Logic Pro X - Input Processing Recordings with Aux Tracks 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 input processing your audio
recordings so what does this mean well
it means that we're going to record
through our mic the signaling is going
to go to our audio interface and then
into logic but instead of recording that
dry signal directly to an audio track
we'll first pass it through an aux track
with EQ and compression on it so that
the processing is actually rendered into
the recording rather than adding that EQ
and compression later pretty much every
professional studio recording I've ever
done I've run through processing while
recording but usually in the form of
Hardware EQ and Hardware compression
units not you know not plugins but I
understand in a home studio environment
you may not have anything to process
with other than plugins typically things
like your time-based effects like delay
and reverb aren't added at the recording
stage though but pretty much every
professional recording I've ever done
has had some form of input processing
done while recording so what are the
pros and cons of this the pros are that
you save CPU processing power later
because your recordings are already
compressed and eq'd so it'll help save
things like CPU lockups while you're
mixing if you try to stack a whole bunch
of plugins in your mix well input
processing allows you to not have to
have so many plugins in your mix during
the mixing phase also if the recording
is being used say in a podcast or some
other live broadcast you can send the
processed signal to the output rather
than the the unprocessed dry signal also
if you're sending these recordings to a
pro studio for mixing the stems will be
a lot easier to work with because
they'll have a bit of compression on
them already they'll be a bit more
dynamically level then say it's just a
dry signal I'm a big fan of hitting
recordings with multiple stages of soft
compression rather than just one stage
of really hard compression it always
works out better for me so usually what
I'll do is compress on input compress
while mixing compress a little while
busing and also while mastering sends
we're going through four stages of
compression but
level of compression is just soft soft
compression the downsides of this
process is that it can cause a bit of
latency just because we're sending the
signal to an aux track then busing the
output of the aux track over to an audio
plan audio track with the plug-in
processing on it so that process can
cause a little bit of latency but I'll
show you how to overcome most of those
latency issues in this video all right
so let's get right into it
so let's set up our session first for
this song I'm just going to record
vocals and acoustic guitar I'm probably
going to double up the acoustic guitar
so I'll have like a left and a right
acoustic so let me just go ahead and
create three audio tracks the first I'm
just going to call vox the second one
I'll call acoustic guitar left and
acoustic right and not that this is a
requirement but just because I like to
stay organized and we put some nice
little icons on here there there we
might as well use them alright so these
are really just going to be the tracks
that the recordings are captured on -
we're actually not going to directly
record - these we're going to record
through an aux track and send the signal
of the process signal the aux track over
to one of these captured these capture
tracks so let me open up my mixer here
I'm going hit X and I'm going to go to
options here and I'm going to create two
new auxilary channel strips one of them
is just is going to be called Vox in the
other one's going to be called guitar in
I'm going to make Vox in make them both
input one for now I'm actually going to
turn that off because you'll hear my
voice capture through them otherwise so
I'm going to turn the inputs off for now
for the vocals what I'm going to do is
I'm going to throw just the channel EQ
on this aux track here I'm going to bump
up the high end a little bit up in this
area I'm going to bump up the low end
just touch the low mid range that's the
touch then I'm going to scoop out a lot
of everything in this range now I'm just
going with settings that I know will
work for my voice you may want to maybe
do some tests and find a setting that
works for you and then maybe save it as
a channel strip setting after the EQ I'm
going to throw compression on here just
the standard compressor for vocals I'm
going to use the vintage opto and pull
the ratio up to about four threshold
down a bit and I'm going to pull the
release time up just to touch the attack
time up just a touch and I'm just going
to dial down the mix a little bit from a
hundred percent almost almost 100% not
completely a hundred percent turn the
limiter on although we probably won't
even hit the limiter at all and then
we're going to do so we're going to use
like I said we're gonna use as aux
checks to capture the the audio
recording but then we're gonna buss the
processed signal over to the appropriate
track over here so what I'm gonna do is
I'm going to make this output bus one so
it's probably it's got automatically
created aux track for us we don't need
that'll right-click and actually just
click on it hit delete and delete that
and our audio track over here will input
buss one so you see what's going to
happen here is the mic is the mic is
going into the interface the interface
is going into my computer the computer
sang it to logic and then from the input
here it's going to come in input 1
through these effects out bus 1 and then
be tracked on to our audio track with
these two effects rendered into the
waveform so for the acoustic guitar I'm
going to use the channel EQ as well bump
up the high end quite a bit more in a
higher range up here scoop out a little
bit of the mids not really the high mids
like the lower mids bump up the the
bottom just to touch and then filter out
some of the lower frequencies there we
go
and we'll use compression on this as
well for this we want some more the
transients to come through well a little
more fast a fast acting compressor so
try to use the studio FET or the vintage
FET let's go ahead and use a studio FET
do like a five to one ratio a little bit
harder compression pull the attack time
up a bit just so more of the the
transients come through a little quicker
release and then we'll turn the limiter
on just in case
pull the mix down just the touch and
then our acoustic guitar tracks are
going to input bus - so our aux track
that's the audio streams coming through
is going to output bus - so there we go
alright so basically all we have to do
now is set the inputs on these aux
tracks to whatever input the microphone
is in arm the corresponding audio track
and hit record that's all we really have
to do so for both of these I'm using
input one on my audio interface I'm just
muting them because right now I'm
talking through input one so I don't
want them to do picked up so just change
this to input 1 input 1 if you really
want you can actually right click on
these aux tracks and say create track
it'll actually create an instance of the
track out here so you can have your like
vocal in and your guitar in here see ya
oops oh yeah there we go that's what
happens to me when you uncheck that
or when you unmute it so yeah well what
I'll do in the next section is I will
record both of the acoustic guitar
tracks and then I'll go back and record
both both of the vocal tracks or the the
1 vocal track and we'll see what the
what the result sounds like if you
experience a lot of latency trying to
record this way just make sure to go
into your preferences under audio and
adjust your buffer size to a lower value
like 64 or 32 samples this should take
care of most of the latency one of the
problems with recording this way is
because of the plugins are running
through
the Ox tracker running through you may
experience more latency than you
typically would making a recording
you know recording directly to an audio
track alright so let's get on with the
recordings
you
why do we always have to say goodbye do
we always have to live in day can't we
live this love for each other look so
many times I've told you in so many ways
I've shown you what do we have to say
goodbye
goodbye
I alright so we've got our vocal tract
and our two guitar tracks all tracked
with all of the effects rendered white
right into the waveform a couple things
just wanted to note one if you saw the
master fader clipping while recording
they had nothing to with my recording
that was actually the click track that
was clipping it I just omitted the the
click track from the the videos that I
did
another thing is I changed the tempo and
I also changed the the time signature to
meet match the time signature and tempo
of the song and yeah the only other
thing it is I just adjusted the the the
audio levels here keep in mind that when
you adjust the volume of an audio track
it doesn't have any effect on the
recording level however since we were
passing all the audio through these aux
tracks the level of the aux track does
matter so I kept them at Unity basically
up at zero here so now that we're done
recording we don't really need the
guitar track or the guitar aux track or
the vocal track anymore so you can get
rid of those and we can just trim up our
recording like we normally would so just
use my marquee tool here just to trim
everything up a bit just do a nice heads
and tails edit get rid of anything that
doesn't need to be there my vocal
performance wasn't the best but I was
also sitting down which is not
recommended and it sounds a little high
for my my range as well let's just drag
over all of these go up to the region
parameters go to more here I'm going to
add a 10 millisecond delay or 10
millisecond out fade and a 10 second in
fade and then just for the tail end here
I'm going to add a little bit longer
fade there we go so now it's like we've
got these already processed tracks if I
wanted to enhance the recording a little
bit better I could just you know mix
them with some reverb maybe so dragged
over all three of these add a send go to
bus one let make sure that the inputs on
these tracks are no longer set to bus
one of us two anymore
pull all three DS up a bit create a new
ox track make the that ox track input
bus 1 maybe add a touch of reverb let's
use space designer I really like the
medium plate the soft plate or the blue
plate both work nicely pull that up and
then maybe just do a little bit more on
the vocals that on the guitar let's see
if that sounds like
why do we always have to say goodbye to
we always have to live in day can't we
live this love for each other look so
many times I've told you in so many ways
I've shown you what do we have to say
goodbye
goodbye
there you go so again the advantage of
this is now we have these already sort
of semi quasi processed stems if we were
to send this recording or you know flesh
out the whole recording not just guitar
and vocals but if we were to flesh out
this whole recording and then send these
already pre processed stems over to
another studio from mixing they're going
to have a much easier time working with
them like I said before they may
actually add more compression they may
add additional EQ to your tracks but at
least we have tracks that are for the
most part dynamically level from a
frequency standpoint are pretty present
they stand out okay just by themselves
without any processing on them
whatsoever so I hope you guys really
enjoyed this video if you like to
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