Lesson 8. Editing an Arrangement

Lesson Files

Logic Pro X Files > Lessons > 08 Raise It Up

Time

This lesson takes approximately 60 minutes to complete.

Goals

Loop regions and convert loops to individual regions

Repeat regions in the workspace

Pack regions into a folder

Save alternative arrangements

Insert silence to create a new section

Remove a section

Remove silence or background noise from a region

In previous lessons, you recorded and edited audio and MIDI regions of raw musical material. Your next step is to arrange that material into a song: copying and repeating some elements, removing others, and assembling only those elements that communicate your song’s message.

In this lesson, you will start with a song that already has a good basic arrangement and bring it to completion, using existing material to fill in missing elements, and clever editing to repeat layered kick samples on multiple tracks. After adding a break between two sections to create a suspension and capture attention, you will shorten another break that is too long.

You can use markers in the Marker track to visually identify sections in a project. In this exercise, you will navigate a song using existing markers that help familiarize you with its structure. Using Solo mode, you’ll identify and audition individual tracks.

1. Open Logic Pro X Files > Lessons > 08 Raise It Up.

In the lower half of the ruler, markers identify the sections of the song (Intro, A1, B1, A2, B2, Break, Breakdown, and Outro).

2. Listen to the song.

In the A1 and B1 sections, the kick sounds rather weak, except for the first kick at the beginning of A1. You will later repeat the first kick samples on tracks 1 and 2 to fill in both sections.

In the workspace, regions are color-coded to help identify the instruments they represent. From top to bottom, the drums and percussions are blue, the bass is brown, guitars are yellow, keyboards are green, and vocals are purple and pink.

To fully understand how the song is arranged, listen to individual instruments. You could click the track header Solo buttons to play each track individually, but soloing and unsoloing one instrument after another to preview them isn’t very efficient. Let’s use Solo mode instead.

3. In the control bar, click the Solo button (or press Control-S).

The LCD display and the playhead turn yellow to indicate that Solo mode is on. All the regions in the workspace are dimmed to indicate that they are muted. In Solo mode, only the selected regions play.

4. On the Percussions track (track 8), click the Percussions region to select it.

The region is shaded in yellow to indicate that it is soloed.

5. Listen to the beginning of the project.

You can hear the selected Percussions region in isolation and identify the percussion instruments recorded on that track: handclaps, tambourine, and shaker at the beginning, then more percussions come in at various places throughout the song.

You can click a track header to quickly select all the regions on a track.

6. Click the Banjo 1 track header (track 10) to select all the regions on the track.

7. Listen to the beginning of the project.

The banjo plays with a guitar distortion effect. It sounds thin and nasal in the intro, and then a bit fuller in the A1 section. In the inspector, look at the EQ display at the top of the Banjo 1 channel strip. You can see the EQ curve change at bar 4. That automated change of the EQ parameters used track automation, which you will learn about in Lesson 10.

8. Start playback at the beginning. Before the end of the Banjo 1 region in A1, click the Piano region on track 15. The Piano region is selected, and after a little delay, you can hear the piano. Stop playback.

To avoid the delayed reaction of Solo mode when changing the selection, you can stop playback, select a new region, and resume playback. If you quickly press the Spacebar to stop playback, click the desired region, and press the Spacebar again, you can become very effective at listening to different regions in the workspace.

Let’s listen to the Nana regions at the bottom of the workspace.

9. Drag around all the pink Nana regions at bar 38 to select and solo them.

An easy way to start playback at the beginning of the selected regions is to use the “Play from Selection” key command.

10. Press Shift-Spacebar (Play from Selection).

The playhead jumps to the beginning of the selected regions and playback starts. You can hear multiple voices singing “Nah nah nah...” at various octaves. Between the sections when they’re singing, you can hear their headphone mix bleeding through their microphones. You will later remove that extraneous sound between sung sections.

11. Continue selecting regions and pressing Shift-Spacebar to hear those regions in Solo mode.

12. Stop playback.

13. In the control bar, click the Solo button (or press Control-S) to turn off Solo mode.

By now you should be more familiar with the song, and the sections you’re about to edit: the kick drums in the A1 and B1 sections, and the “nah nah” backup vocals at the end.

1. On the Big Beat track (track 7), zoom in on the small region at bar 44.

The Kick region is exactly one eighth note long, so looping the region will repeat the kick on every eighth note.

2. Place the mouse pointer at the upper left of the Kick region to choose the Loop tool, and drag to 44 3 3 1, for a total of five repetitions.

Let’s convert those loops to regions.

3. Choose Edit > Convert > Loops to Regions (or press Control-L).

The loops are replaced by individual regions; but because they are all selected, resizing them would resize them all by the same amount.

4. Click the workspace background to deselect all regions.

5. Drag the lower-right corner of the first Kick region to reduce it to half its size.

6. Resize the three following kicks in ascending lengths, leaving the last one (Kick.4) unchanged.

7. Double-click the lower half of the ruler (inside the colored marker) a little before the first kick at bar 44 to start playback.

The five kicks on the Big Beat track punctuate the Breakdown section with authority, announcing the new Big Beat rhythm in the Outro section.

8. Stop playback.

9. Click the background, and press Z to zoom out.

By converting loops to regions, you can start arranging using the simplicity of the Loop tool, and complete your arrangement by leveraging the flexibility of individual regions.

When you loop a region in the workspace, the length of the region determines the length of the loop. If you want to, say, loop a drum sample on every beat, but the sample’s audio region is shorter than one beat, you could first pack the region into a folder that could then be resized to any length and looped. Then, the length of the folder would control the length of the loop.

In this exercise, you’ll pack the sample on the Big Kick track (track 1) into a folder to loop it on every beat throughout the A1 and B1 sections.

1. Control-Option-drag around the two kick drum samples at the beginning of the A1 section.

The Big Kick region is less than a beat long, and if you looped it now, the loops wouldn’t be in sync with the grid.

2. Click the Big Kick region at bar 4 to select it.

3. In the Tracks area menu bar, choose Functions > Folder > Pack Folder.

The region is packed into a folder that is one bar long. Looping it now would repeat the kick on every bar. Let’s resize the folder to repeat the kick on every beat.

4. Position the mouse pointer at the lower-right corner of the folder, and shorten the folder length to one beat (0 1 0 0).

When you want to edit the region(s) inside a folder, you can double-click the folder to display its contents.

5. Double-click the Big Kick folder.

The folder opens, and the Tracks area displays its contents: a single Big Kick audio region. In the ruler, two markers show the folder’s beginning (bar 4 beat 1) and end (bar 4 beat 2).

6. In the Tracks area menu bar, click the Display Level button.

The folder closes, and the top-level Tracks area is visible again.

7. Control-Option-click the workspace to zoom out.

8. Make sure the folder at the beginning of the A1 section is selected.

9. In the Region inspector, select the Loop checkbox (or press L) to loop the selected region.

The region loops, and the loops stop where the next region on the track begins (at the beginning of the A2 section).

10. Listen to the A1 and B1 sections.

The Big Kick sample now plays every beat in those sections, making the kick drum sound fuller overall. You will repeat the kick drum sample on track 2 to complete the layered kick drum sound.

You will now place clones of the kick drum sample on track 2 on every beat to fill the A1 and B1 sections, and later shorten the original and all of its clones in a single operation to adjust the kick drum’s sustain.

1. On track 2, select the kick drum sample at the beginning of the A1 section.

You were introduced to the Repeat Regions/Events dialog in Lesson 6 when repeating MIDI notes in the Piano Roll. You will now use the same dialog to create multiple clones from the selected audio region.

2. Choose Edit > Repeat Multiple.

3. In the Repeat Regions/Events dialog, use the following settings:

Number of Copies = 63

Adjustment = Beat

As = Aliases or Clones

4. Click OK.

Logic creates 63 clones of the original region placed on every beat in sections A1 and B1.

5. Listen to the A1 section.

You may now be able to hear a faint low-frequency sound throughout the section.

6. Solo the Sub Kick track (track 2), and listen to the A1 section again.

Each kick drum is sustained until the next one hits, which creates a low-frequency drone. Let’s shorten the samples so you can clearly distinguish between each kick drum sound.

7. Zoom in on the first few regions in the A1 section of the Sub Kick track (track 2).

The regions are connected, and you see the sustain tail of each kick end where the next kick starts.

8. Resize the first region to shorten it slightly.

The original region and all its clones are resized by the same amount, which places silence between all the kick drum samples.

9. Listen to the Sub Kick track in the A1 section.

You can now hear silence between the kick drums on that track, and you no longer hear the low-frequency sound. However, you may now hear clicks at the ends of the Sub Kick regions, a problem you will resolve using fade-outs.

The first step is to select all the regions that you want to fade. Selecting many small regions can be challenging: Zoom in and you won’t see them all; zoom out and you may have difficulty distinguishing what is and isn’t selected. Fortunately, you can use the locators to precisely determine which regions are selected.

1. Control-Option-click the workspace to zoom out.

You could drag to select all the Sub Kick regions in the A1 and B1 sections. However, the regions are so small you might not be sure that you selected the last B1 region without selecting the first region in the next section.

In Logic, clicking a track header selects all the regions on that track. However, when Cycle mode is turned on, only those regions within the locators are selected.

2. Drag a cycle area corresponding to the A1 and B1 sections (from 4 1 1 1 to 20 1 1 1).

3. Click the Sub Kick track header (track 2) to select all the Sub Kick regions within the locators.

You can now use the Region inspector to batch apply fade-outs.

4. In the Region inspector, click the disclosure triangle at the bottom to open more parameters.

5. Double-click to the right of the Fade Out parameter to activate the data field.

6. Enter 100 (ms).

A 100 ms fade-out is added to the end of each selected region.

7. Zoom in on a few regions on the Sub Kick track to see the fade-outs placed on those regions.

8. Listen to the result.

You can now hear the boomy sub kick sample on every beat, but with a shortened sustain tail, and without clicks at the end of each sample.

9. Unsolo the Sub Kick track.

10. Control-Option-click the workspace to zoom out.

11. In the control bar, click the Cycle button (or press C) to turn off Cycle mode.

12. Listen to the beginning of the song. In the A1 and B1 sections, the kick now sounds deep and strong.

You now know several ways to copy, clone, repeat, and loop regions. You can pack regions of odd lengths into a folder and easily adjust its length for looping, and use batch fades to remove click sounds at the end of the regions.

1. Make sure the Sub Kick regions in sections A1 and B1 on track 2 are still selected.

2. Choose Edit > Join > Regions (or press Command-J).

A dialog opens asking you to confirm a mixdown of the audio regions. Since you are working with stereo kick regions, you will create a stereo region.

3. Click Stereo. On the track, all the selected Sub Kick regions are replaced by a long Sub Kick audio region that spans the A1 and B1 sections.

On the Big Kick track, a folder region loops throughout the two sections. You will bounce that section in place to create a new audio file on a new track, and then drag it back to the existing track.

4. Click the Big Kick region, or one of its loops in the A1 or B1 sections, to select the region and all of its loops.

5. Control-click the looped region, and choose Bounce and Join > Bounce in Place (or press Control-B) to open the Bounce Regions In Place dialog.

This dialog includes multiple options to determine whether to bounce with or without the effect plug-ins, and how to manage the source material.

6. In the Name field, enter Big Kick.

7. Set Source to Delete.

The current selection is automatically deleted after the new audio file is created. You will be dragging the new audio file back to the Big Kick track, so you need to ensure that the new file remains unprocessed by the plug-ins, the Volume fader, and the Pan knob.

8. Select Bypass Effect Plug-ins.

Now the selected regions will not be processed by the plug-ins on the Big Kick channel strip to create the new audio file.

9. Deselect Include Volume/Pan Automation.

Doing so ensures that the bounced audio will not be processed by the Volume fader and Pan knob on the channel strip.

Normalize automatically adjusts the level of an audio file so that it peaks at or below 0 dBFS. However, in this case you want to retain the original level of the sample.

10. Set Normalize to Off.

11. Click OK.

A new sixteen-bar Big Kick audio region appears on a new Big Kick track (track 2). Let’s move that region back to the original Big Kick track (track 1).

12. Drag the Big Kick region on track 2 to track 1.

Because track 2 is now empty, you can delete it.

13. Select track 1.

14. Choose Track > Delete Unused Tracks.

The second Big Kick track created earlier is deleted.

In the following exercises, you will save an alternative arrangement, insert one new section, and cut another to make the song more exciting.

Let’s create a new alternative for your song and rename the two alternatives. Later you’ll continue editing the new alternative, and at the end of this lesson you’ll go back to the current alternative.

1. Choose File > Save (or press Command-S).

All the edits you’ve performed to this point are now saved in the current project file, Raise It Up.

2. Choose File > Alternatives > New Alternative.

The “Save as new Alternative” dialog opens.

3. In the New Alternative Name field, enter Radio Edit, and click OK.

In the title bar, the new alternative’s name (Radio Edit) appears next to the project name (08 Raise It Up).

Let’s name the previous version you saved at the beginning of this exercise.

4. Choose File > Alternatives > Edit Alternatives.

The Edit Alternatives window opens, listing all the alternatives created for the current project, and the dates when they were saved. Buttons allow you to rename or remove selected alternatives.

5. Double-click the first line below the Alternative Name header, rename the first alternative Original, and click Done.

You now have two alternatives of the same project. You saved Original at the beginning of this exercise, and you are currently working on the new alternative, Radio Edit.

In this exercise, you will insert one bar of silence between the B1 and A2 sections, and use existing material in the song to populate that new break. In Logic, the position and length of the cycle area determine where the new section will be inserted and how long it will be.

1. Listen to the transition from the B1 section to the A2 section.

You can hear the vocals from the end of the B1 section (“yeah”) overlap the vocals at the beginning of the A2 section (“I was”). When vocals from two consecutive sections overlap, adding a break or a pause between the two sections gives them space, as if you allowed the singer to breathe between two phrases.

2. In the upper half of the ruler, drag a one-bar cycle at bar 20.

3. Choose Edit > Cut/Insert Time > Insert Silence at Locators (or press Control-Command-Z).

All the regions are divided at bar 20. The regions to the right of bar 20 are selected and moved one bar to the right, leaving an empty bar below the cycle area.

You will copy the first region in the Banjo 1 track to this new break section. That region doesn’t start on a downbeat, so let’s enable snapping to make sure that the copy has the same position relative to the bar as the original.

4. In the Tracks area menu bar, click the Snap pop-up menu, and make sure “Snap Regions to Relative Values” is selected.

5. From the Snap pop-up menu, choose Bar.

6. In the Banjo 1 track (track 10), hold down the mouse button over the first region, Intro Banjo.

The help tag displays the position of the region (1 4 4 187).

7. Option-drag the Intro Banjo region to 19 4 4 187.

As you drag the region, it snaps to the same relative position in every bar (1 4 4 187, then 2 4 4 187, and so on), making for easy positioning without losing the timing of the performance in reference to the grid.

8. When you release the mouse button, an alert asks if you want to copy the track automation along with the region.

Remember when you listened to the banjo in Solo mode at the beginning of this lesson? You noticed that the EQ was automated, which gave the banjo a thinner sound during the intro. That same thinner sound would work great for this break, so let’s copy the automation along with the region.

9. Click Copy.

Now let’s add a tom fill to this new break section.

10. On the Tom Fills track (track 5), hold down the mouse button in the region just before bar 25.

The help tag displays a position of 24 3 1 1, indicating that the region starts in the middle of bar 24. Snapping will ensure that you can drag the region only to the middle of a bar.

11. Option-drag the Tom Fills region to 20 3 1 1.

An alert asks you if you also want to copy the automation.

12. Click Copy to copy the automation with the region.

13. In the ruler, click the cycle area to turn off Cycle mode.

14. Listen to the new break.

It sounds good, but you have an issue with the vocal at the beginning of the A2 section. The vocals actually started a bit before the beginning of the A2 section, so they were divided when you inserted a bar of silence. Now the beginning of the sentence (“I was”) is sung before the break, and the rest of the sentence is sung after the break (“under the ground”).

15. Zoom in on the Lead Vox track (track 19) so you can comfortably see the small region at the end of the B1 section and the beginning of the Lead Vox region in the A2 section.

16. At the end of the B1 section (the end of bar 19), select the small Lead Vox region, and press Delete to remove it.

An alert asks you if you want to erase the automation at the region location.

17. In the alert, click Erase.

The Lead Vox region at the beginning of the A2 section is now missing the beginning of the sentence (“I was”). However, the region still references the original audio file, so resizing the region from the left will recover the part that was cut.

Because you need to drag with more precision, you will turn off snapping.

18. In the Tracks area menu bar, from the Snap pop-up menu, choose “Snap to Grid” (or press Command-G).

Snap to Grid is turned off.

19. Position the mouse pointer on the lower-right corner of the Lead Vox region at the beginning of the A2 section, and drag to the left about one beat.

20. Zoom out and listen to your new break section by starting playback at the beginning of the song. At bar 20, you may hear clicks at the end of some audio regions. Feel free to zoom in and add fade-outs to remove the clicks.

The song has a two-bar intro, then plays two different eight-bar sections (A1 and B1). At the end of the B1 section, you can clearly hear the “yeah” on the vocals because no other vocals overlap them. Instead of the expected return to an A section, you get a one-bar break where most instruments pause. The thin banjo sound and the tom fill are just enough material to capture attention, and the beginning of the new sentence (“I was”) at the end of the break pulls the listener into the next A2 section.

You will now skip areas of your song using the locators, and remove part of a section. First, let’s skip over the Breakdown section.

1. Play the song from around bar 35 to around bar 49.

The song comes out of the B2 section into a two-bar Break section, then a seven-bar Breakdown section introduces new backup vocals that continue during the Outro. Let’s listen to the song without that Breakdown section.

2. In the Marker track, Shift-click the Breakdown marker.

Cycle mode is on, and the cycle area matches the marker. To turn the cycle area into a skip cycle area, you have to swap the left and right locators.

3. In the ruler, Control-click the cycle area, and from the shortcut menu, choose “Swap Left and Right Locators.”

The cycle area is replaced by a skip cycle area.

Let’s play the song without the Breakdown section.

4. Listen to the song by starting playback a couple of bars before the break.

When the playhead reaches the end of the break, it jumps to the outro, thereby skipping the Breakdown section.

Now that it’s omitted, the breath of fresh air that the Breakdown section created is also missing. Instead, let’s try skipping the Break section.

5. From the Snap pop-up menu, choose “Snap to Grid” (or press Command-G) to turn on snapping.

6. Move the skip cycle area to bar 37, and resize it to two bars to match the Break marker.

7. Start playback a few bars before the Break marker.

The transition between the B2 section and the Breakdown section is too abrupt. Let’s skip only half of the Break section.

8. Stop playback, and resize the skip cycle area to one bar long so that it skips bar 37.

9. Start playback a few bars before the Break marker.

The timing is better. The break sounds empty now, but you can later add a section of bass. Let’s cut the section below the skip cycle area.

10. Stop playback, and choose Edit > Cut/Insert Time > Cut Section Between Locators (or press Control-Command-X).

The section below the skip cycle area is cut, and all the regions that previously were to the right of the skip cycle area move one bar to the left to fill the void.

Note that Cycle mode is still on. You’ll have to turn it off if you don’t want the playhead skipping the new one-bar break.

11. Click the cycle area (or press C) to turn off Cycle mode.

12. Start listening to the song a few bars before the break.

The break sounds a little empty. Let’s bring back the bass section from the cut first half of the Break section.

13. Zoom in on the bass at bar 37.

In the Tracks area menu bar, the Drag mode is set to No Overlap. In that mode, regions are automatically resized to ensure that they never overlap as the result of an edit. You will now lengthen the already-long E Bass.5 region.

14. Drag the lower-right corner of the E Bass.5 region over the short E Bass.8 region, to bar 39.

The short E Bass.8 region is removed.

15. Zoom out, and listen to the new break.

The break now sounds perfect. The bass plays a fill, and the banjo, percussions, and keyboard (Wurli) play the last three eighth notes before the Breakdown section.

1. In the Nana 1 track header (track 24), click the Solo button.

In the workspace, all the regions on other tracks are dimmed, so you can easily see which track is soloed.

2. Click the Nana 1.1 region to select it, press C to enable Cycle mode, and press Command-U (Set Locators by Regions/Events/Marquee).

The cycle area matches the position and length of the Nana 1.1 region.

3. Zoom in on the beginning of the Nana 1.1 region.

On the waveform, you clearly see where the vocalists are singing. When they’re silent, the waveform is flat. But if you look closely enough, it’s not completely flat, which indicates that you may have unwanted noise in the recording.

4. Listen to the soloed track until bar 42.

When the vocalists are not singing in bars 40 and 41, their headphone mix bleeds through their microphone. Let’s remove that unwanted section using the Marquee tool, which is your Command-click tool.

5. From the Snap pop-up menu, choose “Snap to Grid” (or press Command-G) to turn off snapping.

6. Command-drag over the flat section of the waveform in bars 40 and 41.

7. Press Delete.

The marquee selection is cut, leaving you two regions on the track.

8. Listen to the result and note that you no longer hear extraneous sound in bars 40 and 41.

9. Using the same technique on the Nana 1 track, continue removing the noises between the singing until you reach bar 57.

10. Listen to the last region by double-clicking the lower half of the ruler at bar 57 to start playback.

At the end of bar 60, the singers sing “Nah nah nah,” and then you can hear a faint laugh. They most likely sang that last part as a joke because it wasn’t part of the arrangement. When you’re not sure whether or not to remove a part, you can mute it. Later, if you change your mind, you can easily unmute the regions you want to restore.

11. In the last region on the Nana 1 track, Command-drag starting with the flat waveform in bar 59 and including the little waveform near the end.

12. Press Control-M (Mute Notes/Regions/Folders on/off).

The portion of the region you selected is divided into a new, muted region. If you later decide that you want to play it, you can select the region and press Control-M to unmute it.

To finish editing the remaining Nana regions, you will use Strip Silence, a feature that automatically cuts portions of an audio region that fall below a specific volume threshold.

1. Zoom out vertically so you can see all the Nana tracks (from track 24 to track 30).

To quickly solo or mute multiple tracks in the Tracks area, you can drag an interface button in a track header down or up to emulate the way sound engineers mute or solo multiple channel strips by sliding a finger across the buttons on a mixing board.

2. In the Nana 2 track header (track 25), drag the Solo button down to the last track (track 30).

Track 24 was already soloed, so now tracks 24 through 30 (all the Nana tracks) are soloed.

3. Listen to the soloed tracks. You can hear noise (mostly headphones bleeding) between the sung sections.

Let’s apply Strip Silence to the Nana 2.1 region (on track 25).

4. Select the Nana 2.1 region.

5. Choose Functions > “Remove Silence from Audio Region” (or press Control-X).

The Strip Silence window opens, showing how the region will be edited. To the left of the waveform, a scale allows you to measure the amplitude of the waveform from 0% to 100%. Below the waveform, the Threshold parameter is set to 4.0%, so Strip Silence will remove any audio that drops below 4%.

To the right in the Strip Silence window, two small regions will be created where you’d prefer to create only one. This occurs because in that short section, the audio went below the 4% threshold for a short period. You will now increase the “Minimum Time to accept as Silence” value a little to ensure that Strip Silence cuts a region only when the audio stays under the 4% threshold for 0.5 seconds or longer.

6. In the Strip Silence window, set the “Minimum Time to accept as Silence” to 0.5000 sec.

In the Strip Silence window, the values adjust by whole increments of the digit you drag. So you drag the first digit to the right of the decimal point to change the value from 0.1000 to 0.5000 sec.

In the Strip Silence window, the two short regions at the end are replaced by a single region.

7. Click OK.

On the Nana 2 track, the regions are divided so that the silence between the performances is removed.

8. Select the Nana 3.1 region (on track 26).

9. Choose Functions > “Remove Silence from Audio Region” (or press Control-X).

This region has more noise than the previous one. Some of the noise is over the 4% threshold, and Strip Silence is about to create several regions with only noise in them (just before the third sung section). To avoid it, you need to raise the Threshold above the noise level.

10. Drag the Threshold value up to 6.0%.

In the Strip Silence window, the two small regions containing noise disappear.

11. Click OK.

12. Click the Nana Low 1.1 region on track 27, and press Control-X to open the Strip Silence window.

One of the sung sections appears in two regions.

13. Set the “Minimum Time to Accept as Silence” to 0.6000 sec, and click OK.

On the Nana Low 1 track (track 27), regions are created for each sung section. You will apply the same Strip Silence settings to the two remaining sections.

14. Select the Nana Low 2.1 region (track 28), press Control-X to open the Strip Silence window, and click OK.

15. Select the Nana Hi.1 region (track 29), press Control-X, and click OK.

All the regions on the Nana tracks were divided to remove the unwanted sounds between the sung parts. Working with each sung section as an individual region will make the editing and arranging process easier.

16. Listen to the soloed tracks.

The sounds between the sung sections were removed, although you may hear some clicks at the edit points.

You will continue working on this vocal section in the next exercise, so keep the Nana tracks soloed.

1. Start playback at bar 59, and listen to the end of the Outro section.

On the Nana 2 track (track 25), the last region contains the same “Nah nah nah” performance you muted on the Nana 1 track. Let’s mute that region.

2. Select the last region on track 25, and press Control-M to mute it.

You will now listen to a bad performance and delete it.

3. On the Nana Hi track (track 29), select the last Nana region (at bar 49), and in the control bar, click the Solo button (or press Control-S).

In the workspace, all other regions are dimmed and the selected region is shaded in yellow to indicate that it is soloed.

Cycle mode is still enabled, so pressing the Spacebar would start playback at the beginning of the Breakdown marker, several bars before the region you want to hear. Instead, you’ll use the “Play from Selection” key command (Shift-Spacebar).

4. Press Shift-Spacebar to start playback at the beginning of the soloed region.

The singer goes flat on the first note, strains to hit the high pitch, laughs, and gives up. Let’s delete this region.

5. Press Delete.

6. In the control bar, click the Solo button (or press Control-S) to turn off Solo mode.

To replace the deleted passage, you’ll copy the first region on the Nana Hi track to bar 49 using snapping to ensure an accurately placed copy.

7. In the Tracks area menu bar, in the Snap pop-up menu, enable “Snap to Grid,” and make sure that “Snap Regions to Relative Value” and Bar are selected.

8. Option-drag the first region on the Nana Hi track (track 29) to copy it to around bar 49.

The copied region snaps to 48 4 4 158, retaining the same relative position as the original region.

9. Copy the region twice more, to 52 4 4 158 and 56 4 4 158.

You are done editing this project, so let’s listen to the whole song.

10. Click the Cycle button (or press C) to turn off Cycle mode.

You will now use the “Solo off for all” key command to unsolo all the soloed tracks in your project.

11. Press Control-Option-Command-S to unsolo all tracks.

12. Click the background, and press Z to display the whole song.

13. Listen to the entire song.

Pay close attention to the sections you edited in this lesson. The kick drums you looped and repeated earlier in the A1 and B1 sections are now blending into a commanding, layered kick drum sound that drives the beginning of the song. At bar 20, the short one-bar break creates an exciting suspension that transitions into the A2 section. The one-bar bass fill leading into the Breakdown section is just the right length, carrying the listener into the powerful Nana backup vocals throughout the Breakdown and Outro sections.

You saved different project alternatives before you started editing the arrangement, so you can now go back to your original alternative.

14. Choose File > Save (or press Command-S).

15. Choose File > Alternatives > Original.

The current alternative closes, and the older version of the song opens. Note the absence of the break at bar 20, the two-bar break at bar 36, and the unedited Nana regions at the bottom right of the workspace.

Remember that a successful arrangement balances repeated elements and new elements. Repeating melodies and grooves gives the listener a chance to become familiar with the song, sometimes to the point of singing along or dancing. Adding small breaks to the arrangement suspends time in the flow of the song, and helps renew interest.

As you produce more music, you will become increasingly adept at determining what makes a good arrangement. Try to analyze the arrangements of the songs you love, and incorporate some of those ideas into your own compositions.

2. How do you create a marker?

3. How do you pack regions into a folder?

4. How do you open and close a folder?

5. How can you insert a new section into a project?

6. How do you skip a section when playing a project?

7. How can you remove background noise between performances on a track?

8. How can you quickly select many small regions on the same track in a section of a song?

9. How do you drag a region while ensuring that it retains its position relative to the bar lines?

10. How do you quickly solo or mute multiple tracks in the Tracks area?

2. Position the playhead where you want to place the marker, and choose Navigate > Create Marker.

3. Select the regions to pack, and choose Functions > Folder > Pack Folder.

4. Double-click a folder to open it. Double-click the background of the workspace, or click the Display Level button, to close a folder.

5. Adjust the cycle area to identify the length and position of the section to insert, and choose Edit > Cut/Insert Time > Insert Silence at Locators (or press Command-Control-Z).

6. Create a skip cycle area by Control-clicking the cycle area, and from the shortcut menu, choosing “Swap Left and Right Locators.”

7. Use Strip Silence to remove all the portions of a region that fall below a specific level threshold.

8. When Cycle mode is enabled, click a track header to select all the regions between the locators on that track.

9. In the Snap pop-up menu, make sure “Snap Regions to Relative Values” is selected, and choose Bar.

10. Hold down the Solo or Mute button on a track header and drag up or down.