Chapter 1: Beginning with Logic Pro X 10.5

If you have purchased this book, then you probably already know that Logic Pro X is Apple's flagship application for music creation. I like to say that if you can conceive it, you can create it with Logic Pro X 10.5. It comes with everything you really need, and more, at a bargain price.

10.5 has added some very impressive features to what was already a full package of tools, loops, FX plug-ins, and software instruments. In addition to Logic Pro X's revolutionary Drummer, Drum Machine Designer has had a significant upgrade and works with Live Loops in an exciting way that Ableton Live and GarageBand iOS users will be familiar with. Quick Sampler, along with the new updated Sampler, is a game changer for me. Auto Sampler, previously only available in Main Stage, is now part of Logic Pro X. Recording your vocals and guitars is now a snap.

Specifically, this chapter covers the following topics:

• Important information for beginning with Logic Pro X 10.5
• Audio versus MIDI
• What hardware besides my Mac will I need?
• Preferences versus Project Settings

Important information for beginning with Logic Pro X

You know the old saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"? In this chapter, you will learn all you need to begin your Logic Pro X journey.

What are Audio and MIDI?

In this section, we will look at the differences between Audio and MIDI.

When you record yourself singing or playing a real instrument in Logic Pro X, the truth is you are actually recording an audio waveform to a drive with Logic Pro X as a conduit. If you delete Logic Pro X from your computer, your recording will still be there, unless you delete it.

I like to compare it to a house: somebody drew up a blueprint, ordered the supplies, and built the house.

Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) is just a set of instructions that is interpreted by a software instrument, synthesizer, or other hardware keyboard that is capable of understanding it. For example, when you press a key on a keyboard controller, Logic sees "sound this note that we agree is middle C, play it this loud, hold it for this length of time."

If you load a flute sound in a software instrument, you hear what sounds like a flute. If you load a piano sound, it sounds like a piano. If you record a part and then delete it, it's gone and if you don't save the project, it's gone when you quit Logic. Unlike an audio file, which is a waveform recorded on a hard drive, a MIDI region is just a set of instructions that are saved in the Logic project.

So, it's more like the blueprint for the house than the constructed house.

Selecting essential hardware for Logic Pro X 10.5

As well as a Mac, you may need some additional hardware to effectively use Logic Pro X. Let's explore what we can add to our setup.

An audio interface

While most Mac computers have a built-in microphone audio playback capability, and a speaker, they are not really adequate for creating good-sounding music, just for perhaps getting ideas down.

When you want to use a microphone to record your voice singing or speaking, your computer needs something to record it. Firstly, the microphone won't be loud enough, so you need a microphone pre-amp (mic pre). An audio interface will have one or more of these.

Also, microphones are analog devices and computers don't understand analog information unless it is translated to digital information. So, you need an analog-to-digital converter. Then, for the sound to go back out to speakers, which 99% of the time are analog, you need a digital-to-analog converter. An audio interface will have these.

You need one or more inputs to plug your microphones or instrument cables into, and outputs to a set of speakers or a console. You will often see the inputs and outputs referred to as I/O. You'll also require a headphone jack to listen through headphones.

I now have some good news for you. It used to be that to buy an audio interface that had one or more good mic pres and good converters, you had to spend a fair amount of money. Now it is hard to buy one that doesn't have those. Mostly, the more expensive ones will have more ins and outs, which you might need to record a whole band or mic a drum set with multiple mics. For most of you, however, one or two mic pres and ins with a stereo output will be just fine. There are even USB microphones that include an audio interface that podcasters frequently turn to.

Speaking of microphones, if you are singer or want to record a saxophone or other instrument that does not plug in to the audio interface directly with a cable, you will need a microphone or two. Again, they range from the inexpensive but decent to the incredibly expensive. There are essentially three kinds of microphones: condenser, dynamic, and ribbon mics:

• Condenser mics are commonly used to record vocals and acoustic instruments. They feature an extended and flat frequency range and come with either large or small capsules. They are less commonly used on live stages because they pick up more off-axis sounds, may not handle really loud signals coming into them as well as dynamic mics do, and they are less durable. Also, they require phantom power, which is built into most mixers and mic pres. The Neumann U47 and U87 are two famous examples. The price ranges from very inexpensive to really expensive.
• Dynamic mics, like the famous Shure SM57 and 58 that you see, are widely used on stage because they do reject off-axis sound, can handle really loud signals, and if you drop them, they probably will not break. Also, they are generally pretty inexpensive. They also are widely used in studios, even though they have a less extended frequency range, color the sound, and are less detailed. But for miking guitar amps and rap and screaming rock vocals, they may still be your choice.
• Ribbon mics were probably the most common mics in recording studios from the 1930s until the 1970s but fell out of favor when high-quality condenser mics became more prevalent. In recent years, they have become more popular again. They are usually fairly expensive, although less expensive ones have appeared in the marketplace. The classic diamond-shaped ribbon mic is associated with Frank Sinatra. Modern-day offerings from companies like RØDE and Royer Labs have now become popular.

I will only say that the microphone type and costliness don't always determine how well it pairs with your voice. I recorded all the vocals on my album Honestly (I know, shameless self-promotion) with a $400 dynamic mic.

You can, of course, delay any decision and use the built-in capabilities of your Mac until you get your feet wet, if you wish.

A MIDI controller

These can consist of a wide combination of keys, knobs, faders, and drum pads. If you are a real pianist, you might want one with 88 full-size weighted keys. If you aren't, 37 unweighted small keys may be fine. If you are not going to play much in real time but just program the information in, then Logic's built-in virtual keyboard may be sufficient. There are decent inexpensive ones and then more expensive ones, depending on your needs.

Monitor speakers

Unlike the speakers you listen to music on for pleasure, these are not designed to make the music sound as good as possible but are designed to be "flat" so that you can be pretty sure that it translates well, meaning that the mix you hear will be approximately the way it will sound in most people's listening environments. There is a huge range of price and size configurations, from nearfield, to midfield, to larger speaker systems with sub-woofers. For most music creators, a decent pair of nearfields gets the job done. Also, the room you are in plays a role as it may be too dead sounding, too reflective, or trap bass frequencies, and that affects what you hear when you are listening to your music and mixing it.

So, if your room is not treated or good sounding, can you mix just with headphones and forgo speakers? Yes, but there are disadvantages that I will discuss when we deal with mixing.

Monitor headphones

Again, these are not about beautiful sound but accurate reproduction. As is the case with monitors, you want the headphones to give you as uncolored a sound as possible so that you know how your music will sound on other systems.

Enough talk about gear, let's talk about Logic Pro X and all that you will derive from learning to use it well.

Preferences versus Project Settings

A Preference in Logic will affect every Logic project past, present, and future, starting from choices you make after you open it for the very first time.

Project Settings are specific to a given project and therefore do not necessarily affect past or future projects, unless they are saved in a template. There are ways, however, to create defaults that you can apply to past or present projects, as you will learn.

Over the following sections, we'll explore how to use preferences and project settings when you are opening Logic Pro X for the first time.

Opening Logic Pro X for the very first time!

If you have already opened Logic before, you have seen this in the past and may be getting different behavior. By default, Logic looks for your most recently opened project. If this truly is the first time you have opened it, you may see a description of What's New in the Logic version you are opening. Following that, this is what you will see:

Figure 1.1: Creating tracks in a new project

Everything flows through Channel Strips in Logic, some for creating MIDI parts with software instruments, others for recording audio, and then there is Logic's amazing Drummer, which we will cover in Chapter 7, Logic Pro X's Drummer. To proceed, you need to create at least one Channel Strip.

Opening the Details arrow gives you more information and options:

Figure 1.2: Selecting a track type

I decide to go with an Audio Channel Strip without opening the Library, for now. My first Logic project is now open. The following figure shows my open project, with the added Audio Channel Strip track:

Figure 1.3: A new Logic project with one audio track

If, like most new users of Logic Pro X, you first started with GarageBand, boy doesn't this look familiar?

Yes, it does, and that is because they are both the creations of the same design team!

But we want Logic Pro X, not GarageBand, so we will use the Preferences to do just that. Because they are Preferences, we will only need to do it once. If you are familiar with Superman, either the comic strips, TV shows, or movies, you know that he is mild-mannered Clark Kent until he goes into a phone booth, rips off his clothes and glasses, and becomes Superman. This our Superman moment!

Under the Logic Pro X menu, navigate to Preferences | Advanced Tools:

Figure 1.4: Advanced Tools Preferences

Click on Show Advanced Tools and you will see that you can enable a selection of them or enable all of them. You will want to check Enable All, but then uncheck Surround, unless you are already set up for surround sound with your speaker system.

Click the red dot at the top to exit the Advanced Tools window and, as you can see, the look of the interface has changed a bit. Congratulations, you are now seeing Logic Pro X.

Changing Logic Pro X's default opening behavior

As I said, by default, Logic will look to open the most recent project you are working on, and that is fine if that is what you choose, but I don't recommend it. First of all, I think most users work on more than one project at a time. Secondly, projects can get corrupted and have trouble opening. Although that is rare and there are strategies to deal with it, I prefer not to have it be my default.

Let's explore the other options.

Under the Logic Pro X menu, navigate to Preferences | General.

In the Project Handling tab, if you hold down on Startup Action you see the choices you have:

• Do Nothing: Just what it sounds like. Logic looks for a further choice from you.
• Open Most Recent Project: The default.
• Open Existing Project: Logic will open the default save location and let you look for a specific project.
• Select a Template: Logic comes with several templates and you can create your own.
• Create New Empty Project: Self-explanatory, I think.
• Create New Project Using Default Template: Fine if you only use one.
• Ask: This is my recommended choice, for two reasons. The first is sometimes I want a specific template, sometimes I want a specific project, and sometimes I want to start from scratch. I like options. Secondly, how often does anyone ask me what I truly want? (sniffle)

Whichever you choose, that will be the default unless you go back and change it, and if you quit Logic and then re-open it, that is the behavior you will get. Your choices may change over time and I am not the workflow police if you have a different preference, but for me, Ask is the way to go.

Summary

You have now been introduced to the concepts of audio and MIDI, and how they differ. You own a Mac and Logic Pro X but there is additional hardware that you will want to have to use it effectively. The good news is that it doesn't have to be expensive. You now understand that Logic Pro X has both Preferences, which affect all projects, and Project Settings, which are project specific, although some can be saved as defaults. You have learned your choices as to how Logic Pro X behaves when opening it, and my personal preference.

In the next chapter, we will become familiar with all the areas in the Logic Pro X interface, along with its menus and its terminology. You will learn about how to set Tools in each window, and all the vast content that comes as part of Logic Pro X, including sounds and Apple Loops that you can load from the Library.