Best Way To Learn Logic Pro

Mastering in Logic Pro X is absolutely possible, even with just stock plugins!

Many get lost though. Not because they don't know, but because they don't know what they are aiming for. Perhaps you can relate.

Learn Logic Free

If you're using a previous version of the Logic Pro trial, you'll be able to use this version free for an additional 90 days. Learn more about Logic Pro. More ways to shop: Find an Apple Store or other retailer near you. Or call 1-800-MY-APPLE. The first version of Logic Pro was called Notator Logic, and it was released all the way back in 1993. It was developed by a company called C-Lab, who later became Emagic. The first five versions of Logic were available on both Mac and Windows.

This article should help you get going, so you can confidently make great sounding masters for your music.

I've broken it down into a series of actionable steps.

1. How To Prepares Your Mix(es)

Learn how Logic Pro X's Collapse Mode and Brush tool can help you create new rhythms. The best way to check for and combat this is to load up a Gain plug-in (or some kind of utility plug-in if you're using a different DAW) on your extra layers and invert the phase. You should notice that one way round will sound fuller and more punchy. Logic Pro X - In Depth - Apple. Get an in-depth look at Logic Pro X.Dive deep into a vast array of tools for composing, recording, editing, mixing, and more. Apple.com /logic-pro/in-depth/.

There are many articles and cheat sheets out there that tell you things in absolutes like needing 6 dB of headroom and such.

In digital, that's not so important. All you need to do is make sure you have a great mix and that it's not clipping.

Now, knowing if your mix is great is a big challenge in itself. If you are confident, then just bounce it, and master it in a brand new session another day with fresh ears. Give your brain time to forget about it for a bit.

You might even to choose to take up to a week between mixing and mastering the same song, without once listening to the mix in between. Your call.

With regard to peak headroom, here is an article I wrote about it. The gist of it is that it doesn't matter, as you can adjust gain in the mastering session anyway. Just make sure there is a healthy amount of dynamics in the mix that is suitable for the music.

If you would like a general guideline, around 14 dB of difference between peak and RMS in the loudest moments in the mix is a good place to start. Peak headroom (space between peak value and 0 full scale) doesn't matter so much.

2. Calibrate Your Mastering Level

This bit is huge. Measuring EQ, dynamics, and loudness are not things you can rely solely on meters for. However, they can (and will) work as a supplement to your hearing, but nothing more than that.

This is why it's ever so important to calibrate your mastering level and stick to it. I wrote an easy-to-follow guide on how to do that using simply your ears, your amp/speakers, and Spotify.

3. Gain Stage Your Reference Track(s)

Now that you have set up your monitoring level, you may also choose to use a reference track in the mastering session.

There is only one tip you need to know about using reference tracks…

Turn them down (or up) to your mastering level!

That way, there is no loudness bias between your master and the reference track.

The easiest way to do this is to use a gain utility on the reference track until it's playing back at your mastering level. Do this by ear and make adjustments along the way so that comparisons are always fair.

Remember, a slight difference in loudness also equates to a difference in how we perceive dynamics and frequency balance (EQ). It's just a psychoacoustic reality we have to deal with.

Want to learn more? Check out our Mastering in Logic Pro X Course.

4. Set The Ceiling

As you probably know, a limiter is very much a usual suspect in your mastering chain. Not because it makes things louder (because they don't) but because they allow you to adjust the gain of the track whilst retaining a peak ceiling. This means that if necessary, we can make it louder without clipping. This is the true purpose of a peak limiter.

Now, what I am going to advise here is to use Logic Pro X's Adaptive Limiter. Load it as the final plugin in your chain and set the ceiling to -1.0 with True Peak Detection turned on.

Now it's set up, you don't have to look at it again. You probably want to make sure it's not applying any extra gain by default, so make sure the gain dial is at 0dB.

5. Find Loudness

This where we start to work backwards, at least as far as the order of plugins in your chain is concerned.

Before, I mentioned how playback volume has a huge bearing on how we perceive frequency balance and dynamics. This is where we work to minimise that variable.

Earlier, I shared this article on how to set up your monitoring level.

Now that's done, it's time to raise the mix to your playback level. You can do this by ear now, slowly turning up your mix via a gain stage before the limiter, until you start to feel it's loud enough for listening purposes.

Best Way To Learn Logic Pro X

6. Problem Solving

Now that you are close to the goal, any issues with regard to dynamics and EQ will start to make themselves apparent.

Now you can work your way back into the chain, tackling these specific issues. Such issues could be unbalanced frequencies, dynamics, or distortion at the limiter's ceiling.

Use the tools at your disposal to solve the problems. If there are no problems, have the courage to believe that and move onto the final step.

7. Bounce/Export

This is where you actually create the master files. Simply use the Bounce command in Logic Pro X and select the appropriate formats for where you want to submit your music.

Tip: If you are uploading your music to an online distributor or Soundcloud, definitely use WAVE (.wav) as your format. The platforms will encode it to their chosen lossy format (MP3, AAC, Ogg etc) on their end.

Tip: Dither your master. Don't worry so much about which dither. Any dither is better than truncation distortion!

Want to learn more? Check out our Mastering in Logic Pro X Course.

Happy mastering!

• DAWs >Logic

While not as elegant as Pro Tools' Clip Gain function, Logic does offer a functional alternative for evening out a track's volume. It even adjusts the waveform's size to reflect the new volume.

We offer six Logic Pro X tips and tricks that you might not know about.

Let's try something different this month. Rather than focus on a specific problem, I'm going to offer up some of my favourite techniques and workflows, many of which I've found invaluable! Some of these have been covered in SOS before, while some may be brand new to you, but the idea is to shake you out of your Logic patterns and introduce you to some new ways of doing things, without you having to get your hands too dirty.

No Pain, No Gain

One feature of Pro Tools that I've recently become envious of is Clip Gain: the ability to adjust the level of a region within a track without using the volume fader or automation. You can imagine how excited I was to learn that Logic has its own version of Clip Gain. It's not as obvious as a little fader on each region, though, so it took me a little digging to find it.

Simply put, when you have an audio region selected, turn your attention to the Region Inspector box (open the Inspector Column to make it visible). From there, all you need to do is adjust the Gain field (see above). You'll notice that this will adjust the waveform size to match the tweaks, ostensibly altering your recording level for the selected region. Admittedly, I overlooked this feature due to the fact that the Region Inspector defaults to MIDI parameters — it's only with audio selected that the Gain option appears.

As with most of Logic's functions, you can adjust the gain for multiple regions at once if they are all selected. When working on a track with multiple regions, it might be a good idea to grab the Region Inspector (the pointer turns to a hand) and drag it to the area where you're working; at least until they provide a Key Command for changing a region's gain.

Power Failure

You know that scene in teenage coming-of-age movies where the parents open the front door just when the kid's party is in full steam? Invariably, you'll hear the sound of the music slowly dying down as if the power has been shut off. There are several ways to create this effect, but Logic has some tools to streamline the process.

Start by placing the locators from a little before you want the track to start slowing down, and ending where you want the clip to end.

Next, bounce the track as you normally would. Disable any bus processing since this mix will be played in your session (and thus would otherwise be going through the bus processing twice). You could use Bounce In Place at this point but, depending on what plug-ins you are using and where, the results may vary.

Mute the regions you just bounced. Import the audio from your Bounces folder (or the Project Audio List) and place it in its original spot (a tip on this is coming up).

Now right-click on the region and select Convert / Convert To New Sampler Track (or use the appropriate key command). Give it a name and choose a starting trigger note that's easy to get to on your keyboard. Select OK. Logic will create a track with a new EXS24 instrument. When you hit the trigger key that you chose, you should hear the portion of the song you originally selected. Even better, Logic will automatically create a MIDI region with the sample key already activated.

Mute the bounced audio, open the EXS24 instrument, and change the pitch-bend range to 12. Now you can slow down your track with the Pitch-Bend wheel, and perform it to taste.

This may seem a little convoluted, but explaining the procedure is more time-consuming than the actual execution. Avi media player download.

After bouncing and muting the portion of the song between the locators, create an EXS24 instrument of the bounce (using ‘Convert To New Sampler Track'). Then change the pitch-bend range to 12 and play in the effect.

Back Where You Belong

I'm embarrassed and annoyed that it took me so long to stumble onto the key command for ‘Move To Original Recording Position' (Cmd+Click the relevant region, go to ‘Move', and the key command as configured on your system will be listed there). This one little manoeuvre has since become such a go-to that I actually harbour resentment towards anyone who knew about it and didn't tell me.

In its most basic function, it can be used when you accidentally move an audio region and aren't sure where it came from (caffeine addicts like me know what I'm talking about). Or if you've been editing audio and realise it all sounded better before you started messing around and want everything back where it was.

But it goes deeper than that. For instance, in the slow-down effect I just spoke about, at the point where you import the audio, instead of putting it between the locators, you can just drop it anywhere and hit this key command, and viola! The region is where it should be.

This is also a great tool when dealing with tracks for video. Now that most post-production people are spoiled by composers sending them one audio track per reel, they are annoyed by the extra work of placing each cue individually. No problem, you can do it for them. Just grab all your mixes, drop them into a new session, engage Move To Original Recording Position and the files will snap into place.

Slice & Dice

Did you know that holding Shift while cutting a region will cut it into equal segments? At whatever point you use the Scissor tool to make the first cut (measure, quarter note, etc.), Logic will make identical cuts for the duration of the region. This is a simple way to make stutter edits and gating effects.

Best Way To Learn Logic Pro X For Rappers

Once sliced, you can change the length, volume, panning and so on to create movement and motion on-the-fly.

Constant Change

It seems like every soft synth and sample library maker uses conflicting MIDI controllers (CCs) to add life to their sounds. If you don't have a MIDI controller with enough knobs or faders, or if you don't want to reassign the MIDI implementation of each instrument, this next trick might be for you.

Just throw in the Modifier from the MIDI FX section of the instrument's fader, and in two clicks you can reassign any MIDI CC to another; you can even open multiple instances and then save the channel strip. I now do most of my sound manipulations with just one wheel and one knob.

Pick A Side

All composers for media are confronted with this scenario regularly: you are given a video to score, with dialogue on one channel and temp music on the other. If you want to hear the dialogue without the temp music, you have to pan the track to one side. Even if you don't mind hearing both at once, you cannot adjust the volume of one without it affecting the other.

You can see in the Track Editor that this file has two different elements on each side (dialogue and temp music). After copying the region to another track, I use the pull-down menu next to the input assignment to select which side of the stereo file to play.

Logic has a brilliant solution for this that doesn't involve any bouncing, converting, exporting or importing. Simply copy the stereo region to another stereo track. Now look at the channel strips for each one. The little button next to the input is where you choose if the track is stereo or mono. However, if you right-click on it, you will discover some interesting options including Left and Right (only visible on stereo tracks). These let you decide which side of the stereo file you want to hear. Put one of the tracks on Left, the other on Right, and now you can control each channel's volume and pan separately.

Hardly a week goes by that I don't find a new tool or workflow improvement under Logic's hood. As I find more, I'll let you know.