Logic Pro X - Track Stacks; Folder Stacks and Summing Stacks Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

hello this is music tech help guy and
welcome to this Logic Pro 10 video
tutorial on using track stacks track
stacks is one of the many new features
in Logic 10 one that I sort of just
didn't neglect it to talk about in my
main series mostly because well to be
frank I don't use it but I definitely
see how it is useful and what track
stacks does is it lets you take a whole
series of tracks and sort of put them
together as a folder as a unit as a
groupable unit you can sort of move
clips around as a group rather than
having to do them individually the other
thing you can do is it sort of functions
like a summing track almost like using
an ox track as a sub mix and by the way
if you missed that video where I talked
about ox tracks and routing multiple
tracks them to create a sub mix or a sub
master I will find a way to make sure
that that link is either in the video or
down in the video description okay so
what I'm going to do is I'm going to use
track stacks in both of its for both of
its functions one to create just sort of
a group or a folder and then also to sum
so let's listen to this musical example
I've got here this is actually believe
it or not this is the intro music to my
new logic it's my new Logic title
animation music so let's listen to a
little bit of this
all right so up top here I've got this
sort of I'm going to call it the the
drop beat or whatever it has a lot of
the the wobbly bases and things like
that in it the problem is that this
whole sort of section is composed of a
bunch of different clips just little
clips and I'm using a lot of instruments
I'm using massive a lot I'm using the
EFM one I'm using ES 2 es X 24 so I'm
using a lot of different instruments but
I'm sort of putting two get together as
one unit and I want to be able to move
this unit around rather than having them
sliced up into a bunch of little pieces
here so this is the first function of
track stacks first I'm going to click on
the top track and then the bottom track
and hold shift well I do that going to
select everything out here it's also
going to select all of my tracks here
then I go to track create track stack
and then I'm going to choose a folder
stack and so what this lets us do is it
lets us solo mute and hide this track or
this track stack and if you want to view
all the individual tracks in the track
stack you just click on a little arrow
here and it opens it up it even tells
you what the name of the track stack is
right now it's called it sub - I'm going
to call this drop beat there we go
alright the other thing we can do is yes
we can drag over this whole stack and we
can sort of move it around as a unit I
want it to look even more lucky unit
almost like the folders did when you
right clicked and you go to folder pack
folder like we talked about in the main
series I want to look like this I'm
going to drag over all these and I'm
going to hit J and by the way J is the
key command for join per track and it
sort of puts them in something that
resembles a folder however if we open
this up you'll see that
several different files that are merged
down to one stack so what I'm gonna do
with this is I'm going to change my snap
mode to bar I'm going to change my snap
regions to relative value really it
doesn't it's only going to matter
whether you use relative or absolute
depending on whether the front end of
the clip is right on the bar or off the
bar in my case it's actually right on
the bar so I'd be fine using absolute
but I'm going to use relative just
because hold option drag this over put
it where you want it to go let go of the
mouse then let go of option and we've
made a duplicate of that whole stack of
Clips there so it's much easier than
having to drag over the little
individual clips and maybe accidentally
losing one in the process so there we go
so there's our drop beat by the way you
can automate these you can say you know
if I wanted this one a little bit
quieter than the other you could do that
you can also control the the overall
volume of these as well there's a
separate fader where you can control the
volume of the whole stack so that's kind
of nice all right um let's there we go
let's put the display off let's talk
about the other function the summing
stay track stack what I'm going to do is
I want to sort of group together my
drums as a summing stack because I want
to sort of work with this as as a group
but at the same time I want to process
all of them as a group the problem with
just using the folder function is that
you can't add effects or anything to
that track stack and I don't want to
here because I've already got I've
already got all of my drop beat stuff
going into a synth Sox track which
already has the sugar bytes Wow filter
on it some compression and multiband
compression on already so I don't need I
don't need those to be summed together
so I can process them but the drums are
just going straight to the stereo output
they're not going to an aux track
already so again I'm gonna do the same
thing select the top track hold shift
and select the bottom track go to track
create track stack or you can by the way
if you want to the key command it's
shift command
d there we go we're going to use a
summing stack this time so the great
thing about the summing stack is it's
much like sending all of these tracks to
a common aux track you can process them
all together so I'm going to hit create
and this track stack I'm going to call
the drums and again give us a sort of
like a nice highlighted area here shows
us the name of the stack and then I can
sort of there we go can minimize it just
like we did before now one little thing
I've always had an issue with when
you're doing this this way is for some
reason it always arms the track stack
when you're when you're on it and I
don't know why that is it's just
bothered me it's it's nothing really a
big that's not a big deal you you know
you deselected it on arms it's just
something I that bothered me um so now I
can sort of you know move my drums as a
unit just like we did before so just
bring these over there we go and the
reason why I did that is I wanted to
bring that sort of drop beat back in
just because it sort of had a you know
there was while there was sort of a
build up at the end of this verse here
let's go ahead and with these tracks
let's go ahead and create a there we go
actually there's nothing on these tracks
some of these I can go ahead and delete
actually let's delete that one delete
that one and delete that one and this
one this little pulsing synth I'm going
to leave off by itself within these
other tracks I want to sort of group
these into a stack as well so track
create track stack I'm gonna use a
folder stack for this one there we go
and then these will do the same thing
I'll hit J duplicate it over and then
duplicate this over so this really
simplifies music arrangement you know
when you're trying to you know just find
an easy way
a to sort of some things together so
they look a little easier on the eyes
but sound exactly the same so let's just
see if this let's see if this worked out
here okay so the arrangement looks fine
let's deal with our drums stack here so
I'm gonna hit command two to open up the
mixer and what it does is it creates a
single channel strip for us in the mixer
just for the drums it does the same for
the drop B and then the other stack
would create I'll just call this the
synth stack there we go it creates a
separate one for us for the drums as
well but the difference is because this
is a summing stack we can now add
effects to it so and we can also adjust
the pan of it as well so let me just add
a linear phase EQ I've already got a
setting up here that's just sort of like
a mid lift and a low-end cut and then
I'm going to throw some compression on
here this is just sort of sort of just
to beef up the drum sound a bit and then
we can individually control the volume
on that stack as well
all right so that's track stacks for you
to me track stacks is all about
arrangement ease of building your
arrangement out without having to drag
over multiple clips and move multiple
clips it's sort of a way to sort of
condense your musical material down to
something that's more tangible on a
macro level rather than trying to manage
your mix on a micro level so I
definitely see how it's useful for that
function as a mix function for summing
tracks together I honestly don't use it
much I'm not saying that there is any
disadvantage to it I'm just saying that
I grew up working on live sound gear
analog gear and I learned signal flow by
understanding how the wiring was sum
together to create you know VCA mixes on
analogue boards and analog live consoles
so it's not something that I want you to
think I'm I'm knocking I definitely
think it's really cool but it's just I
use sub mixes the way I do because of
the way I learned and I find you know
creating ox ox tracks for sub mixes just
easier for me even though technically
you know creating a track stack is
easier to do it's habit you know it's a
habit for me and I I do it works you
know so there isn't any real difference
you know quality wise there isn't a
difference between really using an ox
track for summing as opposed to using a
track stack for something as far as I
know the the signal flow is identical so
you're not gonna you know it's not going
to sound better one way or the other it
was just one of those features that a
lot of people asked me to cover and so
here I am I definitely see the merit in
it for grouping like I said grouping
tracks together and moving them as a
unit rather than using the old-school
folder function that was in Logic 9
because you can actually sort of
minimize and maximize
your track stack right there in the
arrange area as opposed to having to
open it up in its own folder view like
you did back in logic 9 alright so I
hope you enjoyed the video and as always
thanks for watching