Hi and thank you for joining me in this introduction
course to Logic Pro X. So this is a beginners
course so if you've after a more advanced
course I would not recommend this, but if
you've just starting making music with Logic
or DAWs, digital audio workstations this course
could really help you quite a lot just to
get on your feet and to start making music
in Logic. So what I've done if I've actually
filmed this lecture as one of the latest lectures
so I'm going to give you an overview quickly
now of what you're going to learn on screen
with me. So we are going to start off with
the interface of Logic Pro X and I'm going
to show you basically what all the buttons
and features do. After this we are going to
have a look at creating your own music with
Apple Loops. Then I'm going to show you how
to record MIDI with software instruments.
Then I'm going to give you a quick overview
of the drummer instrument which is brand new
to Logic Pro X and I personally think this
is absolutely incredible. Then I'm going to
give you a basic guide of automation and live
automation. Then I'm going to show you how
to understand the basics of the ES2 synthesiser.
Then I'm going to give you a quick overview
of flex time and flex pitch and how create
your own harmonies with flex pitch. Then I'm
going to give you a really
basic overview of mixing. This introduction
course is just over one hour long and after
all this in the bonus sections you'll find
some discount codes for my complete guide
to Logic Pro X if you want a more advanced
course of you want to take your learning to
the next level after this. So yeah lets jump
in and I'll see you in the first lecture.
Hi and welcome to this first lecture about
Logic Pro X. So this is an introduction to
Logic Pro X, I'm going to quickly go over
what everything basically does to get you
up and running and making music straight away.
So if you do want a more in detailed course
about Logic Pro X I definitely suggest checking
out my complete guide to Logic Pro X, which
is where you go from beginner all the way
to advanced. If you check out the bonus lecture
after all of this I'll give you some special
discounts and coupon codes as well to get
you up and running on The Complete Guide to
Logic Pro X.
But lets first of all lets just jump in. So
the first thing I would suggest is finding
your application of Logic Pro X, so go through
your applications and find Logic Pro and then
dragging it to your doc. Here I've got Logic
Pro and Logic Pro X, so what Logic Pro is
it's Logic Pro 9 the older version and Logic
Pro X is Logic Pro 10, so what you do is just
drag it to your dock, I've already got it
here and then clicking on Logic Pro. That
way if Logic is on your dock you're a lot
more likely to just click on it and open and
start making straight away. So lets first
of all go on File and then we've got a few
different options, we've got New, New from
Template, Open and Open Recent. New will start
a new blank project for you. New from Template
will give you several different templates
to choose from. Open will obviously open a
previous project and Open Recent if you click
on here will give you a list of recent projects
that you've been working on. The reason this
one here is blank is because the project is
actually on another hard drive and I haven't
got that hard drive plugged in right now,
so that's why it looks like this. So lets
just go on New from Template for the moment
and here it will give us several different
templates, so we have Hip Hop, Electronic,
Songwriter, Orchestral, Multi-track, Music
for Picture and Empty Project.
So these will give us different templates,
so Hip Hop will give us different drum machines
and different synthesizers, electronic will
give us different synths, songwriter will
give us different options for plugging in
a guitar or audio or microphones, orchestral
will give us a lot of orchestral sounds like
synthesized strings and flutes and stuff like
that as well. These are all MIDI instruments
and MIDI stands for musical instrument digital
interface, so MIDI doesn't actually give the
sound it controls the sound, so if you have
a MIDI controller or a keyboard you can actually
change some of these sounds, so there are
actually software instruments, so it's stuff
like synthesized violins, but they are actually
meant to sound like real violins and are used
on a sampler which in Logic is the EXS24,
so basically someone else have recorded in
sounds of violins or strings, obviously if
you want real orchestral sounds I would recommend
trying to record the real thing, but the sounds
on Logic are pretty good as well, but for
now lets go down to Empty Project. And below
we have stuff like the Tempo, the key signature,
the time signature, the audio input, so this
is your, this is my interface because I've
got an interface called One plugged in, but
if you don't have that just choose Built in
Input and Built in Output.
You only really need an interface if you are
recording audio, so it's stuff like guitars
or microphones, but if you are just using
the built in sounds on your laptop and on
Logic you don't really need an interface to
start with.
Then we have the sample rate and frame rate
and surround format, lets just leave this
for now. We can also tap in the tempo, so
if you have a certain tempo in your head you
can just tap it in, but for now lets just
leave this on 120, we can just click and type
it in and hit choose.
So instead of doing all that you can just
go on File over here and New, this will bring
up a new blank project as well. So here we've
got a few different options, we've got software
instrument, which are the MIDI instruments
which basically are the software instruments
so they are all the virtual instruments or
synthesized instruments. Audio is stuff like
a guitar or a microphone, actual physical
audio, but you do need an interface for this
to actually work. Drummer which is brand new
to Logic Pro X, this is actually fantastic,
I will be going over drummer briefly in a
later lecture. External MIDI, so this is for
plugging in old synthesizers or any external
MIDI, I'm going to leave this in this introduction
course, but if you want to know about External
MIDI I do have a lecture about it in my Complete
Guide. Then we've got Guitar and Bass this
is basically for if you want to plug in a
guitar or a bass, but you do need an audio
interface to do this. For now lets just choose
software instrument and below it says default
patch, this is where you can actually choose
your synthesizer, but for now lets just choose
default patch and output this is your output
also. Okay number of tracks, this is if you
just want one track or two or even more, but
for now lets leave it on one and hit create.
Okay this will bring up the instrument library
here, so this is basically all the different
sounds, so we've got user channel strip settings
this is if you've created your own sounds
which I do quite a lot as you can see. Then
we've got Bass, so this will give different
bass sounds, drum kit, electronic drum kit,
guitar etc.
A really great way of quickly testing out
the sound is by opening something called musical
typing, this is where you can change your
Mac keyboard into a musical keyboard. We can
do this by hitting the key command, command
K. This will bring up musical typing. We can
either click or you can play the notes, so
I'm just going to hit the keys A, S and D
and this will play the notes C, D and E. So
we can just go through any of these here and
just click and you can see above here that
the picture has changed from a keyboard to
a bass. Lets just hit the keys A, S and D
again and you can hear its changed to a bass
sound. So if you're new to Logic Pro X I'd
suggest spending a few hours just going through
all these different sounds and just seeing
what kind of sounds we actually do get on
Logic Pro X.
Okay we can close this library by hitting
this library button here and we can close
musical typing by hitting command K again.
You can also go up to Window and then down
to Show Musical Typing will bring up musical
typing also.
We also have this bar here that has some information,
so we've got the actual synthesizer, this
says EXS24 which is a sampler, so someone's
actually recorded in the sounds of them playing
the bass in different notes, different like
styles, different velocities and this is where
its all kept on the EXS24 and below this we've
got all the different plugins, so we've got
a bass amp, which is meant to simulate a bass
amp, compressor, which kind of compresses
the sound, which makes the loud quieter and
the quiet louder. Pedalboard which will give
us more effects and echo will obviously is
an echo effect.
You can click on any of these and go in and
edit these separately. We also have send,
this is for sending an auxiliary send, so
this is for stuff like adding reverb to more
than one channel and then we've got the output
here. We also have the pan, so we can send
it to the left or the right speakers. We've
got the volume here as well and below this
we've got solo and mute. Obviously solo will
mean you will just hear this instrument and
mute means you will not hear this instrument.
We can close this inspector bar by hitting
the I button here. So going along we've got
all these up here as well. A good thing to
do if you are new to Logic Pro X is to hit
this question mark here, this is quick help,
so whatever we scroll over it will quickly
tell us what it means, so lets go over to
this record button and here it says record
button. So yeah if you're brand new to Logic
Pro I would just leave quick help on and just
scroll over all the different things and it
will quickly tell you. I'll tell you also
as well, so here we've got smart control buttons.
So this is new to Logic Pro as well, it lets
you quickly change the tones, the compression
and the effects of your different instruments.
Here you can see its got boost and then tone,
compression, fuzz and delay.
Going along we've got this mixer button here,
a mixing desk or virtual mixing desk will
actually appear. This is similar to the inspector
and it allows us to look at several different
instruments all at the same time. So this
is for editing the information, so if we record
in any information we will be able to see
it here. Also we have a piano keyboard on
the side, so this links up to the certain
notes. We can just click the notes here and
we will hear what they sound like. On this
editor toolbar you will notice there is a
pencil tool over here, so if we hit the command
button we can actually draw in information.
We can move the size of it and just drag and
move it all around. If we hit enter it will
go to the start of our song. If we hit the
space bar it will play. So that just played
in what I just typed in. Going along we have
rewind, fast forward, to the start, play and
record. To record you can just hit the R button
that will allow you to record also or to play
you can just hit the space bar. To record
MIDI information a MIDI controller can really
help or a USB keyboard which allows you to
play in the MIDI information on a keyboard.
Alternatively you can use musical typing,
so if we open this up with command K again
and hit the R button. Lets just delete this
information first. You can click on it and
hit backspace and that will delete, enter
to go to the start and R to record and then
we can use musical typing to record in parts
and space to stop the recording.
You will notice that there was a metronome
or click that played along. You can turn this
on or off by hitting the metronome button.
At the moment we can't see the metronome button,
but if we go down to this arrow button here
we'll have click and this will turn the click
on and off.
Going along we have the LCD display here.
So we actually have different presets for
the LCD display, If click on this button of
this music not and metronome we have beats
and project, beats and time, beats, time and
custom. So beats and time will tell you the
time as well so you can see here that this
is 8 seconds in. Beats will just show you
the beats, so this is beat 5 or bar 5, bar
9, bar 10 etc. The different beats in the
bar, so this is the second beat of bar 10
here so it goes along. If we hit this button
again it will go to time which is just time
and custom which is very similar to Logic
Pro 9's custom display, so if you hit this
it does look a bit complicated, but it does
have a lot of information, it has CPU which
is basically how much power is needed to run
your project, so just be careful of that make
sure your CPU does not go too far over. HD
which is hard drive, we've also got in and
out this is for MIDI information. We got the
time signature here, so we can change this
to 4 and drag it up, you can see it changing.
Here we can change the tempo, but for now
lets just go back up here to beats and project.
Going along we've got more information here,
lets just close musical typing command K and
here it's cycle button, so what cycle is it's
a section that just goes round and round and
round. It will appear as an orange bar above
like this so whatever's in here will just
repeat so lets just drag this just to this
first section here and hit space bar 
and you can tell that just repeats. If we
click it again it will go off. Here we've
got the tuner button, this will open the tuner.
We've got S which is the solo button which
will solo. We've got the count in button,
so this is for if we record we have a count
in so we know what tempo the song actually
is. Going along we have the list editor button.
Going along we have notepad if you want to
quickly add notes. We have Apple Loops which
I'll explain in a bit more detail in a later
lecture, so it's basically where we have different
loops of information or MIDI where we can
just quickly drag into our project and then
we have the browser button, this allows us
to browse our different files and media.
Okay we also have a zoom in here, where we
can zoom the track in or out like so and we
also have these buttons up here as well. This
allows us to edit, we've got more functions
here and views. It's a good idea just to go
through the quick help and just go through
everything again just to double check so you
know what's going on. Then we have the automation
which allows you to change certain parameters
of the tracks like the volume or the pan or
the effects. I'll be going over automation
in a later lecture as well so be sure to check
this one out because it is quite detailed.
Then we've got the flex, I'll be going over
this in a later lecture as well, this is basically
for audio tracks where you can change the
time and 
the pitch. Then we've got this button here,
this allows you to see the project as it plays.
So for example if your project is all the
way over here your whole screen will move
so you can see it It's a lot easier to explain
when you actually have a larger project, so
it's just so you can your project go along
rather than having to quickly always scroll
across.
Okay so that's the basic interface of Logic
Pro X, we do have a few more buttons here
as well, which this is to add a new track
or this is to duplicate the track and we also
have solo button as well. So to add a new
track just hit this button and this window
will appear, to duplicate this track just
hit this button and it will copy it over.
So yeah that's the basic interface of Logic
Pro X thank you for watching this lecture.
Hi welcome to this next lecture. In the previous
lecture I went over the interface and what
basically all the buttons do in a nutshell.
In this next lecture I'm going to go over
Apple Loops quickly, but this is just a brief
overview if you do check out my Complete Guide
to Logic Pro X I do go into Apple Loops into
a lot more detail, but this lecture will just
get you up and running in creating music straight
away.
Okay lets continue where we left off so lets
get rid of quick help by hitting this button
here. You will also notice that the time signature
goes from 2/4 to 4/4. So we can just quickly
change this by actually hitting this button
here and this will open the global tracks.
You can see here it says 2/4 and 4/4, so if
I just click on here just change this to a
4. I thought I'd just correct this before
I continue because the loops will sound quite
different going from 2/4 to 4/4, but certain
mistakes or errors that you make can actually
work in your favour, I've written music before
where I've accidentally put the wrong time
signature or tempo and it can work in your
favour so don't be scared to experiment or
try new things in your music writing.
Okay lets just open up Apple Loops, so the
easiest way to do this is to hit this loop
button here. So this will actually open up
this browser which is our loop library, so
it does look like there is quite a lot of
stuff going on here. Lets talk about these
boxes first of all. So this allows you to
narrow down your search, so for example if
we want to find a hip hop drum beat, we can
go on All Drums, Beats, Urban and then we
can search down for H as it does go alphabetical
if we choose it that way, we can change it
by tempo or key or beats and Hip Hop beat
here we go.
Okay we can actually reset all this by hitting
the button here and we can even just type
in so say we want hip hop beat and here we
go we've got hip hop broke beat lets hear
what this sounds like. You will also notice
that some of these have a green box and some
of them have a blue box. The green box which
has a picture of a quaver note is actually
a MIDI loop, so lets just drag this over to
our project and you can see its exported with
a green box and it says hip hop remix, so
this is actually a software instrument with
MIDI information, so if we double click on
this it will open our editor and you can see
this has come up as MIDI notes. So we can
actually move these around to different notes,
so we can really move and edit it as we like.
Lets just hear this back and lets hear this.
Okay we can close the editor by hitting this
scissor button here. Lets just delete this
for now, backspace and click on the track,
backspace and this will delete it.
The blue one is actually an audio file, so
its actually an audio recording, so if we
drag this over this blue one you will see
it will come up as waves, so it does make
it slightly harder to edit and manipulate,
but we can still do quite a lot with audio
waves.
Lets just make this smaller. We also have
this view here if we hit this button, it has
a list style search selection, so if we go
on all and go on acoustic and get rid of hip
hop beat up here, you can see the numbers
rapidly boosted up. So lets just go on animals,
and then we've got crickets loop, so someone
has actually gone out with a microphone and
recorded cricket sounds, so its not just drum
beats and bass sounds for example there is
a lot of strange experimental ambient sounds
as well. So going back to this list editor,
lets go back to the one with the squares and
here we can basically just click on some of
these for example distorted strings and here
you can hear Desire E Cellos which should
be distorted strings. So for example I just
want strings you can click on distorted again
and it will get rid of it, so now this is
just the strings.
We also have stuff like scale, so we have
major, minor, neither, good for both. So for
example if we click on minor this should just
be minor sounding strings and we've got signature,
at the moment its on 4/4, lets try 3/4 and
see what comes up. It's quite hard to hear
that these are in 3/4, lets click on strings
again and try piano and here we go, classical
waltz piano, so this will be a lot easier
to tell if it's in 3/4.
Okay lets go back to 4/4 and hit reset. You
will also notice that we've got beat here,
this is how long the actual loop is, so 16
means it is 4 bars long. We've got tempo.
It will actually move to our project tempo
but this is its original tempo, so some loops
might sound better in its original tempo.
We also have key here. When we drag this over
to our project it will move to the key of
our project, which is C major, we can change
it by just clicking on this here. It just
tells us our original key. Also down here
it says play in song key or original key,
lets click on original key and hear this 2-Step
Ahead Piano. That's in C major anyways so
it will sound the same, so lets try this one
2-Step Electric Bass which should play in
F major and then go along to song key and
it should play in C major. You will notice
that there are over 7 thousand items here.
If we click on minor and change it to major
there are 3 thousand items, so whatever you
narrow down it will actually say the number
of items here. There are tons and tons of
loops to choose from, so if anyone says there
aren't any loops to choose from in Logic hasn't
really learnt how to use it properly because
there are so many you can actually use.
If we hit this button here we have more to
choose from. We have hip hop, electro, dubstep,
iLife Sound Effects which is quite cool, lets
just try this one. So it's stuff like airplane
sounds, alarm clocks, barbecue, bark, bell
tower, so this could be quite cool if you
are creating like any interlude sounds or
anything quite experimental or ambient you
know there is some quite interesting sounds.
The great thing about Apple Loops is you are
free to use them in any way shape or form,
so they can really really be useful in your
project. Don't be afraid to use Apple Loops
as well a lot of artist do use Apple Loops
in their songs.
So yeah thank you for watching this lecture.
In this lecture I just quickly went over Apple
Loops and how to use them in your projects.
Thank you for watching.
Hi this next lecture is about recording in
software instruments and recording in your
own parts. So lets continue where we left
off, lets just hit this loop button here and
this will close the loop library. Okay so
what I'm going to do here is I'm going to
delete all of this by selecting it and hitting
the backspace and this will delete it. I'm
also going to delete these tracks by clicking
them and hitting the backspace and when you
delete them all this window will appear. Lets
start from scratch and choose software instrument.
I'm going to start off with a drum kit, it's
one of my favourite ways of writing music
is to start off with the drums, so lets go
on drum kit here and lets choose Detroit Garage.
You can see the picture has changed to a drum
kit. Lets close the library by hitting the
button here and then we can open up musical
typing with command and K. So when we hit
some of the buttons on our mac keyboard a
drum kit will appear. We can change the octaves
by hitting the z button here or the x to go
up. I'm looking for the kick drum, here we
go and here's the snare it's the D and the
kick is the A or the C. Okay for now I'm just
going to record in the snare and the kick
drum, so we go to the start by hitting enter
and record by hitting R, I'm just going to
manually play it in.
Okay, this is actually looped, lets just close
musical typing and if we hit the L button
it will turn the loop on and off, so I'm going
to have the loop off for now. What the loop
does it allows you to quickly just loop your
MIDI information or audio information, so
we can loop it by going on here you can see
this little arrow and we just drag along to
the right and that loops it.
Okay now we've recorded this it was kind of
in time, but I want it perfectly in time,
so the way we do this is to open up the editing
information by double clicking the track and
here we can actually see the notes, you can
see this first one isn't quite right so we
click on it and drag it in place. This one
I don't actually want, I want the loop to
end here so I'm going to click on it and delete.
Another way of doing this is to quantise the
information, so what this means is it puts
it all in time, so lets just select all or
we can use the key command, command A and
that will select all and here it says time
quantise so here we have sixteenth notes,
we have quarter notes which are crotchets,
these are quavers, semi quavers, so lets choose
sixteenth notes. It did quantise then but
it hadn't you can hit this Q button as well
and now this should hopefully be perfectly
in time.
And then I want to drag this over here and
hopefully yeah it should be in time, lets
have a listen.
Okay we can turn the metronome on as well
by hitting this arrow button here and going
on click, enter and then spacebar.
It's still not quite in time for what I want,
double click. So I want this one to be on
the beat, so a lot of this is just going through
and manually going in and editing. Sometimes
you can't play it the same as what you think
in your head or I can't. Lets have a listen.
So what I'm after is boom, boom carr.
Lets just play this back. Yeah like that.
So what I do a lot of the time is I play it
in and I go through and maybe even completely
edit the information. So I've change the beat
now, lets just hear what this sounds like.
Okay lets try that. So it is quite different
to what I initially played in but I think
this does work better. I'm going to turn off
the click by hitting this arrow button and
click and copying this over, so one way of
doing this is hold down Alt and just drag
over, another way is like other Mac applications
command C to copy, command V to paste, or
you can just put the loop on like this.
Okay now I'm going to add some high hats,
so lets hit this button here to duplicate
the track and open musical typing with command
K and the high hats, closed high hats are
T and Y which is F sharp and G sharp and the
open high hats is U which is A sharp. Lets
hit enter and R to record.
Okay, the loop is on again so L to get rid
of, close musical typing then hit L to get
rid of loop and same again double click. It's
pretty much in time but it's better than what
I played in before, so command A to select
all and Q button here and okay you can just
see its tightened up the time. Lets put the
loop on and hopefully this drum beat should
be in time. Lets have a listen. Okay great.
Now we can go through and add all the different
instruments as well, I'm just going to quickly
put on a bass, so new track with this button
here, software instrument, create and lets
go through and find bass and lets try, try
Liverpool Bass so I presume this is a kind
of Beatles sounding bass and the picture is
actually is a very similar bass to Paul McCartney's
bass.
And command K to open musical typing and enter
to go the start and R to record, you can just
play this on a loop without recording because
sometimes you might not think of ideas straight
away so you can have this on a loop and just
play in, but for now I'm just going to record
it in.
Enter to go to the start, R to record and
lets play in the bass.
Okay that'll do for now, its looped it again
so L to get rid of loop and double click to
open the editing, it looks pretty much in
time. Command A to select all and hit this
Q button to quantise. Lets just hear this
back. I'm just going to move a few of these
around and you can even add your own in here
so I'm going to draw in a note here and lets
hear what this sounds like. Okay I think that
matches the kick drum pattern a bit better
and loop this over. So that's basically how
you record in your own MIDI information, you
can also record in chords with musical typing
it doesn't necessary have to just be drum
beats or basses, even you can put sound effects
and control them with musical typing too.
Lets just leave it on the default one which
is vintage electric piano, classic electric
piano, hit command K and here you will notice,
maybe not that octave but you can play chords.
Obviously it's not as easy as a real piano
or a MIDI controller with keys but you can
do quite a lot just with musical typing.
Okay so thank you for watching this lecture.
In this lecture I've quickly gone through
how to start making your own music and recording
software instruments with Logic Pro X and
musical typing.
Hi in this next lecture I'm going to talk
about the brand new drummer track in Logic
Pro X. So lets continue where we left off
and here you will notice I've got a drum part
or two drum parts, a kick and a snare and
high hats and a bass part and a keyboard part.
Lets delete the keyboard part and delete the
drums by just hitting backspace and this will
delete it all. Remember if you are working
on a serious project always save at all times,
hit the command, command S or go to File Save
or Save As.
Okay for now I'm going to open up drummer
by hitting this button here and going along
to Drummer. Here we've got genre, we've got
output. Lets just leave it on the default
rock one to start with and hit create. So
this is actually really exciting Logic have
actually recorded in loads of different drummers,
loads of different patterns and it's actually
really simple, we've got like an XY pad here
and it gives us two default sections that
appear. So lets just hit space bar and hear
what this sounds like. We can move this around
so we've got simple and loud, loud and complex,
soft and complex, simple and soft, let put
this simple and soft and hear what this sounds
like.
We also going along have claps we can add
or shaker or tambourine, we also have the
number of fills here so we can put load of
fills on if we want. We have different patterns
here for the percussion 1, 2 or 3, the same
with the high hats we can choose different
patterns and the kick or snare different patterns
also. We can also choose the ride cymbals
and the crashes to use rather than the high
hats or we can also use the toms, lets just
choose toms on pattern 3. Swap to the cymbals.
We also have swing if you want to give more
of a swing feel, lets just hear this, we can
change this from eighth notes to sixteenth
note swing. Okay lets get rid of swing, put
fills in about the middle and we also have
this really cool button called follow, if
we select this here if we click down it will
select our instrument and it will follow the
bass, so the drum part will kind of follow
the bass part which is really great because
a real drummer and a bassist really what they
do is they really kind of lock in and follow
each other and this follow feature really
allows you to make the bass and drums lock
in which is I think is really amazing.
We also have details, so we have the feel,
ghost notes which are kind of the really quiet
intricate notes that people can put in and
the high hat information here as well. Okay
we also have different presets, so we've got
crash the party, echo park and loads more
as well, it's still following and still you
can change this fills and the swing. And when
we go over to this other drummer information
it'll be completely different, so we can go
through and change this one also. We also
have different drummers, different genres
so if you click here Kyle, we've got Logan,
Anders etc, these are all rock drummers. If
we click on here we have different, we have
different genres as well, lets try Electronic
an choose does it say Jester I believe and
it comes up here saying if you basically if
you change the drummer it will change the
information so lets just hit change drummer.
Okay lets just hear this, you can hear it's
very different, we have different types of
percussion and cymbals, claps and stuff as
well, but the best thing to do is just to
go through all these and just to experiment
and just yeah trial and error really. Lets
go back to rock and choose Kyle again, I'll
just show you one more feature in drummer
also. So here it says SoCal, so if we create
a new software instrument and hit create,
lets go onto drum kit and SoCal here it is,
close the library , close the inspector and
we can actually drag this information down
and it will play on the same sounding drum
kit, but we can actually go through and edit
MIDI information which is absolutely awesome,
so if we double click on this you will notice
all these blocks of MIDI so we've got the
snare, the kick, crash and the hats as well
so we can go through and say I don't want
a snare there so I can delete this and lets
just have a listen.
The same here as well I don't want a snare
and lets just say I don't want a crash there,
so I can move this down to an open high hat,
lets just have a listen and then I want to
put a crash here, move this up to a crash
and then we can just easily go through and
edit our drummer information which is really
useful.
Okay so that's a quick overview of drummer
in Logic Pro X. If you want a more detailed
description of the drummer feature in Logic
Pro X be sure to check out my Complete Guide
to Logic Pro X, but thank you for watching
this lecture and I hope you found it useful
and I'll see you in the next lecture.
Hi in this next lecture I'm going to talk
about automation in Logic Pro X. So what automation
allows you to do it allows you to change certain
parameters of the instrument such as the volume
or the effects or the pan over time, so for
example the first 10 seconds you might want
the drums really quiet and then you want it
to gradually increase over time. We can do
this easily with automation. We turn automation
on by hitting this button over here and then
we've got these lines that appear. So the
default you can see here is volume, so lets
just click on this drum track and this will
be the volume, so the lower it is the quieter
the volume and the higher, the higher the
volume and this is time as well.
So lets move this over to bar 4 and put the
volume all the way down so this should create
a fade in kind of sound for the volume, lets
just hear this. You can also automate other
things as well such as the pan, so we can
have this moving. I wouldn't normally do this
with a drum kit but lets just do it for an
example. We can have pan from left all the
way to right. Okay lets just hear this.
So if you're wearing headphones or you've
got a set of speakers you'll notice it went
from the left speaker to the right speaker.
You can also do this with other things as
well like certain effects, so on this bass
sound here if we open the inspector by hitting
this button here you'll notice that there
is a bass amp and there is a compressor. So
if we click on volume here and go on Bass
Amp, so we can change certain things like
the treble for example, so this should create
more of a treble sound and start off with
less treble sound, lets just hear this.
It's quite hard to hear this one. The thing
about this is you don't always necessarily
know what all the things do straight away,
for example Modulation 1, Source 1. I don't
really know what that means, so it can be
quite hard to automate certain things. You
can automate a lot of things very simply by
doing something called live automation, so
if we click on this button here it says read,
if we go on touch or latch or write it will
actually allow us to do live automation. I
use this a lot when I'm actually creating
a lot of synthesised music where I can quickly
change the knobs and the dials just live which
is so much quicker in my opinion. Touch basically
means when you move the automation and you
stop it will go back to what it originally
was. Latch basically means if you move the
information and you stop moving it, it will
stay where it is. Okay I'll explain this as
well just incase it doesn't make sense. Write
I'd actually just leave for now, lets just
quickly go to latch. Okay and now lets open
up the bass amp, okay lets just make this
a bit smaller, okay.
And you can see there I was moving the boost
and I'm still doing it now and it moves it.
So what latch does is basically say I put
the boost all the way down and I let go the
boost will stay all the way down. If I put
it on touch and put the bass all the way up,
you can see when I move it and play, but you
can see there. It's quite hard to explain
but basically touch puts it back to where
it originally was and latch leaves the automation
to where you moved it to. Okay what you want
to do is once you've finished doing this automation
is go back to read and you can also go in
and touch certain things up as well, so for
example I don't want it going higher than
there I can move this over so it's like so,
but for stuff like a bass guitar I probably
wouldn't really use live automation but for
synthesisers it can be really really handy,
but yeah a good thing to do is I would use
a lot of live automation and then I'd go through
and manually correct certain instruments.
Lets just quickly open up a synthesiser, go
on software instrument and choose here ES2
and this will appear and you can see that
there is loads of different buttons and knobs
and yeah there's so much to choose from in
the ES2. Lets just double click on the instrument
here and a lot of this can be quite daunting
when you want to automate, so lets just go
on automation here and for example Sine Level
on mix and filter might be quite difficult
to actually know what it is and all these
as well there is quite a lot to choose from.
But if you're just manually going through
and just moving stuff live as the track plays
the automation will write itself and it's
a lot easier to actually manage and deal with.
Okay thank you for watching this lecture,
in this lecture I've gone over automation
and live automation. I hope you find it useful
and thank you for watching.
Hi in this next lecture I'm going to talk
about the ES2 synthesizer. So the ES2 is one
of the more complicated and versatile synthesizers
in Logic Pro X, there is loads of stuff we
can actually do with it, but on a first glance
it can look really complicated. So the way
we get the ES2 synth up is by simply creating
a new track, software instrument and then
going over to this button here and finding
ES2 and hit stereo. If we double click the
ES2 will appear. As you can see there is load
of different stuff going on here, I'll just
quickly explain what the stuff actually does.
Okay now I'm going to drag in a MIDI loop,
the reason I'm doing this is so that I don't
have to physically play in information just
to hear the synth, a loop will just go round
and round and round so it's easier to edit.
So carrying on from the loops lecture it was
actually on iLife Sound Effects, so remember
to default back to loops. Lets choose this
one, this one will do, 80's dance bass synth
07, so just drag it over here and close automation
by hitting this button and here we go and
solo this. This actually changes the synth
to this one here An Basic, so if we click
on this button and go on ES2 this will open
up the ES2 synthesizer. Of course there is
all the different synthesizers in Logic too,
but if you learn how to use the ES2 the others
will be quite simple really because ES2 is
kind of the most complicated synth we have
in Logic. So stuff in the ES2 if you know
how to use this you'll basically know how
to use it in most of the other synths as well.
So lets just play this loop, we do have the
defaults so we can click these buttons here
or we can go on this button here and have
a drop down, so say we want a synth lead we
can go on synth lead and lets try Mini Sync,
okay lets leave it on this one and here we
have the different types of waves we have
saw tooth and the square, we also have a second
oscillator as well and a third, so we have
all these different sounds going on at the
same time, we also have a blend between the
different two over here. You can turn on these
different oscillators, lets turn off oscillator
2 and 3 and you can see this kind of cage
appears and locks it in. Now it's just oscillator
1. You can hear that these actually do create
a different sound. You have pitch as well
and we have the cents if we want to slightly
detune it. Then we also have the cut off,
this can give a brighter sound, same with
the resonance and the drive and this is exactly
the same but for another oscillator, lets
just leave it on one and we have stuff like
distortion and effects, there is also a little
XY pad here as well, but I don't really use
the XY pad to be honest, but these effects
are chorus, flanger and phaser. I do go into
a lot more detail on the ES2 lecture in my
Complete Guide to Logic Pro X, but this is
just a quick overview just to get you up and
running in using synthesizers and synthesis
in Logic Pro X and under here we have stuff
like release and the decay. Lets just put
the release up and sustain. This stuff here
I'm not really going to go into much detail
at the moment, but this is how you basically
create more effects and wobbles and pitch
sounds through the oscillators and through
controlling all the different parameters over
here with these things here. It's basically
how we sync up different parameters to different
LFO's, but for now in this introduction it's
basically just this controls the pitch, this
controls the wave, this controls kind of the
cut off and resonance and drive and this is
more kind of the effects. We do have the macros
over here, we just quickly control loads of
stuff, so if you're new to synthesis and you're
a little bit confused about this lecture maybe
just start off by using the macros and listen
to it and see what stuff actually changes,
so if you look when I increase the sustain
you can see that these two ones here that
say S increase and I decrease they decrease,
so sustain is basically how long the note
has been held for as you can hear right now
the note has been held a long time, if I put
it down it's not held as much. So this is
a really really brief overview of the ES2
synthesizer just to get you up and running
and learning synthesis as well. Lets just
quickly go over a few other ones, so like
I said before if you know how to use the ES2
the other synthesizers will be quite easy
as well, lets go on retro synth and here it's
very similar to the ES2, but to be honest
there is less going on really, so this is
shape, this is noise, vibrato. This is similar
too you have a mix between oscillator 1 and
oscillator 2. Synthesis is a very very detailed
subject and I'm just quickly going over the
main topics here, but like I said earlier
if you do want a more detailed example of
the ES2 synthesizer and synthesis be sure
to check out my Complete Guide to Logic Pro
X and when you do complete this course if
you look in the bonus lectures as well I will
give you some really really great discounted
codes so if you do want to check out my Complete
Guide to Logic Pro X it will be a heck of
a lot cheaper than if you buy it full price.
So thank you for watching this lecture, I
hope you found it useful and I'll see you
in the next lecture.
Hi in this next lecture I'm going to talk
about flex. So we've got two different types
of flex, we've got flex time and flex pitch.
So flex time allows us to change the timing
of the audio and flex pitch allows us to change
the pitch of the audio. Flex pitch is brand
new to Logic Pro X and it can be really useful
for creating harmonies or just for correcting
certain pitches also.
Okay so lets first of all continue where we
left off in this project, but now I'm actually
going to delete all of this and actually delete
these instruments here 
and this window will appear, lets hit audio,
but now I'm actually going to choose a loop
and lets choose an audio loop, so on the loops
here lets choose vocals, of course you can
do this with real audio loops and your own
samples, but for now I'm just going to choose
a loop, lets try voice. Lets try this one.
It says here the added audio audio file contains
tempo information, do you want to import it,
lets import the tempo.
The tempo anyway was at 120 and our tempo
was at 120 so it didn't actually change anything,
but if you do import the tempo you can always
go back and change it, one of the great things
about Apple Loops is that they do adapt to
your tempo of your project, but if your loops
or your own audio samples do not adapt to
your tempo of your project if you open up
flex time and change the flex you can easily
adapt it there.
Okay so here we've got monophonic, which means
one note at the same time, so stuff like vocals
or a bass guitar I'd use monophonic. We've
got automatic which basically automatically
chooses what type of flex will be suited for
our track, they has come up as polyphonic
which means more than one note at the same
time. We've got slicing and rhythmic which
is more for drums and speed FX and tempophone
which are more for creating effects with flex
time rather than just using it for more traditional
instruments, but for now it's saying we should
use polyphonic, lets just have a listen to
it. I'm going to use monophonic because I
do think this will work better. Sometimes
Logic doesn't always do it perfect you do
have to use your ear and your own judgement
at certain times. Okay so you'll notice on
here we've got these different lines here,
this is actually where Logic thinks the different
notes are. Lets just have a listen. So it's
quite simple really, we can do a few things,
we can click on this button here and go on
quantise and this will actually quantise the
information, but I generally prefer to do
it all manually just because sometimes you
might not want it to be perfectly in time,
especially for vocals you might want more
free sound rather than having everything bang
in time, that's what I think anyway, especially
for more organic like rock or jazz music you
don't necessarily want everything to be perfectly
in time. What you can do is easily just drag
these around, this might sound a bit squished
and compressed, lets just have a listen.
As you can hear as I made the waves smaller
it actually made it a lot quicker. There I
made it longer, it made the note longer. One
of the great things about flex time is when
you make the note smaller or larger it doesn't
change the pitch.
Flex time can be really useful when you are
recording stuff like electric bass and you
haven't quite got the note perfect you can
just easily move the note in time which is
really useful. You can also get rid of these
lines by double clicking and just create new
ones by just clicking, it's really simple.
The next one we are going to go to is flex
pitch, so this here you can see actually gives
us the notes, to fine tune. One thing I like
to do which is a little sneaky shortcut is
actually select all with command A, control
click and set all to perfect pitch, so this
will basically just tune your instrument,
it's very useful for vocals or maybe if you
have certain instruments that are slightly
out of tune. The only thing is if the singer
uses a lot of vibrato kind of ahh wobbles
the notes, flex pitch can sound a little strange
so a lot of the time if I do want a kind of
auto tuned effect I would get the singer I'm
working with just to sing kind of legato smooth
notes rather than more kind of vibrato notes.
We can also double click on here and then
we have a more detailed view of flex pitch.
Here we have the piano keys and we can actually
move this around, lets hear this back.
And we have these different arrows, we have
fine pitch, we have pitch drift, format shift,
vibrato and gain and pitch drift as well.
Lets just close the inspector. So pitch drift
is basically if you want the singer to hit
the note straight away or if you want the
note to drift up and the same at the end as
well, so drifting down after. You can create
a more natural sound if you do have a bit
of pitch drift as well. Lets just have a listen
to this, I've changed the notes to a C, it
might sound a little strange. Okay one thing
you can do as well is you can actually copy
this over, so if we close flex pitch for now
by hitting this button and then we duplicate
the track by hitting this button and just
drag it down hold down alt and literally drag
down, this will copy and paste and open up
flex pitch, double click on the second one,
so if you remember the first one is a C, move
this up to a G, so now we've created a perfect
5th and this will create a harmony. The same
here, so this is a C, lets move this to a
G, that's not a G, it says it's a G. That's
a D sharp, so lets move this to an A sharp,
lets hear what this sounds like. We should
create kind of a nice rich harmony with this,
kind of perfect 5th, very similar to what
The Beatles do in their harmonies, obviously
it's all synthetic.
Okay lets just hear this.
So this allows us to quickly add on harmonies.
If you are singing yourself and you're not
very good at vocal harmonies you can quickly
tune these up or even just take the one vocal
part and create your own harmonies digitally
like this which can really be useful. Okay
so in this lecture I've gone over flex time
and flex pitch, I hope you found it useful
and I'll see you in the next lecture.
Hi so in this next lecture I'm going to talk
about mixing in Logic Pro X. Mixing is a really
detailed dense subject and if you want to
know more about mixing I definitely recommend
checking out my Complete Guide to Logic Pro
X where I've got a whole section and several
different lectures on mixing but I'm going
to try my best just to quickly give you a
quick overview of mixing and the mixer in
Logic Pro X. Like I said earlier if you do
want to have a look at my Complete Guide to
Logic Pro X if you have a look in the bonus
lectures I do give you a really good discount
and a great coupon code as well, so I recommend
checking that out if you want to know a bit
more about mixing, but this will get you up
and running and this is just basically just
meant to be an introduction to mixing. So
lets create a new instrument and choose software
instrument and I just closed the library here
by hitting the library button and here we've
got this button here which opens up a mixer,
this is meant to look like an analogue mixer
in Logic Pro X. We can drag it to the size
we want, but what I like to do is close the
mixer and open up the mixer in a new window.
If we hit the key command, command 2 this
will open the mixer in a new window. So here
we've got the setting which basically allows
us to save our mixer setting, so if we really
like the channel strip setting we've got we
can copy the channel strip setting or save
the channel strip setting. If we look down
here these are some I've actually created
myself some channel strip settings, so I used
to write songs with a guy called Jordan so
I've got Jordan kick because these are some
of the kick drums that him and I made. I write
music with a girl called Lizzie Joyce as well,
so I've got Lizzie Bells, these are some bell
sounds that her and I use in a lot of our
songs together. Going down just loads of different
various sounds. I've got Yorkie Times because
I was listening to a lot of Thom Yorke and
I found and created some sounds that I thought
were similar or got inspired by some sounds
that he uses as well. But anyway, so there
you can create your own sounds during channel
strip settings and below this we have EQ as
this is an equaliser and so we can basically
change to add treble or take out bass or add
bass, different bands here, we also have analyzer,
so if we have analyzer hit and we play a song
we can actually see what the kind of waves
it's creating, the actual frequencies that
are being used by this track, lets just find
an Apple Loop. Lets drag this, drag this over.
Okay its change the tempo because I allowed
it to do so and lets just find beat, type
in beat up here and I'm just going to find,
here we go this one. I'm going to set up a
loop just by moving this cycle area over here.
Okay, so now I have this vocal selected and
you can see its actually moved to another
section on the mixer. Lets click on EQ here
and these are the frequencies that are being
created by the vocals. So what we could do
is maybe take down a bit of the bass and boost
a bit of the treble and if we click on the
EQ we can move and boost and if you have a
really harsh frequency that's really bad say
maybe some background sound or maybe I don't
know a bit of feedback you can find that frequency
and completely cut it out which can be really
useful too. And then we have other things
as well, so here it allows us to create more
plugins so for example if we click below we
have stuff like Amps and Pedalboards, like
amplifiers and delay, distortion, dynamics
which is stuff like compressors which basically
makes the loud quieter and the quiet louder,
limiter which doesn't allow us to clip so
you might see sometimes if the sound distorts
or goes into the red we call it, if we put
a limiter on it, it will allow us to basically
not let our music distort which is really
useful. A lot of the time I will put a limiter
on the master out which is over here, so we've
got stereo out and master, so if you go on
here and go on dynamics and limiter, this
will mean your track will not clip and will
not distort. The easier way of doing this
is to just go on output level here and move
this to -0.1, so anything that goes above
-0.1 it will not allow it to go there. If
your track is really loud though and you put
a limiter it will kind of compress and squish
your sound in not a very nice way, so always
try and do everything by ear and not rely
on too many plugins. Okay going back to this
we've got EQ which is the equaliser, we have
different types of EQ here, filter to create
a filter effect, imaging, metering, modulation
which is more stuff like phasers and choruses
and tremolo, pitch if you want to create kind
of an artificial pitch correction or pitch
shifter or vocal transformer, reverb, specialised,
which is sub bass and exciter, utility. We
also have Audio Units if you have any of your
own audio units that aren't Logic ones basically.
But yeah its such a dense subject there is
so much you can actually do with this here,
very briefly I would say just try and use
your ears as best as you can and try and allow
space for each instrument. For example if
you have a synth bass and a live bass you
want to, you don't really want to muddy up
and clash in frequencies too much so I like
to have a look at the EQ and equaliser of
each instrument and just make sure there's
enough space for every instrument to be heard
because the worse thing you want is all the
sounds kind of mushing up into one, so just
allow a bit of space for everything really.
But yeah this is a really dense subject, but
quick tips basically don't let your track
peak or distort and allow space for every
single instrument. Like I said earlier I do
go over this in a lot more detail in my Complete
Guide, but yeah just go through each of these
plugins manually and just see what they really
are because there is so many different ones
you can choose from. Logic have done a great
job in kind of organising this in a really
easy to find format as well, but yeah that's
kind of a basic, basic, basic overview of
mixing, there is so much more, but this is
the mixing desk really you can add EQ and
different plugins and down here we've got
something called Buses or Auxiliaries which
allows us to send multiple tracks to one effects
unit. I'll just do this very quickly, so if
we go on bus and lets try bus 3 and this is
the amount and this one as well, bus 3 and
here is the amount. So we've got a new channel
here B3, which is aux 3, so basically both
of these channels are being sent to this one,
so this dial is the amount that is being sent
and this allows us to put stuff like delay
or reverb quickly. It also allows us not to
use up too much of the computer's CPU, so
basically it won't crash or you won't get
system overload as much if you use less effects
or if you use a lot of buses instead of putting
separate effects and it also allows you to
kind of have the same effects on different
instruments, so if you have all different
delays that are kind of clashing it might
sound a little strange, but if you've got
the same type of delay all being sent or bused
to this one effects unit it's a lot easier.
Lets just hear this. There you can hear I
added the reverb and took it away. Now its
just the drums that has it. Now its just the
vocals. Okay I do find the buses very useful
for reverb and for delay. Yeah this is a very
basic overview of mixing, if you go below
we do have pan as well so its the left and
right speaker and this is kind of the volume
as well. But one thing I would say is if you
have automation set, so if you have volume
set say here, this will over ride the mixer,
so wherever the automation is, if you try
and move this up it will go back down so always
remember to keep a note of where your automation
is as well because if you try and move it
here and you've got automation set it will
just go back to the automation basically and
below we can solo or mute. So yeah that's
just a quick overview of mixing in Logic Pro
X, I hope you found this useful. Thank you
for watching.
Hi thank you for watching my introduction
course in Logic Pro X, this course is basically
designed just to get you in the right direction
to start making your own music, so hopefully
when you open up Logic now it's not so scary
and you have a bit more of an idea to actually
make your own music. If you'd like to go deeper
and learn a heck of a lot more I have got
A Complete Guide to Logic Pro X on Udemy also
and this is basically yeah really really advanced
compared to this and you will learn yeah so
much more. It's a step by step guide so if
you want hours upon hours over ten hours in
total actually of Logic Pro X knowledge be
sure to check it out. Also included in this
course is some interviews with some of my
music industry friends these are guys who
are really elite and really at the top and
have worked with people like Bastille, Kyle
Minogue, Roger Daltrey from The Who and Jack
Garratt and load of other people too so yeah
definitely check it out if you want take your
music knowledge to the next level. Included
as well is a coupon code just to thank you
really for sticking with me in this introduction
course and I'll be giving a massive discount,
over 90 percent off actually which is kind
of crazy just to get you writing your own
music really and hopefully you'll be able
to yeah step up your game and be a much better
music producer. So thank you again for watching
my course and I'll see you soon.
