#82: 5 Essential Logic Pro X Tips to Improve Your Workflow

Welcome to this episode of our podcast where I dive into the world of Logic Pro X and share my top five tips to help you improve your workflow. If you're a music producer, composer, or someone who just loves to experiment with sound, then this episode is for you.

I start off with a powerful MIDI feature that allows you to hear a note at any point in Logic Pro X - MIDI chase. Next, I show you a nifty Logic Pro X fade tool shortcut that will save you tons of time when working with audio tracks.

Then, I introduce you to Logic Pro X's MIDI FX and show you how they can help you spice up your chord progressions and add new dimensions to your tracks.

For those of you who work with MIDI extensively, I've got you covered too! I'll teach you how to bulk edit MIDI note length in the Logic Pro X piano roll, and how to quickly move multiple MIDI notes in the same piano roll with ease.

So sit back, relax, and get ready to learn some Logic Pro X tips that will take your music production to the next level. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel and hit the notification bell to stay updated with our latest uploads!

CLICK HERE, to get your mix on point with Logic Pro X in just 5 weeks! https://mailchi.mp/synthmusicmastering/learn-to-mix

Transcript

Marc Matthews: 0:01

Hey, inside the Mix podcast fans, I am Neon Shade. Please follow and subscribe to my YouTube channel at Official Neon Shade. I just released two new singles, stereo Love and Locked Out. Both come with videos that I made as well. You are listening to Inside the Mix podcast, and here's your host, Mark Matthews. Hello and welcome to the Inside the Next podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer, and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place. If you want to know more about your favorite synth music artists, music, engineering and production, songwriting, and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing, and mastering music for over 15 years, and I wanna share what I've learned with you. Hey folks, and welcome back to The Inside the Mix podcast if you are a new listener. Welcome and don't forget to hit that subscribe button. And if you are a returning listener, a big welcome back. Now this episode is, uh, is different to the usual episode. So we're not doing an interview. It's not Producer Kickstart, but what it is, it's my top five Logic Pro X workflow tips. So these are tips. These are things. These are tools, techniques, tips that I use every day when I'm using Logic Pro. And what I've done with these tips is I've managed to improve my workflow and I can get in flow state a lot quicker. I love that phrase flow state. Don't use that enough on the podcast. Um, so these tips, obviously it is for Logic Pro, but what I'm hoping is if you're not already using something similar in your own d a w, is that you'll be able to recognize how these tips. These tools can help you and maybe you could go away and research how you could do the same in your door of choice. Um, so I'm not gonna ramble anymore. I'm now gonna show you my top five Logic Pro workflow tips. So let's dive in with number one. Okay. This is my first tip. Now this one, I don't know how I live without this for so long, so I'm gonna play this mid here, and I'm starting just after bar six. And obviously if you're watching this on YouTube, you'll see I'm sort of halfway. To a third through the mid note and you get this, you get nothing to begin with cuz it's not triggering halfway through the mid note. So you'd have to wait for it to cycle back around to play those notes. Now, I dunno how I'd live with this without this rather for so long, but in Logic Pro, if you go to file and then you go to project settings and then Midi, a window will come up. And if you click on Chase notes, Okay, so Chase and then notes, you'll be then be able to do this. Okay? So if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see I'm halfway through to a third through a mid note and it triggers halfway through. It's amazing. I dunno how I live without this for so long. So if you want to hear midi notes halfway through a note, well at any point during that mid note go to file project settings. You can go straight to MIDI rather than general, and then it's Chase, and then notes sustained and you'll be able to trigger a note halfway through or any at any point in a MIDI file. How I live without that for so long, I don't know, but that's number one. Okay, so this is tip number two. So this is more to do with sort of shortcuts, keyboard shortcuts, but in my workflow, one I'm editing, and this is particularly important when I'm editing the podcast actually, is I like to use the selector tool and then my sort of option tool. My, my auxiliary tool, as it were, is the Marqui tool, which I think that's transferable across most, well, certainly the selected one, and anyway, across most dws. And, um, I like to use that when I'm selecting audio and I'm cutting and editing and blah, blah, blah. But there is one keyboard shortcut that I dunno how, once again, I could probably say this quite a lot. You're gonna get bored of it by how I live without it. But there's a fade shortcut on the keyboard and it's control shift. And then you go to the top of the region, the audio region drag, and it will create a fade for you. So you don't need to set the fade tool as the option tool. Okay. In logic, you can just press control and shift and it will create a fade for you. In fact, if the fades already there, you can see if you're watching this on YouTube, I can start to manipulate. Sort of the slope of the fade. But there we go, folks. So controlled and shift and then drag from the edge of the audio region. And that shortcut will create a quick fade for you, and that has been instrumental in speeding up my podcast editing workflow. So give that a go. Okay folks, so this is my third tip, and this uses Logic Pros Advanced MIDI Quantization feature. So I've got this cord here and it sounds like this. Okay. Now one thing I didn't know you could do, or rather that logic does until this moment is if you select all the notes, um, in the piano roll at the top left, it actually tells you is a B flat nine, the suspended four. Um, which I, how I'd never noticed that before. I don't know. But there you go. It will actually tell you the chord that you've, uh, you've got there. Um, I must have been totally oblivious to that before. Anyway, that is not the tip. The tip is this. If you go over to the inspector and you click on more in the region, area of the inspector for this particular midi uh, lane. In this mid track, um, you've got Q velocity all the way down to Q strength, and we are gonna look at Q flam. So what happens is if I go into positive values for the Q flam, you'll see it creates an ascending arpeggio and it sounds like this. Okay? If I go the other way, And go into negative values. It creates a descending arpeggio like this. So once again, folks, really quick, you can quickly create a humanized feel or even arpeggio for your chords in Logic Pro in the Inspector with the advanced MIDI quantization features. Give it a go. Okay, so my fourth workflow tip, and you'll see that a lot of these are midi orientated. Cause I work with MIDI a lot when I'm songwriting. And this one's once again in the piano roll. And this time I've got this, uh, piano pluck, um, sort of sound. And it sounds like this. Probably less a piano, more just a synth, to be honest. Anyway, that's what it sounds like. And all the notes, uh, bar one are the same size. But imagine I want all the notes to be the same size, or imagine you've got a lot of midi and the rule of a different size. You've programmed something in and they're not quite right. What you can do is if you select all of the notes, and then if you press option shift and then drag one of those notes that you selected, it will resize them all to the same size. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see as I drag left and right. The mid notes are all. Changing to the same size. So really quick tip there, and there's actually one other one I wanna throw in here. Um, and this is another one that I use all the time. So if you go to view, you can add note labels and note labels are great when you're trying to deconstruct a chord. If you've just played something on the fly, you wanna know what notes. Are there, or you wanna transpose it to guitar or some sort of acoustic instrument, go to view in the piano role and just turn on note labels. I always work with note labels. I turn them off previously Peoria for the, uh, purpose of this demonstration. So there you go. That is the fourth tip. Okay folks, so here's my fifth and final workflow tip. Now I use this when I'm auditioning sounds notably with drums, to be honest, if I've got kick or snare, cuz what I'll do is when I'm songwriting, I'll just use. Um, a generic kick snare, tom's, whatever it may be, just so I can get the idea down. And then when I'm starting to mix or starting to evolve or develop the, uh, composition a bit more, I'll do this. I'll go in the piano roll and I'll select all the notes. And then if I press alts or option and then up, I can drag all of the mini notes up and down in the piano role. So what I'll do is I'll play this back, and then what I'll do is I'll move the notes up and down until I find the snare that I want or the sound that I want. As you can see, obviously you'll have to have a sampler instrument set up with multiple samples in it. But you can quickly audition and you can just cycle through and just move it up, move it down until you find the sound that you want. So that is my fifth and final workflow tip, and having used all these tips this last year, put them all together and there are more. There are more. But this is a short episode. I have managed to 10 x my output in terms of songwriting. It's been, uh, it's been a game changer. So give this fifth one a go. So there we go folks. Those are my top five Logic Pro workflow tips, and hopefully you can see the benefit of using these. Tips these tools. Uh, notably they are mostly midi but it significantly has improved my workflow in terms of songwriting. So hopefully you can take it and they transfer into your d a w of choice. Um, let me know, let me know how you've got on. Maybe you haven't been able to find the answer unfortunately. I wouldn't know cuz. Logic is my sort of door of choice as I, as I've mentioned, but I'm being intrigued to know if your d a w does something similar. If you are a Logic Pro user, I am actually putting together a five week tutorial series and this series. Each week I'm gonna drop a, a new video showing you how you can mix in Logic Pro, specifically with synth based music, and it's only gonna be using native plugins if you are interested in this course. I'm trying to gauge interest as to whether or not. There is an audience for it. Head over to www.insidethemixpodcast.podium.com/free and register your interest for this five week tutorial series. As I say, it is gonna be mixing from the ground up using Logic Pro and only its plugins. No third party plugins. Anyway, folks, what I'm gonna do now is, um, I'm gonna play you this song and, uh, it's something I've been working on with a few others as a co-lab, and I'm gonna play you the end here. So this is a, uh, Guitar silo added by Octa Gaines. And there's also gonna be vocals on this, but, um, listen out for this. It's gonna be off an up and coming EP of mine. And, uh, this is the, uh, the outro of the first track of the, uh, ep. Hi, I'm Chewy. I go by Chewy Beats, and my favorite episode is 66 because it showed me a new approach of writing lyrics and yeah, I'll try that in my next one.