Chapter 8
In This Chapter
Importing audio and MIDI into your project
Using Apple loops
Navigating the Logic Pro browsers
Importing video to your project
What if you don’t play an instrument or sing? Are you destined to stare at an empty project? No way. Apple loops and prerecorded media come to the rescue.
Logic Pro X comes with an enormous amount of media that you can add to your project. You can build an entire song with nothing but this media. In this chapter, you learn how to use Apple loops, import audio and video files, and much more.
Apple loops are audio and MIDI files that contain additional metadata, such as the key signature, time signature, and tempo. Logic Pro reads this metadata and adjusts the Apple loop to your project settings. For example, if you take an Apple loop in the key of G at 120 beats per minute and put it into a project in the key of E at 100 beats per minute, the Apple loop will automatically adjust to the project tempo and key. Apple loops are flexible. They do a lot of yoga when you’re not using them. It would be a shame for all that stretching to go to waste, so please use Apple loops.
Apple loops can be beats, instrument parts, sound effects, or anything that you want to repeat. You can build an entire project with only Apple loops, or you can use them as accents to live instruments. As limber as they are with time and key signatures, they’re equally able to fit into your project needs.
Logic Pro X gives you a special loop browser to search and find Apple loops, as shown in Figure 8-1. To open the loop browser, choose View⇒Show Apple Loops or press O. You can also open the loop browser by clicking the loop browser icon in the control bar. If you don’t see the loop browser icon, you can customize the control bar as described in Chapter 3.
Here’s a description of the loop browser and its functions:
Audio loops are audio files and can be added to audio tracks. In the loop browser, you can spot an audio Apple loop by its blue icon containing a waveform. You can edit audio Apple loops just as you can a recorded audio region. To add an audio Apple loop to your project, do one of the following:
MIDI loops can be added to software instrument tracks or external MIDI tracks. You can identify MIDI Apple loops by their green icon in the loop browser. To add MIDI Apple loops to your project, do one of the following:
You can also create your own Apple loops from any audio or MIDI region in your project. To create your own Apple loops, Control-click any region and choose Export⇒Add to Loop Library (Shift-Control-O). The Add Region to Apple Loops Library window appears, as shown in Figure 8-3.
You can create the following:
You can also choose the scale, genre, and instrument descriptors. Click the Create button and your Apple loop will be added to the loop browser.
If you have audio files on your hard drive that you want to bring into your project, Logic Pro makes the process a breeze. In most cases, adding audio files to your project is a simple drag-and-drop process from Finder or from one of the Logic Pro browsers to an empty audio track.
To open the Logic Pro browsers, choose View⇒Show Browsers or press F. The browsers open to the right of the tracks area, as shown in Figure 8-4.
Logic Pro gives you three browsers for adding media to your project:
All the audio you record or import into your project will show up in the project audio browser. Click the Project tab in the browser window to see all the audio that’s been collected in your project (refer to Figure 8-4).
At the top of the project audio browser are three menus:
The file list has the following four columns:
You can audition these files by clicking the play icon at the bottom left of the browser. Click the play icon again to stop. Click the loop icon to repeat the audio file after you click the play icon. A volume slider adjusts the volume of the audio file you’re auditioning.
You can drag the audio files and regions to existing audio tracks or to an empty area in the tracks area or track list, where a track will be created to contain the region.
The second tab in the Browser window is the media browser. The media browser displays media created by other Mac applications such as iMovie, GarageBand, iTunes, or Logic Pro. If you want to import content from your iTunes library, which I do all the time to add reference tracks to my project, use the media browser.
At the top of the media browser are the following two tabs:
Below the tabs are the media libraries available on your computer. Selecting a library updates the results list at the bottom of the browser, as shown in Figure 8-5. At the bottom of the window are a play icon and a search field to find and audition your media.
To add media from the media browser, drag the media to an existing audio track or to an empty area in the tracks area or track list, where a track will be created to contain the region.
The third tab in the browser window is the all files browser. If you want to add audio, MIDI, or movies from your computer, you would do it from this browser, as shown in Figure 8-6. The all files browser is like the Finder app.
Here’s a description of the elements in the all files browser:
After you’ve located the file you want to add to your project, you can drag it into the project just like the other browsers. You can also import project settings from the all files browser, as described in Chapter 2.
Logic Pro X isn’t just an audio/MIDI sequencer. You can also import video and add your own movie score. Film and TV scoring with Logic Pro X is intuitive, and you’ll find that adding movies to your project is simple.
As you discovered previously in the chapter, you can add QuickTime movies to your project by using any of the media browsers. You can also add a movie by choosing File⇒Movie⇒Open Movie (Option--O). Navigate to the movie file in the dialog that appears and click Open. The Open Movie dialog asks you to open the movie; if the movie contains an audio track, you can extract the audio track into your project, as shown in Figure 8-7. Click OK and the movie is added to your project and the audio is added to the track list.
Display the inspector, and the movie appears at the top of the inspector, as shown in Figure 8-8. You can double-click the movie to open the video in a separate window.
After you add a movie to your project, you can display the movie track. Choose Track⇒Global Track⇒Show Global Tracks, and the global tracks open above the tracks area. (If the movie track isn’t visible, choose Track⇒Global Track⇒Configure Global Tracks, select the Movie check box, and click Done.) The movie track displays thumbnails of the video and is adjustable by dragging the bottom edge of the movie track, as shown in Figure 8-9.
You can create movie scene markers that are locked to absolute time instead of relative time. This means they won’t move if you change the tempo of your project. Movie scene markers are great for timing your music to the rhythm of the scene. To create movie scene markers, choose Navigate⇒Other⇒Create Movie Scene Markers and select one of the following options:
After you select the option for creating movie scene markers, the movie will be analyzed and markers will be created, as shown in Figure 8-10. Markers are created based on a fixed threshold for scene cuts and work well for most types of video.
If you’ve already imported a movie but not the audio, or if you want to import audio from a movie without importing the movie, choose File⇒Movie⇒Import Audio from Movie. The audio will be added to a track in the track list. Importing audio is useful if you need to build a soundtrack around dialog or sound effects.
As you’ve learned in this chapter, you don’t need to play an instrument to benefit from Logic Pro. You discovered how to import movies so you can compose your own soundtracks. You also found out how to navigate the Logic Pro browsers so you can build a project from prerecorded media. As you can see, Logic Pro can support professional demands, which is why so many musicians rely on it to get great results.
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