Logic Pro X - Video Tutorial 36 - Use iPad Synths with Logic; External MIDI Tracks and Synthesizers Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

hello this is music tech help guy and
welcome to episode 36 of my Logic Pro 10
video tutorial series in this episode
we're going to take a look at using the
external midi tracks in logic and I'll
show you how you can use external midi
tracks to use external synthesizers now
this can be done with external synths
that our USB ones that just use standard
MIDI in and out connectors or with
something like an iPhone or an iPad
actually for today's example i'm going
to be using an iPad and I'm using the
iRig MIDI adapter which basically just
has a standard iPad 2 connector that has
a standard 5-pin din in and out MIDI in
and out connector coming out of him and
essentially what I'm doing is I'm
plugging those in and outs into my audio
interface which is analysis IO 26 just
tabletop interface you could do this
with say like a USB MIDI interface or
really any USB or firewire audio
interface that has MIDI in and output or
again you can do it with a device that's
simply just USB so the first thing we
need to do is we need to make sure that
the device that's receiving and sending
MIDI data is recognized by our computer
so that logical recognize it so what
we're going to do is what I'm going to
do first is go to the spotlight up here
I'm just going to type in audio MIDI
because I won't want to find a utility
that's called the audio MIDI setup and
in here
the audio devices window will probably
pop up first but we're going to go to
window and show the MIDI window now for
me I'm I'm looking to make sure that my
alessa's firewire interface is being
shown as a MIDI interface as well which
it is it's here it's
not grayed out if it was grayed out and
it like for instance if your interfaces
plugged in and it's still grayed out you
can try rescan MIDI and if you don't see
it at all you probably need to install
the correct drivers for it now if you're
using a USB synthesizer or some sort of
USB device it should also show up here
and again if it's not you probably need
to install the proper drivers for it
okay so what we need are we need
actually two things we need the external
MIDI track that's how we're going to get
the MIDI data to the iPad or to your
external synth and we also need an audio
track the audio track is going to
receive the signal the audio signal from
the synthesizer from the iPad so
essentially what I have is just my iRig
as I explained before and then coming
out of the output of my iPad I just have
an eighth inch - stereo quarter inch
connectors actually it's two mono
connectors and those connectors are
plugged into inputs three and four on my
audio interface so we need an external
MIDI track to send MIDI data and then we
need an audio track to monitor and and
record the audio information coming from
the iPad so I'm going to go up to track
new tracks or you can just remember the
key command option command n I'm going
to create an external midi track here
and I'm also going to create a audio
track so let me just zoom these out a
bit so I can see them a little better
for the external MIDI track it's
probably going to pop up saying GM
device what we need to do is we need to
go to the track parameters here unhide
this window and make sure that the port
that we're on matches the audio
interface or MIDI interface that worried
that we're inputting - that the iPads
plugged in - so again right now my iPads
plugged into my lesson interface so the
port
I need to choose a lesss firewire
alessa's firewire port one some devices
have multiple ports so you might see
port one two three four
mine just has one pair of in-and-out
connectors so it's just port one the
other thing that you'll see here is if
you're using it just a direct USB device
and skipping the audio interface all
together you'll see that device here so
I'm just going to choose that I'm also
going to choose channel not channel one
I'm going to choose channel all so I
don't relate to worry about MIDI
channels and just for fun I'm going to
change the icon by right-clicking and
I'll just give it something maybe a
little more appropriate unfortunately I
don't think there's an iPad icon so I'll
just use this one for this track I'm
going to call this MIDI to iPad because
that's essentially what it's doing it's
sending MIDI data to my iPad on my audio
track I need to monitor and be able to
record the audio coming from the iPad so
I'm going to call this audio from iPad
and what I'm also going to do is on this
audio track I'm going to set the input
on the track two inputs three and four
that's where the output of the iPad is
plugged into so I'm going to choose
input three and four now if I just
either input monitor or arm this audio
track I should be able just play the
keys the the synthesizer on my iPad and
I should hear sound
now for this I'm using a an iPad app
that's called alchemy it's from camel
audio I really like it it's it's just
it's a kind of a cool a synth for iPad
it's pretty cheap as well
they've got drum sounds they've got
synth sounds they also have a kind of
it's like an eighth zoned XY pads you
can kind of morph morph the sound as
well so that's the iPad app I'm using
there are a lot of iPad synths out there
some are MIDI some are not MIDI some
will work that like this some won't work
like this so I'm just using this one
because I know it works now in advance
up here on this track that just says
MIDI idea I've created a just a very
simple MIDI idea just with a few notes
here and I'm going to drag that region
down on to my MIDI 2 iPad track which is
again the external MIDI track and as
long as I either input monitor or arm
for recording my audio track I should be
able to just press play and we'll hear
the audio coming from the iPad up here
without me actually playing the iPad ill
so let's just press play and see if this
works
now the reason why you're seeing signal
but you're not actually hearing any
audio is because I have arm for
recording and input monitoring turned on
you have to turn on input monitoring
just for listening and turn on arm for
recording if you're recording so I'm
just going to turn on input monitoring
and let's see if this works
you
you
all right now to record this I'm going
to turn off input monitoring it just
armed the track go back to the beginning
and just hit record just like I normally
would I'm going to turn off the I
actually already have turned off the
metronome for this there's no reason for
the metronome to be on because I'm not
trying to stay in time the the data is
already in time so there's no point in
actually turning on the metronome so
just going to hit R to record
now the waveform that was records a bit
quiet so I might want to pull up the
gain on the inputs of my interface and
this time what I'm going to do is I'm
going to play around with the the XY
like the 8 zone XY pad feature on the
alchemy synth just to get some different
sounds in here
and there you go so that's how you can
use external synthesizers like the iPad
or an external hardware synth either
with USB or MIDI input and output cables
now you can also use your external synth
or RI or your iPad even as a MIDI
controller if you guys want me to go
over that I'll have to do it in another
video but instead of just using it as a
sound generator you can also use it as
just an input controller we're just kind
of playing in notes but then triggering
sounds and logic so that's also a
possibility now the advantage to this is
you know if you've got certain sounds on
a certain synth external synth iPad
whatever that you can't really get
anywhere else this is a great way to
grab those and still be able to edit the
MIDI data and edit the performance here
the other great thing about this is you
don't necessarily have to print the
audio in place if you want what you can
do instead of creating an audio track is
you can actually create an aux track in
your mixer it's just command to to go to
mixer then go to options create new
auxiliary channel strip it's also
control N and on that aux track you just
make the input of that aux track 3 & 4
I'll just pull this aside here so you
can see it just delete my audio track
here there we go
so now I just have an external midi
track and then I have an aux track on
the mixer that's receiving audio from
the iPad so I'll just say from iPad and
at any time I press play now let me just
fix one quick thing here there you go
nevermind this send I'm adding on here
it's the send is actually going to my
video capture so I can actually hear the
audio that I've captured so don't worry
about that you want to do that but I
basically just again
knocks track that has an input that's
input 3 & 4
and as long as as long as the iPads
plugged in and the whole kind of you
know signal flow of MIDI to iPad audio
back to the audio interface as long as
that's in place you can press play you
can edit you can mix this MIDI recording
along with any other instruments that
you have in the session the only thing
you have to keep in mind is if I go to
bounce this with like maybe I've got
drums and stuff in here and other things
going on you have to make sure that you
go to when you go to file a bounce so
it's going to be alright they change its
bounce and then project or section or
just hit command B to bounce you have to
make sure that you use a real tie real
time bounce if you use an offline bounce
it will not send signal you will not get
signal from your external sent through
your iPad so you have to make sure that
when you bounce you use a real-time
bounce to be honest I prefer just
printing the audio in place after you're
done with it you know maybe mute this
and just save it as a you know as a
backup just in case you need to change
some notes later and then just keep the
audio you know like I did it before so I
hope you enjoyed the video and thanks
for watching