The increase in production of mobile phone apps in the past 3 years has opened up some excellent opportunities for the commercial composer. Theme songs, music timers, UI hits and level music are now needed for all mobile apps, be they functional, informational, or game programs. However, mobile app production teams face the same …
In the last installment of Effective Drum Mixing we went through the rough levels of each instrument, checking the phase of the snare and general panning. Therefore, the faders are mostly where we want them, the snare is punching through without phase problems and every drum is panned in the stereo field. Listen to what we’ve done so…
The grid editor in Logic Pro is great for lining up your notes into multiples of 4 (8th notes, 16th notes, 32nd notes, etc) and multiples of 3 (triplets, sextuplets, etc). But what if you need a run with 7 notes in it, or a figure with 5? Difficulty: Beginner Time: 5 minutes Requirements: Logic Pro Summary: How to create…
The grid editor in Logic Pro is great for lining up your notes into multiples of 4 (8th notes, 16th notes, 32nd notes, etc) and multiples of 3 (triplets, sextuplets, etc). But what if you need a run with 7 notes in it, or a figure with 5? Difficulty: Beginner Time: 5 minutes Requirements: Logic Pro…
For many audio writers, the basics of production sometimes seem so trivial that they’re overlooked as topics for sites like Audiotuts+. A piece on setting up send/return effects has been a request of readers for a while now, and today I’ll teach you how to create — and…
When you’re working with loops, particularly drum loops, to form the rhythmic basis of a composition, you often find yourself wishing you could do more to customize the track. Logic Pro 9 has a few tools that allow us to work with audio as if it were MIDI–such as the…
Sidechaining has been a popular tool amongst engineers for long time. I have covered the basic methods for achieving the effect in a few popular DAWs, including Logic, Cubase and Reason but let’s take a look at some real world examples of how we can use the technique. Many people use sidechaining as a way to make their…
In Logic Pro 9, Apple included a new speed fade feature which allows you to replicate the effect of a record speeding up or speeding down (at least in some stylized way). This is a common effect in modern music, and it’s worth learning this simple but handy
In a music world where less and less people are bothering to learn to read and write “proper” notation, more easily grasped formats such as tablature are very popular—particularly in popular music where the nuance of rhythm can be derived from feel and instinct more easily than, say, classical. When composing in Logic, you can provide your guitarists …
Imagine the precious seconds you lose every time you take a simple action via a menu option or clicking a button on the screen. Once you memorize a set of keyboard shortcuts and make new shortcuts for tasks you find yourself doing frequently, you begin to save a lot of time. You&#…
