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Sharing Logic tips and tricks

Vik

Vik

Vi-k
Someone suggested in another thread that it would be useful with more Logic tips and tricks, so here's a thread everyone can use to share are find tips.

I'll start:
If you want to replace only a part of a region in an easy way as possible, enable Content Punch. You can do this by clicking on the Replace icon:

Screen Shot 2019-02-06 at 14.28.33.png

Then, select Context Punch from the contextual menu (try a long click):

Screen Shot 2019-02-06 at 14.24.53.png

That's it. As long as the Replace icon is active (orange color), all you need to do is to start recording before the area in question - and play something when you come to the area you want to replace. Logic will remove the old material in that area, and keep what you played.

Also: note the brilliant implementation of Save as defaults/Apply defaults, which means that you can tell Logic that you want this mode in your other projects as well.
Click to read more...
 
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Neither, at least on the surface. :)

You don't need to select a range, and it will only replace the area where you have entered new notes. Just press record from anywhere before your target area - and start to play wherever you want to replace the existing notes with new notes.

Example: you want to replace a few notes in bar 16/17, but not replace the whole bar. If you follow the method above, you just play the notes you want to replace the old notes with (at the correct location). Nothin else to do, and that's why I think this function deserves more attention. The old notes will be muted once you start to play, and when you are done, press stop. Then you'll see that the old notes are kept from where you stopped playing (and, of course in the area before you played something).
 
Apologies if the following is well known information, but I only learned about it yesterday, and consider it pretty powerful:

A couple of years back Logic Pro X added a "Dual Mono" option when instantiating plugins, which assigns a separate monophonic version of the plugin to each of the channels. I'd not looked at that feature until yesterday, when I read that the Dual Mono mode could also be configured to use Mid/Side instead of simply Left/Right. Which means that, even for a plugin that doesn't have innate M/S capability, one can add it to the channel as Dual Mono, then click on the gear icon on the Dual Mono toolbar and change the plugin to M/S. One can even then disable the M channel in order to only have the S channel processed (theoretically saving CPU). A pretty powerful concept, in my opinion, which can really expand the aural vistas of just about any plugin that doesn't have M/S built in. I've started using this to add saturation to just the sides of a stereo image, and am being blown away by the results.

Here are a few screenshots to help describe this visually. Adding the plugin in Dual Mono mode:

DualMono1.png


In the plugin window, selecting the gear icon to go to the Dual Mono config page:

DualMono2.png


Then changing the drop list at the bottom of the Dual Mono config screen to select M/S mode:

DualMono3.png


Deactivating plugin processing on the Mid channel (the dot on the "Mid" button on the toolbar seems to indicate that processing on the channel has been disabled):

DualMono4.png


And finally, selecting the Side channel to modify the plugin's parameters for that channel.

DualMono5.png
 
If you quickly want to assign a key command to a menu entry: click on the menu entry question while pressing the Control key. This will open the Key Command window and select that command for you, so you can use one of the four Learn buttons to assign that menu function to a key command or something else.
 
Here's another one, although with limited use for VI-users, since it unfortunately only works for pan, sends and volume, and not for CC1, CC11 and the other stuff we use:

Logic has an automation mode/functionscalled 'Relative'. This allows us to for instance have two volume automation lanes; one main lane, and another one which modifies what you have recorded or entered in the main lane:

relative.png

There's also a function called Consolidate Absolute and Relative Automation.

menu.png
You can use this in a situation like the one in the pic above, and the result will look like this:

consolidated.png
 
Thanks Vik.
That last one is like Trim in Pro Tools and I've been hoping there was something like it in Logic.
Super useful for someone like me who always has to go back and "trim" the volume after riding the fader just the way I want it but the other tracks in the mix eventually push it into the background.
 
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If you want to reduce your Logic project file sizes, you can do it (as mentioned by @babylonwaves in another recent thread) by going here:

Screen Shot 2019-06-17 at 21.41.05.png

Opening that window will take you to this window:
Screen Shot 2019-06-17 at 21.41.12.png

Tip: Save the project just before you clean it up, then - after you have cleaned it up: don't save. The cleaning has already happened in the actual saved file, and once you start saving again (even without having done any changes) the file size will increase.
 
I recently came across Mike Baggstrom's channel: there's a list of them here. He has some great videos: he delivers them quickly and concisely, usually in about 5 'tips' (and his 'Bonus tip'). I haven't watched any that I didn't learn something in. Highly recommended. MusicTechHelpguy is also wonderful, but his videos are typically longer and more in depth; Mike's are quick and to the point, and so very digestible. These are the 2 best Logic teachers I've found on Youtube so far.
 
WindcryMusic said:
Apologies if the following is well known information, but I only learned about it yesterday, and consider it pretty powerful:

A couple of years back Logic Pro X added a "Dual Mono" option when instantiating plugins, which assigns a separate monophonic version of the plugin to each of the channels. I'd not looked at that feature until yesterday, when I read that the Dual Mono mode could also be configured to use Mid/Side instead of simply Left/Right. Which means that, even for a plugin that doesn't have innate M/S capability, one can add it to the channel as Dual Mono, then click on the gear icon on the Dual Mono toolbar and change the plugin to M/S. One can even then disable the M channel in order to only have the S channel processed (theoretically saving CPU). A pretty powerful concept, in my opinion, which can really expand the aural vistas of just about any plugin that doesn't have M/S built in. I've started using this to add saturation to just the sides of a stereo image, and am being blown away by the results.

Here are a few screenshots to help describe this visually. Adding the plugin in Dual Mono mode:

DualMono1.png


In the plugin window, selecting the gear icon to go to the Dual Mono config page:

DualMono2.png


Then changing the drop list at the bottom of the Dual Mono config screen to select M/S mode:

DualMono3.png


Deactivating plugin processing on the Mid channel (the dot on the "Mid" button on the toolbar seems to indicate that processing on the channel has been disabled):

DualMono4.png


And finally, selecting the Side channel to modify the plugin's parameters for that channel.

DualMono5.png
Click to expand...

Ahh, the lovely new plug-in I just bought from PA :D

Thanks for this!
 
Vik said:
If you want to reduce your Logic project file sizes, you can do it (as mentioned by @babylonwaves in another recent thread) by going here:

Screen Shot 2019-06-17 at 21.41.05.png

Opening that window will take you to this window:
Screen Shot 2019-06-17 at 21.41.12.png

Tip: Save the project just before you clean it up, then - after you have cleaned it up: don't save. The cleaning has already happened in the actual saved file, and once you start saving again (even without having done any changes) the file size will increase.
Click to expand...
I have a key command for this, and as strange as it sounds, if you run the command twice, sometimes the file size will decrease even more the second time. Really weird!
 
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stonzthro said:
I have a key command for this, and as strange as it sounds, if you run the command twice, sometimes the file size will decrease even more the second time. Really weird!
Click to expand...
I noticed the same thing: cleaning up twice sometimes removes more than doing it once.
 
Some good Logic workflow tips here, from the best Logic tutor on the internet, MusicTechHelpGuy (though in this, the ones presented are fairly basic, so you may already be familiar - so this one is probably aimed a newer Logic users).

 
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Just a quick tip in case someone aren't aware of this: if you want custom icons on your tracks, you can take a quick screen shot of an any area of your display (press Command-Shift-4 and rubber band the area you want to capture), and then just drag the new screenshot onto the the track you want this icon on. This makes it easer to get a quick overview of which libraries you have on your tracks.

Screen Shot 2019-06-23 at 00.26.43.png
 
holy crap that's awesome, I had no idea we could do that. Do you know if the image is added somewhere for future projects or just saved with the project?
 
Once you have made an icon this way, it will become available in all other projects. Just look in the Custom Icons section:

Screen Shot 2019-06-23 at 00.45.34.png
 
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