Navigating your first sounds

Music Production Lesson

Introduction

So let's give ourselves something to work with. I'm just going to chuck in some Apple Loops really quickly.

Opening Loops Browser

• Shortcut Key: Press O on my keyboard to open up the loops browser.
• Selecting a Pack: Let's go for some Modern R&B from the drop-down menu.
• Filtering by Instruments: Filter by Drums since that's what I want.

Choosing Drums

Now that I've selected drums, I'm going to listen to a few of these to see what I want to put into the project.

• "That's not bad."
• "That's okay."
• "I think this one works for me."

Let's whack that one in there. Drag and drop, super easy.

Tempo Adjustment

If it ever asks you if you want to change the tempo to match these, you can do that. So, I'm going to do that, and we have a drum pattern there.

Adding Melody

What I'm going to do next is get a pattern of some sort of melody, maybe some chords. Let's go for Electric Guitar and see what happens here.

Duplicating Regions

Now that I have that, I'm going to duplicate this region.

• Method: Hold Option and drag to duplicate. I now have two elements to work with, some regions, and we've got some sound. Cool!

Closing Loops Browser

Let me close the loops browser by pressing O and that is out of the way.

Playback and Navigation

Now we're going to look at how we can play back and navigate. So far, I've been using my mouse and keyboard to work with these regions and play them back.

Transport Section

We did look at the Transport Section earlier, which has:

• Forward
• Rewind
• Go to the Beginning
• Play
• Record
• Loop (Also called Cycle in Logic)

Zooming in Logic

I'm going to zoom in. Instead of scrolling, hold Control and Option, which turns into my Zoom Tool.

• Zoom In: Click and select the area to zoom in.
• Zoom Out: Hold Control and Option, then click in the background.

This lets us move in a much more natural and quicker way than using the sliders at the top.

Playback Controls

To play back:

• Press the Space Bar to play and stop.
• Press Return to go back to the beginning.

Moving Between Bars

1. Backwards/Forwards: Use the comma or full stop/period keys to move by the bar.
2. Higher Increments: Hold Shift while pressing those buttons to jump around eight bars at a time.

Working with Other Windows

We can turn the Inspector on and off by pressing I.

Editing Audio

To edit this piece of audio:

• Click on the audio and double-click it.
• Options: Track, File, and Smart Tempo.
• Resize the window as needed.

Separate Windows

Load any of these windows as separate windows:

1. Go to Window and select the desired editor (e.g., Audio Track Editor or File Editor).
2. Shortcut: Press Command 2 to open the Mixer window separately.

Advanced Zooming Techniques

When we select a track header, we can press Zoom to adjust that track.

Additional Zoom Methods

• Holding Command: Use arrow keys to scroll and zoom vertically/horizontally.
• Using Scroll Mouse: Hold Option to scroll up and down; hold Option + Shift for horizontal scrolling.

Conclusion

This concludes our overview of navigating and working within Logic.