Logic Pro X - Video Tutorial 29 - Controller Assignments and Live Automation Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

hello this is music tech help guy and
welcome to episode 29 of my Logic Pro 10
video tutorial series in this episode
we'll take a look at using controller
assignments to control synthesizer
controls effects controls and even mix
controls like volume and pan controller
assignments are things like faders and
knobs on your MIDI controller these are
or also known as continuous controllers
and using the controller assignments
dialog we are going to learn how to map
our continuous controllers knobs and
faders to controls and our synthesizers
in RF maybe our effects plugins or other
mix plug mix controls like maybe a
volume fader or a pan knob or a send
amount so first let me just show you
what I have going on here it's just a
very basic musical idea with kind of a
synth lead up here and then a just a
basic drum pattern down here
all right so let's say we want to give
the synth lead up here a little more a
little more dynamic kind of feel or to
give it some more dynamics with maybe
some synthesizer effects maybe I want
like a filter to kind of gradually close
and open up across the across the
timeline to give it kind of like a
filter sweep effect what we can do to
make that happen is actually go into
that synth window the actual extra
synthesizer window so toward the top of
the plug-in or the top of the channel
strip you'll see the plug-in for the
that instrument this is the exs24 it's a
sampler that's included with logic just
click on that and this will open up the
instruments window now what we can do
here is we can find any knob or fader
that we want to be able to control with
our MIDI controller and the control I
want to control is our filter cutoff
right here now in order to control this
to actually hear an effect on the sound
when I move this I'm gonna have to
actually turn on the filter right here
so what I'm going to do is I'm going to
move this plug-in off-screen and I'm
going to move this around with just with
my mouse to see what it sounds like just
you can hear it sounds like and I'll
just hit play
so you can hear there's an effect on the
tone this is a low-pass filter that's
kind of scooping out the highs in the
signal but it'd be really cumbersome to
try to have to move this with your mouse
so what we can do is instead of moving
this with our mouse assign it to a knob
or fader on our MIDI controller so the
way to go about this is I'm going to
move this off to the side here is to
bring up the controller assignments
window the way you pull this up is you
press shift option K now in logic 9 this
used to be command K it is now shift
option K so there we go pull this up and
this is probably a good time to remind
everyone that you need to make sure to
turn on your your advanced tools under
Logic Pro 10 preferences advanced tools
I'm not 100% sure that this is one of
the advanced MIDI tools but I can only
imagine this seems to be a question I'm
getting all the time but yeah you got to
make sure you turn on your advanced
tools in order to fully get all of
logics advanced features so this is the
controller assignments window there's
basically two views there's an easy view
and an expert view I always use the
expert view I've never used the easy
view so I'm just going to use the expert
view and what we do is there's a button
down here that says learn mode so what
you do is you click on that and it says
no message received it's waiting for
it's waiting for our MIDI controller
that is waiting for a MIDI message from
our MIDI controller to be received so
what I'm going to do is click on the
knob or fader in the plug-in that I
actually want to learn it's the cutoff
knob here
just click on that and then just move
the fader on your MIDI controller that
you want to map it to that you want to
learn it to and now when I press up I
can open up that filter when I press
down I can close that filter and you'll
see up here in the list that now says
learn so we've learned to control now if
I wanted to maybe simultaneously control
the resonance with another controller
well just click on that and then move a
separate fader and now I've learned that
one and after you're done
learning controls you just make sure to
go down to the lower right corner and
turn off your learn mode button here and
again you'll see that now my two faders
on my MIDI controller if I just move
those up and down you'll see now I have
independent control of these two knobs
in the synthesizer with two faders on my
MIDI controller so now I can close that
out I can close this window out and then
I can play around the knobs play around
the faders I'm a MIDI controller while
this track plays back so I'm going to
mute the drum track and play around
these just a bit and just so you can get
an idea of what's going on there let me
just go ahead and open up that plug-in
again so you can see the two controls
and there you go now the problem with
this is that if I just hit record again
and start moving those faders up and
down it's not going to learn the the
motions that I play in on the track what
you actually have to do is you have to
write it in as automation and we talked
about previously in one of the earlier
videos that automation is just a way to
change control values across time on our
track what we're going to do is we're
going to write in live automation with
those two faders and so that the
automation will draw in whatever
position those two faders are on and the
way you do this is you just press a
anywhere in the arrange area here this
will pull up your automation view and
what we need to do is we need to turn on
an automation mode here and by the way
if aught if this little button right
here is not on automation is not enabled
for the track so make sure that's in
yellow
here where it says read that just means
it's currently reading Automation on the
track we actually want to write new
automation on the track so let's click
on that and you'll see that there's four
modes you have read touch latch and
write touch latch and write our our live
automation mode JIT switch which
basically means that we can press play
and then move these mapped faders up and
down it'll record the position of those
two faders and like and as you probably
I felt kind of alluded to you can
actually have multiple lanes of
automation not just one so I can have
two different controls have automation
at the same time now what I'm going to
use for this is latch mode and here's
why with touch mode when you push a
fader up and then let go of the the
control the control will jump back down
to zero at least as long as the the
faders a touch you know a touch
sensitive fader latch mode when you push
a fader up and then let go the value
will stay there so that's what I'm going
to use for this right mode I don't use
much because it overwrites everything on
the track so if you indeed want to
overwrite everything on the track you
can use that but for for synthesizer
stuff I typically use latch so I'm going
to turn latch mode on and all you have
to do this point is press play you do
not have to press record and then you
can move the faders on the on the on
your MIDI controller and you'll see the
value start to be drawn in
and there you go
now if you want to start from scratch
you want to delete the automation on the
track well you can either just
immediately hit command Z to undo
obviously but you can also click on the
track
go up to mix and then go to delete
automation then you can
there are several delete automation
options the one I'm going to use is
delete visible automation on selected
track and so that will delete the
automation that we see there you can
actually also use your automation select
tool to select the automation and hit
delete so let's try that one more time
and I'm going to play in a different
shape this time so kind of like a filter
fade in effect as what I'm doing there
now let's say I also want to play in
that resonance fader that I learned well
all you have to do is press play again
and then move the fader it'll draw a
second a second line of automation
and what you'll see it's kind of dim
there but you can see in the background
the blue line there the faint blue line
there
there is my cutoff and then the purple
is the resonance now another thing that
you can do so you can actually view
multiple lanes of automation on a track
if you click on this little disclosure
arrow here it'll automatically open up
another lane of automation that you
currently have automation on so we can
now see our resonance up here then we
can see our cutoff right here so now
that we've got that drawn in I'm going
to click right here or press a again to
hide automation make sure on the track
to make sure to turn this from latch
back to read mode because otherwise you
might accidentally draw in some new
automation that you don't want let's go
to our drum kit now now the drum kit I'm
going to add an effect to this I'm going
to add a oh I'm going to add a kind of
an echo or like a delay effects I'm
going to go under delay and I'm going to
go to echo we'll use the echo effect now
in this plug-in it's just a very basic
echo echoing effect there is one fader
that says wet and the wet is basically
how much of the delay or the echo that
we're hearing the dry signals how much
of the original that we're hearing so
I'm going to pull the the dry signal all
the way up and then I'm going to put the
wet signal all the way down for now but
what I'm going to do is go back to our
controller assignments window we're
shifting K and I'm going to learn this
wet fader with another fader on my MIDI
controller so I'll just click on learn
mode again click on that fader and then
move the fader on my MIDI controller and
then turn learn mode off so now I can
pull in the echoing effect just where I
want it and then pull it out when I
don't want it so again on the track a to
open up automation change the automation
mode to latch and then let's play with
that fader
and there you go
now if you ever want to delete your
controller assignments oh let me go
ahead and put this in read mode there we
go
you can go back just to the same
controller assignment window we'll use
before and basically all you have to do
is click on the controls that you want
to delete and hit delete on the keyboard
and there you go so I hope you enjoyed
the video in the next video we'll get a
little a little deeper into how to pair
up your your continuous controllers with
synthesizer effects and then actually
get in and edit them in the piano roll
editor instead of up in the arrangement
oh because believe it or not the piano
roll editor actually has its own
controller editor down here and the
controller editor basically shows you
MIDI automation for your continuous
controllers it's very similar to what we
just did up here but this is more or
less mix automation and that down there
is more or less continuous controller
automation so there's a slight
difference but it's you know in many
ways it's it's it's two ways to do the
same thing so I'll let you choose which
way you prefer after I show that in the
next video one other quick thing I
should say before I before I end this
video is if you hit command 2 to open up
your mixer you can actually use the
controller assignments window to learn
your faders in your mixer as well as
your pan knobs in the mixer so if you're
looking to just control the mixer to use
your MIDI controller as essentially as a
control surface for mixing you can do
that as well and it's the same process
you open up the controller assignments
window turn on learn mode click on the
knob or click on the knob or fader in
the the mixer move the knob or fader on
your MIDI controller and
you done so again I hope you enjoyed the
video and thanks for watching
you
you