'll see that all of the notes snap to
their nearest eighth note there for
cleaning up the timing of my MIDI
sequence all right another thing I want
to do is I want to trim up the end of
this MIDI region here at measure 10 the
trim tool is actually built into the
right and left side of any audio or MIDI
region so all you have to do is hover
over the far right here click and drag
in and I can trim it that extra note
that I don't want next I'm going to loop
the dream sequence instrument here so it
repeats a second time but I'm going to
show you a different way to do it this
time
you could hover over the upper right
corner and loop this just like we did
with the loop up here but the way I
actually prefer looping Clips is to
click on them and press command R and
what this does is it repeats that clip
now the advantage to repeating over
looping is that you can change the
original on edit the original and the
second will still remain the same as it
was before if I were to edit the
original all of the subsequent loops are
going to change so one thing I actually
like to do after looping is I have to
drag over the loops and you can press
ctrl L and what this does is it converts
loops to real copies all right another
thing you can do with that command our
function is you can drag over an entire
section of song and press command R and
it'll repeat that entire section so
that's a good way to build up the
structure of your song and repeat
sections of your song alright so our
basic instrumental example is finished
all we need to do now is save our
session and then export or bounce the
recording out as an individual audio
file so if you're saving your project
for the first time you're gonna go up to
file save as and then find the location
where you want to save it to so I'm
gonna save it on my desktop there's two
ways you can organize your logic
projects as a package which is an
all-in-one file with all of the files in
it or a folder which is what I prefer
with a folder it actually creates a
folder with a separate logic project
inside with separate subfolders with all
of the various files inside I like using
the folder because I can go in and I can
grab one individual audio file out of
the folder if I want to it's a little
more difficult to do with a package when
it comes to copying files into your
project my basic rule is that if you're
going to move this project over to
another computer make sure to check all
of these if you're not if it's just
gonna stay on your computer and it's not
gonna go anywhere else you know that
your your data your sample files aren't
going anywhere so really all you need to
include are the audio files you really
don't even need to include the alchemy
audio data but you can choose to do that
and it'll just basically move all of the
samples and loops that you used in your
session over into your session folder
makes a copy of them so I'm not gonna do
that because I'm just gonna keep this
project just on this computer so I'm
gonna go ahead and hit save it's gonna
tell me that this already exists because
I already saved once before and for all
subsequent saves you can just hit
command s to save all right next we need
to export our entire project out as a
single audio file so that we can listen
to it this is called bouncing so you go
up to file
bounce and go down to project or section
and you can also press command B for
this now the trick I like to use for
just bouncing just the section that you
want to bounce is drag over everything
in the session that you want to balance
hit command you to set your locators
what I like to do is on the front end of
the bounce I like to just create a
little bit of extra space before the the
the audio is gonna start and at the end
you may actually want to add multiple
measures of buffer at the end because
some instruments like our dream sequence
instrument down here have a lot of extra
reverb on them
[Music]
and that reverb can linger on for three
or four measures before it fully decays
if you don't create a cycle range and
bounce what you have to do is set an end
point for your session because otherwise
you'll get you'll get your bounce but
then you'll get all this extra space
back here too so what you can do is you
can find the measure where you want the
end point of your song to be so say
measure 38 here and this number right
here 129 that is actually the project
end point so if I double click on that
and change it to 38 now the project will
end and the bounce will end at measure
38 I'm not gonna do that I'm just gonna
go ahead and select my bounce range with
my cycle mode hit command B and you'll
see that the start and end point for the
bounce is right here and you can choose
various destinations basically file
types PCM is uncompressed WAV files AIFF
files core audio formats I've honestly
never used core audio format and I
rarely use AIFF I almost always use wave
4 now we're gonna keep the bit-depth bit
resolution and sample rate all the same
as what's here it's what's native to the
session the session right now is 24-bit
44 1 in the next video when we get into
audio recording we'll talk a bit more
about what these numbers mean and what
they affect the file type we're gonna
keep as interleaved if you split it what
it's gonna do is it's gonna split the
stereo audio file into separate left and
right files I do not want that dithering
don't worry about that for now we'll
talk about that later there's two ways
you can bounce real-time or offline
real-time there's only there's only one
reason why you'd ever want to use
real-time and that is if you are using
real Hardware synthesizers with your
session or real Hardware processing
units with your session so we're going
to use an offline bounce and we're gonna
keep the normalization at off as well ok
so there's other destinations up here
too if you click on mp3 this allows you
to bounce an mp3
refile I'm gonna go ahead and do that
but I'm gonna keep my bitrate I'm gonna
set my bitrate to 160 K you can also
bounce as like an iTunes format and m4a
AAC file and you can set the bitrate for
that here as well it's essentially
iTunes version of an mp3 and you can
also burn directly to CD or a DVD I've
almost never used this feature but it is
there if you want it so I'm gonna go
ahead and hit OK and what this is gonna
do is ask me where I want to save this
bounce I'm gonna save it directly to the
desktop I'll change the name of my song
to my first song something boring like
that and then I'll hit bounce and what
this will do is it'll bounce out that
range that we selected with the cycle
mode and after it's done bouncing it
should take a moment to convert to mp3
there it goes and we're all done so I'm
just gonna hit command s to save one
more time I'm gonna hit command Q to
quit logic completely and then out on
our desktop we've got our two audio
files my first song that mp3 in doubt
wave so let me just click on this and
hit spacebar and make sure it works
[Music]
all right so that's the end of part 1 in
part 2 we'll move on to recording audio
recording vocals and we'll do some basic
audio editing as well if you like this
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hope you guys enjoyed this video and
thanks for watching