In part six of our Logic Pro X Quickstart Series, Scott Griffin shows you how to use take folders and create perfect composite takes, while keeping your session organized.
Learn How To:
Organize multiple takes of a performance
Use quick swipe mode to audition multiple takes and select portions of the performance for the perfect composite take
Adjust automatic crossfade creation, allowing you to edit with greater speed and stay focused on the performance
Create multiple composite versions and organize multiple versionsof the performance
Commit to your edits with features like Flatten and Merge
Use features like unpack take folders to new tracks and more for increased flexibility
00:00:06 Hey guys, today we're gonna talk about
creating take folders inside of Logic
and using Logic's unique
Quick Swipe Comp mode.
00:00:14 Comps are a fancy word for composite
which basically means we're taking
different sections of different takes
and creating the ultimate performance.
00:00:22 Let's check it out.
00:00:25 So here I have a blank project
and I'm just gonna bring
an Apple Loop
by opening the loop browser
with the key command 'O'.
00:00:31 And let's grab like a
'breaks drum beat'.
00:00:36 Audition this one real fast.
00:00:39 That will work.
Let's drag this into our project
and we'll close that browser
by hitting 'O' again.
00:00:46 And so here I have an audio track
pulled up, I'm gonna name this 'verse'.
00:00:51 And let's pretend like
we're in the studio,
we are tracking a vocalist
and we're gonna record
multiple takes of the same verse.
00:00:58 And I'm gonna lay down
some vocal licks for you
so don't steal my awesome song ideas.
00:01:05 Here we go.
00:01:12 OK, so that was our first take.
00:01:14 We're gonna record another take,
because maybe that wasn't the best
take in the world, we wanna try again.
00:01:19 I want you to see what happens
when I record
audio over the top of this
audio region that's
already in our project.
00:01:31 So right there Logic created
a take folder for us automatically.
00:01:35 We can record as many takes
over top of the take folder as we want
and it will just keep adding
the takes to the take folder.
00:01:48 Normally I would sing the same
part over and over again
but I just recorded
"take 1, take 2, take 3",
those words,
to just help us hear the difference
between each take.
00:01:58 I'm also going to quickly
color these takes so we
can see what happens.
00:02:03 By opening the color palette
with the key command Opt + C.
00:02:08 So here we have our color palette.
00:02:10 I'm just gonna make that dark red.
00:02:12 This one feels like dark blue.
00:02:14 And let's go with a nice
dark purple type of color.
00:02:18 So here is our take folder.
00:02:20 We can open and close the take
folder with this disclosure triangle.
00:02:25 Or by double clicking on the region.
00:02:31 There's also a key command
for opening and closing the take folder.
00:02:34 Opt + F.
00:02:36 'F' for folder.
00:02:37 You might say to yourself
that double-clicking
is actually faster than
selecting and then hitting Opt + F
but there is a situation where
you're gonna wanna know this key command.
00:02:47 Often times you have multiple
take folders opened
on different tracks,
and you're in the zone,
you're comping and editing
and then all of the sudden
you look at your project
and it's a mess because you have
30 to 40 takes for each
instrument opened up.
00:03:01 And you don't wanna have to go through
and find each and click
on the arrow or double click.
00:03:05 You can simply select
or use the key command
Cmd + A to select all.
00:03:10 Opt + F, and close them all at one time.
00:03:14 Let me delete these guys
and let's take a look at what's
going on inside of our take folder.
00:03:19 Here we have our three different takes,
take 1, take 2 and take 3.
00:03:24 Whichever take is highlighted
is active on my track.
00:03:39 So that's pretty cool
but the quick swipe mode
allows us
to click and drag, or swipe
over different sections
of different takes
and make our comp.
00:03:49 So now, whichever part is highlighted
goes to our active take.
00:03:57 And then, once we have
our comp sections defined,
instead of
swiping again, we can simply
click to move to a different take
and it maintains the boundaries
of that section that we defined.
00:04:10 The common practice
would be to record
and you like everything
that happened in take 1
except for this one word that was
kind of messed up
so you wanna audition some different
takes of that word.
00:04:22 So we can swipe over that word
and listen to each option that you have.
00:04:27 That one is OK, let's try this one.
00:04:31 And let's hear the original again.
00:04:35 And let's say I like that one.
00:04:36 This is faster and more efficient
than swiping each time you
wanna hear a new option.
00:04:44 And then often what I see happen
is you don't necessarily
grab the whole thing
and you end up with a whole mess
of comping crossfades
up here that you don't want.
00:04:55 So, if you're going to
check out the same word
on multiple takes
it's best to define your comp section
and then simply click.
00:05:04 Now, I just mentioned crossfades.
00:05:07 Notice that Logic automatically
creates crossfades for use.
00:05:11 So this way we're not getting clicks
and pops in-between our comped takes.
00:05:16 We can define the value of our crossfade
by going into our preferences
by hitting Cmd + ,
going to Audio,
Editing
and crossfade.
00:05:26 So we can go down to zero
which wouldn't be a crossfade at all,
all the way up to 500,
which would be pretty crazy.
00:05:34 Let's take a look, if I readjust this
you'll see some wildly
large crossfades happen.
00:05:40 I don't know why you'd ever
wanna do that but it's an option.
00:05:43 The default is 20,
anything between like 5 and
25 is gonna be pretty seamless.
00:05:49 The default is a good place to start.
00:05:51 You can also adjust the crossfade curve.
00:05:55 And let's readjust that
and snap back to 20.
00:05:59 So I know that I'm in
quick swipe comp mode
because my mouse is the quick swipe tool
and also, this button right here
is the quick swipe icon.
00:06:07 If I click it
we see that it changes
to a little scissor's icon,
which lets me know I'm in editing mode.
00:06:14 I can also change that by using
the key command Opt + Q.
00:06:17 But I need to make a point real fast
that currently
I don't have my take folder selected,
I have, if I click on these different
sections of the different takes,
I'm actually just selecting that
section of the take so if I hit delete,
you'll see the different
sections of the takes delete.
00:06:35 To select the folder I need
to click on the top of the region here.
00:06:39 On so now,
when I use the key command Opt + Q,
I can switch back and forth
from quick swipe mode to editing mode.
00:06:48 Once I'm in editing mode
I have my familiar pointer tool
and I can do things like
slide different takes around,
I can use
the marquee tool
just I like I normally would
to delete different sections.
00:07:00 And I can drag out the
edges of my regions.
00:07:03 I use this a lot when I'm
comping together a take
and I think I like
this particular word or phrase
but the timing is a little
too far ahead or too far behind
and I wanna to slide it back
to audition how that would sound.
00:07:15 So I would hit Opt + Q,
I'll cut out this word
and I'll simply slide it back.
00:07:21 And now I can go back
into my quick swipe comp mode
and adjust the boundaries
of my comp sections.
00:07:30 To the left of the quick
swipe comping button
we have the take folder
pop-up menu.
00:07:34 The first thing you'll see is
that we can select from our comp
to our different takes.
00:07:39 One really nice thing is we can do this
even while the take folder is closed.
00:07:43 So, we can audition
different takes
and the A/B them against our comp.
00:07:49 There's actually a shortcut for this,
Shift + Opt + up and down arrows
lets us filter through
different comps and takes.
00:08:00 We can also create more than one comp
by duplicating a comp
and then creating our next comp.
00:08:07 So maybe we had our vocalist
record their normal takes
and then we decide:
'Let's try a few more aggressive takes.'
And that one
kind of looks more like that
and there's our aggressive comp.
00:08:19 We can rename this comp
by hitting rename.
00:08:24 And of course, there's a shortcut,
so I'm gonna just Shift + Opt
up to my other comp.
00:08:28 And then use the shortcut Shift + T
to rename my tracks and comps
and we'll call this the 'delicate take'.
00:08:39 Cool.
00:08:40 So now you'll see, I have my takes
and my aggressive and delicate comp.
00:08:44 And of course, I can delete comps
and there's also this feature
where we can delete all other comps.
00:08:49 You might wanna use this
because if I'm on a take
and I start to:
'Let's try and do another comp.'
Logic actually automatically creates
a new comp for us.
00:08:58 So, then, like: 'Let's try another take'.
00:09:00 'Let's make another comp'.
00:09:02 Now I have a whole bunch of comps
that I didn't necessarily need to create
and if I really like the aggressive one
I'm gonna hit 'delete all other comps'
and now we just have that one comp left.
00:09:13 Once we like our comp
we can just simply close our take folder
and let it live in the project
that way
but this can get kind of cluttered
and also we don't have all the
editing options that we would
if they were just normal regions.
00:09:25 So, I'm gonna show you
a couple different ways to
commit to your comp further.
00:09:29 The first way is to
flatten your take folder.
00:09:32 If we click on the take folder
pop-up menu we can select 'Flatten'
or we can use the key command
Shift + Opt + U.
00:09:38 Now we've converted our take folder
into individual regions
that we can edit normally.
00:09:45 So now I can fine-tune
the lengths of my crossfades.
00:09:50 and get back to my take folder.
00:09:58 The next option we have is
'Flatten and Merge'.
00:10:00 This is a two-step process.
00:10:02 First it flattens it like we saw before
but then it merges our different regions
into one new audio file.
00:10:08 I personally would rather flatten it first
and then make sure
everything is just how
I want it before merging it
but this is just another way to commit
even further to your take.
00:10:19 The next option we have
is 'Export comp to new tracks'.
00:10:23 Now we have new regions
in a new track
that look a lot like when we flattened it
but we maintain our take folder.
00:10:29 So, what you would do here is
probably mute this track
or at least mute the region
using the key command
Ctrl + M.
00:10:37 And let this new lead track
be your vocal take.
00:10:40 This is good if I have commitment issues
because I can always go
back and adjust my comp.
00:10:46 The next option is move
active comp to new track.
00:10:53 This is similar to exporting
except for that it removes
the active sections of my takes
from my take folder.
00:10:59 We can also 'Unpack' our take folder
in a couple of different ways.
00:11:03 I'm gonna skip over the unpack for now
because it acts kind of weird
and show you 'Unpack to new tracks'.
00:11:10 So now I have my 3 takes,
and my comp.
00:11:15 If I have more than one comp
it will give me all of my comps.
00:11:19 This is different from
'Unpack'
because when you unpack it,
instead of 'unpack to new tracks',
it looks the same
but actually all of these tracks
are routed to one channel-strip.
00:11:33 So, you'll see, as I move my volume
up and down or move the pan,
it affects all of them.
00:11:40 I personally never
found a reason to use this,
I would just 'Unpack to new tracks'.
00:11:45 It's much simpler and
works like you think it would.
00:11:48 Our last option is to
'Unpack to new track alternatives'.
00:11:52 And we'll have to get into
track alternatives
at a different time.
00:11:56 They're pretty cool but
they're for a different video.
00:11:59 If we can unpack take folders
we can of course pack take folders.
00:12:02 So if a vocalist or
someone you're working with
sends you several takes
of a verse or something
you can just drop those
audio tracks into your session,
select the ones you wanna include
right click or Ctrl + click,
come down to folder
and hit 'Pack take folder'.
00:12:18 Or avoid all of that by
using the key command
Ctrl + Opt + Cmd + F.
00:12:23 And now we have a take folder
just like when we recorded it.
00:12:27 As you can see, it's easy to create
the perfect performance inside of Logic
using take folder and Logic's
Quick Swipe Comp mode.
00:12:33 I see you next time.
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Scott Griffin is a producer, songwriter, and composer for artists like Kid Runner, Effee, The Saylor, and Clubhouse. He has also produced custom music for large brands such as Proctor & Gamble, The Columbus Crew Soccer Club, Walmart, Nationwide Insurance and many more.
The colorchange can be set automatically in audio setup like in pro tools, so you don't have to do it afterwards
ludwigmack
2020 Mar 29
I never used the take folders because I felt safer recording new tracks. I'm starting to use them from now on! Loved the video!
vitalogyman
2019 Dec 28
I'm loving these Logic videos!! I've used Logic for a while now but every one of these has some piece of advice that I was lacking. Thank you very much!
