Chapter 2
In This Chapter
Starting and finishing projects
Discovering some timesaving workflow tips
Backing up and securing your projects
Sharing your projects for collaboration
Logic Pro projects are similar to any computer file types, except they’re larger in scope than files such as text documents. You might be shocked to see an entire chapter about a file type, but there’s so much more you can do with Logic Pro projects than you can with other file types that you’ll soon understand how important they are to the creative process.
Projects are flexible. When disk space is a concern, for example, you can save only the assets you want to keep. You can create project templates to speed up your workflow and set up Logic Pro exactly how you want to work. Each project contains global settings of the entire project as well as different snapshots of the project, such as different arrangements, mixes, or treatments. For example, you can create an alternate version of your project if the producer calls for a version without a vocal (for when the performer needs to sing live on TV to a backing track).
In this chapter, I cover naming conventions to keep all your projects organized, tips and tricks to speed up your workflow, strategies for archiving and backing up your work, and much more.
A project is the file type that you work with in Logic Pro. The file extension of a Logic Pro project is .logicx. The project file contains MIDI events, parameter settings, and information about the audio and video in your project.
To get the big picture of your project and how it relates to Logic Pro, the hierarchy goes like this:
Project⇒Tracks⇒Regions⇒Events
Your project contains tracks. Your tracks contain regions. Your regions contain events. The File menu is where you do most of your project-level work.
To start an empty default Logic Pro project, choose File⇒New or press Shift++N. A New Tracks dialog window opens, as shown in Figure 2-1. At the top of the screen, choose the type of track you would like to begin working with and then click Create.
A more advanced and customized way to start a new project is to choose File⇒New from Template (+N). The Project Chooser window opens, as shown in Figure 2-2. You can select a premade project template, a recent project, or your own customized project template. I show you how to create a customized orchestral template in Chapter 12. Click Details (on the left) to display even more options for your new project, such as the tempo, time and key signatures, and audio input and output.
After you start your project, you’re ready to begin recording, arranging, editing, and mixing. It’s a dream come true.
You can open a project in several ways. You can click a project file in Finder, which will launch Logic Pro and open the project. If another project is open, Logic Pro will ask if you want to close the project. More than one project can be open simultaneously, so it’s not necessary to close the current project. To switch between open projects, choose Window on the main menu and then select the project in the list at the bottom of the menu.
You can open a project also from the File menu. Choose File⇒Open or press +O and a dialog will open allowing you to navigate to the location of your project in Finder. Choose File⇒Open Recent instead to see a list of your recent projects.
Logic Pro can also open MIDI files, AAF files (Advanced Authoring Format files used by digital audio workstations such as Pro Tools), XML files (used by Final Cut Pro X), and GarageBand projects. It can also open projects created with earlier versions of Logic Pro.
When you create your project, it is autosaved in the Logic folder under the temporary name Untitled.logicx. (You can get to the Logic folder in Finder by navigating to Users⇒USERNAME⇒Music⇒Logic.)
To save your project manually, choose File⇒Save. In the Save dialog that appears, name your project and choose a location or keep the default location, which is the Logic folder. You can choose to organize your project as a package or a folder. A package saves your project as a single file that includes all project assets. A folder saves the project file and saves its assets in subfolders.
You can also choose to copy specific file types into your project. It’s a good idea to copy your audio files into the project, but you might not want to copy samples due to their potentially large file size. The benefit to saving a project without assets is that you conserve hard drive space. The downside is that it can be easy to mistakenly delete assets the project depends on. Hard drive space is inexpensive, so it makes sense to include all assets in your project folder. By doing so, organizing, moving, and archiving projects will be easier.
If you want to save the project with a different name or in a different location, choose Save As on the File menu. If you want to create a copy of the project, choose Save a Copy As on the File menu.
When you’re ready to close your project, choose File⇒Close Project. If you’ve made any changes since you last saved your project, Logic Pro asks if you want to save the project. If you don’t want to keep those changes, select Don’t Save from the Save dialog.
Don’t confuse the Close Project command with the Close command. Both are on the File menu. The Close command simply closes the currently focused window. However, if your project has only one window open, which is often the case, using the Close command will also close your current project.
It’s a good idea to have a naming convention and stick with it. When I’m saving a project that doesn’t yet have a title, my file-naming convention is to use the date, key signature, harmonic mode, and tempo, followed by any other useful descriptors such as the musical genre, song section, and version numbers. For example:
2014-01-01 C Mixolydian 120bpm funk verse 1
Naming your file this way enables you to match projects based on mode and tempo. If you eventually come up with a title for your project, use the Save As command (described earlier) or just rename the project file in Finder. Or you can use the Rename function by choosing File⇒Project Management⇒Rename.
Projects are so basic to your workflow that you may take them for granted after a while. But you can do several cool things at the project level that will make your time with Logic Pro more productive.
When you create a project (see earlier in this chapter), you see Project Chooser, where you can begin a project from a premade template. These default templates are excellent starting places. You can also create your own project templates.
How can you save time with templates? If you’re recording several songs with a band and each song has a similar setup or you’re a film composer and use the same orchestra setups for all your scores, you could create a project template once and use it over and over again. (You find out how to create an orchestral template in Chapter 12.)
To save a template, set up your project how you want it and then choose File⇒Save as Template. Project templates are saved in a special folder located at Users⇒USERNAME⇒Music⇒Audio Music Apps⇒Project Templates.
I love using templates and I’ve saved dozens of them. I have genre-based templates, templates that include my favorite third-party software, and templates that I’ve created from analyzing popular hits (and not-so-popular guilty pleasures). Templates are excellent productivity tools.
When I was in high school, I spent an entire evening sequencing a popular song in one of the first Apple MIDI sequencers. I spent hours hunched over a computer keyboard instead of doing my homework, completely focused, with no bathroom breaks, until the electricity went out. I hadn’t saved the project even once.
Even though I was crushed, I jumped back in, and sequencing was much easier the second time around. I also developed a habit of pressing +S that I still have to this day. You might even find my left hand “air-saving” while I’m away from the computer. It’s a habit I’m happy to have.
Fortunately for you, Logic Pro X autosaves your work. If Logic Pro should crash, when you reopen the project, it will ask you to choose an autosaved version or the last manually saved version. However, even though the program autosaves, get in the habit of saving your work after every important change you make.
What would you do if your computer was stolen or ruined? Barring the financial considerations of buying a new computer, could you recover quickly? If I were to lend you my own computer, could you rebound and save the game? If you couldn’t, please pay attention, for the sake of your music.
I’m a backup fanatic. I back up all my computers using Apple Time Capsule, built-in Time Machine software, and a few rotating external drives. I also back up my entire computer offline using Amazon S3 cloud storage. But wait, there’s more. I sync my current projects using Dropbox so I can work on them at multiple computers.
Logic Pro X also creates project backups every time you save your project. As long as you have Show Advanced Tools selected in the Advanced Preferences pane (see Chapter 1), you can revert to an earlier saved version of your project. Every time you save your project, a backup is made. You can revert to these backups by choosing File⇒Revert To. A list of your time-stamped project backups allows you to go back in time to a previously saved project. This feature saves you when you try things out that you don’t like or make mistakes while working.
You can create alternative projects within a project. This feature saves you from creating new projects or copies of projects every time you want to try something new. The downside of creating copies of projects is that if you don’t do it properly and you delete audio from one project that’s being used in another project, you might lose that file in the first project. If everything is self-contained, you can try things out until your mad genius is content. Also, if you create two projects and want to A/B them, switching back and forth means all the plug-ins have to be reloaded each time, which can take enough time that your ear can’t tell the difference between the two.
To create a project alternative, choose File⇒Alternatives⇒New Alternative. You can rename and remove the alternatives by choosing File⇒Alternatives⇒Edit Alternative. As shown in Figure 2-4, each project alternative is time-stamped, which helps you know which project is the most recent and which is the original.
Following are some examples of project alternatives you might want to try:
Similar to the Logic Pro X Preferences, your project has its global settings that you can adjust. You get to the project settings shown in Figure 2-5 by choosing File⇒Project Settings.
Here’s a description of the Preferences panes you can choose at the top of the Project Settings window:
What if you’ve already started a project but have another project that’s set up the way you want? Importing settings from other projects into your current project is a breeze. Choose File⇒Project Settings⇒Import Project Settings. A dialog asks you to find the project from which you want to import settings. Select the project, choose Import, and the window in Figure 2-6 appears, displaying the settings you can import into your project. Select the project settings you want to copy and click Import.
If you want to import track content (the audio and MIDI regions) and channel strip settings from another project, you use another project import option. Choose File⇒Import⇒Logic Projects. In the dialog that appears, select the project from which you want to import and then click Import.
The all files browser opens on the right side of the main window and displays the track import view, as shown in Figure 2-7. Track content, plug-ins, effects sends (see Chapter 16), I/O (input/output) settings, and automation are shown for every track.
Decide what you want to import by selecting the check boxes. You can also bring in markers and other global track content. When you’re ready to import, click Add to import the content into the current project or click Replace to import the data and replace the content of the currently selected track. Replace mode works on only a single track at a time.
The Import Project Settings button gives you the same dialog as File⇒Project Settings⇒Import Project Settings does. As you can see, you can import information into your current project in several ways.
Another way to get to the projects import function is to use the all files browser and navigate to a Logic project. Choose View⇒Show Browsers or press the F key. Click the All Files tab of the browser, select the project from which you want to import, and double-click the project or click the Import button at the bottom of the browser. The browser displays the track import view, and you can choose what you would like to import into your current project.
You might want to export your project for several reasons. Perhaps you want to collaborate with other artists or you want to work on your project in a different software application. You can also export portions of your project for use in other projects. To export regions, MIDI selections, tracks, and the entire project, begin by choosing File⇒Export.
To export a region and add it to your Apple loop library, choose File⇒Export⇒Region to Loop Library. The dialog shown in Figure 2-8 appears. Name your file, choose the loop type, select the scale and genre, and add other tags and instrument descriptors. Click Create to export your Apple loop and add it to the loop library.
If you simply want to export the region to your hard drive as an audio file, choose File⇒Export⇒Region as Audio File. In the dialog that appears, select the file location, audio file format, and bit depth.
You can export a selection of MIDI tracks as a MIDI file by choosing File⇒Export⇒Selection as MIDI File. Selecting more than one MIDI region will result in a single MIDI file.
To export your tracks for use in a different audio application, such as Pro Tools, choose File⇒Export⇒All Tracks as Audio Files. In the dialog that appears, select the audio format, the bit depth, and other options that will determine how the tracks are processed before they are exported. If your exported audio tracks will be mixed in another application, it’s best to select the Bypass Effect Plug-ins and Include Volume/Pan Automation options.
Exporting a project as an AAF (Advanced Authoring Format) file is another option for collaborating with Pro Tools users. Choose File⇒Export⇒Project as AAF File. All the used regions will be exported, including their track and position references and volume automation.
To export a project as a Final Cut Pro XML file, choose File⇒Export⇒Project to Final Cut Pro XML. Software instruments and automation data are exported as audio, but MIDI tracks are ignored.
You can export your MIDI score as a MusicXML file if you want to edit the notation in a program such as Sibelius or Finale or in a music optical character recognition (OCR) application such as SmartScore or PhotoScore. Cubase and Sonar can also import MusicXML files. Select the MIDI you want to export, open the score editor by choosing Window⇒Open Score Editor, and then choose File⇒Export⇒Score as MusicXML.
When you work on your projects, you’ll probably try lots of things, record takes that don’t make the mix, and basically add a bunch of audio and MIDI data that doesn’t need to be there when it comes time to share or archive your project. You should give your project a spring-cleaning to get it ready for the next season in its life. If you plan to send your project to a collaborator or archive it because it’s finished, you’ll appreciate the following useful tools in the File⇒Project Management menu:
Now that your project is nice and tidy, it’s important to think about protecting it for the future. A good backup strategy can save you from downtime and avoidable, life-shortening stress. Hard drives fail, so back up your project files on CD or DVD and consider using a service that allows you to back up offsite. Also, because Logic Pro X will probably not be the final version of this amazing software, export your tracks as audio files so that you can import them into a version of Logic Pro down the line. Your future self will thank you.
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