Logic Pro X - Video Tutorial 27 - MIDI Piano Roll Editor; part 1 Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

hello this is music tech help guy and
welcome to episode 27 of my Logic Pro 10
video tutorial series in this episode
we'll take a look at the piano roll
editor and how to create and edit MIDI
data now this will probably end up being
a multi-part video there's more
information that I want to pack into any
single video so this will probably end
up being a two or three part video so
piano roll editors are also known as
matrix editors because you basically
have pitch vertically and rhythm
horizontally in this case with piano
roll editor you see a piano with low
pitches and the bottom high pitches on
top and then we see our ruler on top
showing rhythm so what I have here in
the sessions I've got a hard wobble bass
track and I have a heavy metal organ the
heavy metal organ is just a preset from
logics library and the hard wobble bass
is an instrument I made what I'm going
to do first before I start playing these
instruments is I want to change my time
signature or the meter of my project by
default as you probably already know
logic sets its meter to 4/4 time meaning
that you have 4 beats per measure so
what I'm going to do is show my global
tracks here by clicking right here and
then signature should show up here if it
doesn't you can right click and then you
can just say show signatures since mine
is there it says hide signature and I
can hide it there's other things you can
show here but none of which we're going
to use today so with my signature you
can see it's 4/4 time so I'm just going
to double click on that and I can choose
a new time signature so I'm going to
type in 3/4 I'm going to have 3 beats
per measure and then hit OK alright so
with my hard wobble bass here first I'm
just going to record in a basic just a
baseline with it and arm the track for
recording by hitting the are there and
then hit R on the keyboard to record
and there we go I just recorded in some
MIDI data now the way one of the ways
you can open up the piano roll editor is
you can click on an existing MIDI region
and you can just double click on it
actually and it'll open up in the piano
roll editor but just in your arrange
window I like to see the piano roll
editor in its own window because I can
just see more it's easier to work with
so you just click on it and then you hit
command 4 now I know in Logic 9 it was
actually command 6 not command 4 they've
changed it since then and what we can
see here is all of our MIDI data that I
just played in just you can see the bass
line I just played in and I'm you know
you can see I'm pretty off the grid part
of the issue is I'm not really sure what
the issue is I thought I played in time
but I guess I didn't play in time so
what we can do just to start is we can
hit command a to select all select all
the notes and what I can do is move
these notes closer to the grid now this
kind of harder white line here is the
downbeat of measure 3 so I want that
note to come in right on the downbeat
not off of the beat so I'm just going to
grab it with my regular pointer tool
here just like we saw back in the
editing videos and just pull straight to
the right until it kind of snaps to the
grid now one thing that can be kind of
annoying is if you click on a note it
actually plays the note sometimes you
might want that most of the time you
don't so to turn that off you just click
on this green icon here MIDI out and it
disables MIDI out when you click on
notes or drag or select notes so now I
don't hear them the next thing I'm going
to do is I'm going to quantize my
recording now quantization is
essentially just the rhythmic correction
of MIDI notes there's other other things
to it as well but that's the basic the
basic function of it so what you kind of
have to know is what notes you played
you know on top of the time signature
that we chose and looking at the grid I
can see here that the best quantization
value is probably an eighth note now if
you're not familiar with music theory or
rhythm this might be a little more
difficult for you but by default each of
these small divisions in logic is a
sixteenth note and so each each pair of
those would be an eighth note and every
fourth one beat would be a quarter note
so you can I have to decide what's the
value that you want to snap to eight
note sixteenth note quarter note there's
triplet values and things like that
we'll talk about later so what I'm going
to do is hit command a once again to
select all the notes go over here to
time quantize and in time quantize I can
choose a quantization value so I'm going
to choose an eighth note now what you'll
see is that all of the notes that I
played now snap to their nearest eighth
note another little trick that we can do
here is I can get rid of the overlap
between notes and I can also I can also
if there's a gap between two notes I can
also fill that gap and the key command
for this is the backslash button it's
right below the Delete key and a Mac
keyboard so if you hit backslash what it
does is it corrects the note overlap
between notes you don't have note
overlap the other key command you can
use is shift backslash and that will
that's called a force legato function
and if you saw that they're just watch
up here so shift backslash and it forces
legato between notes so if there's again
notes that overlap and the notes that
don't quite join completely you can trim
them and all kind of auto trim them and
you can also fill the gaps between them
now if you forget those key commands
they're up under edit and then trim and
there's two functions you have yeah note
to remove overlaps with adjacent
backslash and then you have no end to
following notes force legato shift
backslash I don't know why they changed
terminology on this that used to just be
called no overlap correction and force
legato and it also used to be the - key
not the backslash key in logic nine so
this is another thing that's changed in
logic 10 so let's take a listen to what
we've got here I'll just click on the
ruler here and hit spacebar to play in
there regarding is kind of you know
perfectly in time all right the next
thing I'm going to do is just kind of
break down the piano roll editing tools
just like with the arrange window I
showed you in the one of the previous
videos the piano roll editor has its own
set of edit tools and they're located in
the same place that they were in the
range area just the top of the window by
default you get the pointer tool which I
already showed you before you can select
notes you can grab notes you can also
trim notes with this just by hovering
over the right or left side of a note
you can trim a note to be shorter from
the back end or from the front end so
that's kind of cool
the other thing that you can do is you
can duplicate notes if you hold option
and then drag with the the pointer tool
you can duplicate a note you can also
drag over a note and hit delete to
delete it and you can also drag over a
note and hit option and press up or down
to transpose it up a note up or down so
I can bump it up or bump it down by a
step or a semitone basically a half step
another thing that you can do is if you
hold shift option and press up and down
you can bump all of your notes or a note
up or down a full octave so if maybe I
want to pull the bass line up or maybe
down an octave you can do that so that's
the pointer tool the next tool is the
pencil tool and what the pencil tool
does is it just
lets you create new notes now the rule
about the pencil tool is that it will
always create a note at the same length
and velocity as the last note that you
created and by the way you can also trim
with your with your pointer with your
pencil tool so if I trim this note to be
a little shorter the next note I create
is going to be equal value to the last
one I created so I'm just gonna use my
pencil tool to delete those notes the
next tool is the eraser tool basically
all it does is it deletes notes we can
do that same thing with the Delete key
so it's basically useless here but we'll
find another function for it later the
next tool is the finger tool finger tool
basically just trims notes it doesn't
move them it doesn't transpose them at
just trims notes and again we could do
that same thing with the pointer tool so
it's basically useless
the scissors tool lets you separate
notes just like you could separate
waveforms up in the up in the arrange
area the glue tool will glue notes
together if you drag over two notes that
are the same pitch and then click on
them with the glue two little join them
together and you can also join together
notes that were separated with the
scissors tool the mute tool basically
mutes a note and you'll see that it
turns gray here basically that means is
that the note is still there you just
won't hear it so it's a way to kind of
turn off a note or turn off a series of
notes to audition something with and
without those notes without actually
deleting them there's actually a key
command for the mute tool though if you
click on a note and then hit ctrl M it
actually does the exact same thing by
the way I realized in logic not it was
actually just M not ctrl M the next tool
is the quantize tool the quantize tool
will quantize to whatever value you've
chosen over here in the quantization
menu but it only quantizes what kind of
one note at a time or a selection of
notes at a time so if I choose a time
quantize of a quarter note
every note I click on with the quantize
tool will quantize to the nearest
quarter note or I can select a series of
notes and all of those notes will
quantize to the quarter note all right
the next tool is the velocity tool which
we'll come back to in just a moment
so let's go on to the zoom tool you can
just drag to zoom in click to zoom back
out but honestly I like to just use the
zoom sliders up here or use the
shortcuts for zooming you can hold
option and swipe up and down for
vertical zoom and you can hold option
command and swipe up and down for
horizontal zoom and then remember the
kind of zoom to fit window is use click
on the background hit Z this also
applies in the piano roll editor okay so
let's talk about the velocity tool one
quick thing just about the tools is that
just like in the arrange window the one
on the left is your left-click tool the
one on the right is your command click
tool so I'm going to put the velocity
tool in the command click tool so I have
to hold command in order to use the
velocity tool now when you use the
velocity tool you can basically drag up
or down a note to increase or decrease
the velocity now MIDI note velocity is
essentially how fast you hit the key but
what it ends up being most of the time
is how loud the note is and it's always
a value between 0 and 127 usually 1 in
127 though because 0 is just interpreted
as muted or off so 1 would be the lowest
the softest velocity 127 would be the
loudest velocity so as I drag the note
up it gets more red a louder velocity as
I drag down it gets more blue a lower
velocity so I like how logic colorized
is velocity the other thing that you can
the other way to distinguish velocity is
that the line in the note will actually
shrink or expand depending on how high
or how low the note is so if you're
colorblind or something well you can
still see what velocity you're looking
at the other thing you can do is you can
quant or you can set all of the
velocities of all your notes the same
value by selecting them all engaging the
velocity tool and instead of just
dragging
up or down if it you hold option while
dragging up and down and it'll
essentially quantize the velocity to all
the same values so all of my notes are
now the same value another way to adjust
velocity is right over here there's a
velocity slider which is kind of a new
addition to logic that I do like so we
can pull all of these up or pull all of
them down so let's go to about a hundred
there we go
so that covers most of the tools in the
piano roll editor the automation select
an automation curve tool we'll come back
to those in another video probably the
next video or the third video of the
series but we'll come back to those
later so don't worry about them for now
alright so now that we've got our
baseline down here you probably noticed
that there's these little kind of grayed
bars on the region these are after touch
values my MIDI keyboard has a function
called after touch if you press down on
the key and then press harder on the key
you can get a different effect out of it
because this patch doesn't understand
what after touch is or there's no effect
paired with after touch there's no point
in having after touch on so what I'm
going to do is I'm going to turn off
after touch right now and the way you do
that is you go up to file project
settings MIDI and from here you can go
to input filter this is your MIDI input
filter and I'm going to turn off after
touch and you can turn off other things
as well like control changes pitch Bend
even notes if you want to so this is
just a way to kind of filter what
messages actually come from your MIDI
controller and get recorded in logic and
I'll turn off polyphonic aftertouch as
well alright so let's record in our top
of our top instrument because the part I
want to record in here is a little
faster instead of trying to play it in
live I'm going to use a special function
called step input which lets me punch in
each note individually rather than
having to play along with say a
metronome like I did at the baseline so
what I'm going to do is on my third
measure here where the notes start in
the baseline
I'm going to right click and say create
new MIDI region and I'm just going to
trim that MIDI region out to be the same
length as the other one and I'm going to
hit command 4 to open up my piano roll
editor now to turn on step input what
you have to do is click on this icon
right here this is MIDI in and it'll
turn red and what this does is it lets
you play in notes individually without
having to play to a metronome so if I
play a couple notes here you'll see that
they're entered in one by one rather
than with the metronome the other thing
we have to keep in mind is what rhythmic
Valley do on eighth notes sixteenth
notes quarter notes whatever right now
it's creating sixteenth notes for me so
I want to have eighth notes I don't want
quite that fast so the way we can change
that is we have to pull up our step
input keyboard and so the way to pull up
the step input keyboard is go to window
and then go down to step input keyboard
or show step input keyboard and the key
command for that is option command K so
I'm just gonna hit option command K and
there it is now for now don't worry
about the kind of Italian dynamics over
here
just worry about what's over here on the
left basically what you have are just
different rhythms you have whole note
half note quarter note eighth note
sixteenth 32nd and 64th note there's
just different rhythmic durations you
also have dotted values and triplet
values and you can also it says sustain
inserted notes but it'll also make the
playhead jump forward by the rhythm that
you select so I'm going to do is I'm
going to select eighth notes like it has
there now and then just start typing in
the the rhythm or than the notes I want
the thing you hit to be careful with
here is if you overlap the notes that
you play it'll actually stack them as a
chord if you want them actually kind of
our pudgy 8th or separated you have to
intentionally leave space between them
just like that so here we go I'm just
going to play in my kind of motive for
this particular instrument
so there's my motive turn step input off
it's a good idea to make sure you turn
this off because you can accidentally
start typing in notes if you're just
kind of playing around and I'm going to
use my velocity tool like I did before
to set all these velocities to the same
value so hit command a hold option while
I engage the velocity tool pull all the
way up or all the way down there we go
all of them are the same velocity close
out my piano roll editor and let's
listen to what this sounds like
and there we go another thing we can do
is you can kind of mass edit MIDI data
all together if you just hit command a
to select all what I'll do is I'll just
trim all of these notes of the pointer
tool to kind of make more of like a
staccato sound to it now another thing
to keep in mind when you're kind of
watching your MIDI data scroll by and
the piano roll editor is if your
playhead goes past the screen and the
screen doesn't jump with you what you
need to do is you need to turn on this
option right here this is catch playhead
and what this will do is it'll make sure
the playhead makes the window basically
what this is the your window follows the
playhead no matter what you do the only
problem with this is while you're
playing if you kind of scroll left and
right it automatically turns it off so
you got to just kind of remember not to
scroll with the window
and there we go so this concludes this
video and like I said before there's a
lot to the piano roll editor so I'll
probably do you know two additional
videos just on the piano roll editor and
how to edit down there there's a lot of
functions that we haven't talked about
yet I've actually had a lot of people
ask me how to make a wobble bass like
this or a dirty bass and I basically
just used the es too so if you're really
interested you can just copy this patch
right here and there's also basically I
just took this patch and add some
effects to it so if you're really
interested you can take a screenshot of
this or just pause the video and program
your own es to patch so hope you enjoyed
the video and thanks again for watching