In part nine of our Logic Pro X Quickstart Series, Scott Griffin shows you how to manipulate the pitch of audio performances using the included Flex Pitch feature. Flex Pitch allows you to perform tasks such as vocal tuning and can also be used to create harmonies and doubles from existing performances.
Learn How To:
Adjust fine pitch, pitch drift in, pitch drift out, vibrato, gain and formant shift
Tune vocals
Create harmonies
Scale quantize
Adjust your playhead behavior for quick auditioning
00:00:06 Hey guys, today we're gonna
talk about Flex Pitch inside of Logic.
00:00:10 Flex Pitch allows you to edit
the pitch of your audio
much like Melodyne or Auto-Tune.
00:00:15 It's mainly intended for tuning vocals
but it has some other great
uses like creating quick harmonies.
00:00:20 It's a great tool to add
to your toolbox
so let's check it out.
00:00:24 Here we have a session with
a vocal part and a piano track.
00:00:27 Let's take a listen.
00:00:35 Our vocalist was a little bit pitchy,
specially at the end,
he felt pretty flat.
00:00:40 But we can use Flex Pitch to help him out.
00:00:43 To activate Flex Pitch we need
to use the Show/Hide Flex button
up here in our track's menu.
00:00:48 We can also use the key command
Cmd + F.
00:00:52 And now, instead of choosing
a Flex Time algorithm
we're gonna select Flex Pitch.
00:00:58 Flex Pitch is now active.
00:01:00 There are two ways
we can view Flex Pitch.
00:01:03 This first way is a
quick view of Flex Pitch.
00:01:05 From here, all we can really do
is adjust the fine pitch of our audio.
00:01:09 So, we can drag these lines up and down,
which will make the
notes sharper or flatter.
00:01:18 As we move the line
more towards the middle
it becomes in-tune.
00:01:26 And you can see, as a I go higher,
it becomes more sharp.
00:01:33 And I can go lower to make it flat.
00:01:39 As I click and hold on the pitch bars
it shows me what note I'm on
and also how many cents
I'm sharp or flat.
00:01:48 When I reach a value of zero,
I'm where Logic tells me I'm in tune
This is fine for making quick edits
but there's a much more
powerful view of Flex Pitch
that we can access by
opening up the audio editor.
00:01:59 To do that we double click on our region.
00:02:02 So here we have a
great visual representation
of what's going on with our pitch
in our audio file.
00:02:08 In the background we
have the audio waveform
and then we have these blocks
showing us what pitch we are on.
00:02:15 Not only does the block
shows the pitch we're on
but you can see immediately
if our note is sharp or flat
by the outline of the block,
whether it's above or below the pitch.
00:02:24 So, the more sharp I am
the more space I'll have
in the outline of this block
above my E,
which is the pitch that I'm on.
00:02:32 And as I go flat
I get space on the bottom of my note.
00:02:37 More importantly than these blocks
I have a wavy white line going
through the blocks
that is showing me my actual pitch
throughout the duration of the note.
00:02:46 So, here in this first note
we can see that Logic
is telling me it's in-tune
but the actual pitch starts out
pretty high and then
dips down beneath the F
and then kind of does
a vibrato at the end.
00:02:59 So even though the average of the pitch
is the center of the F,
the entire thing is pretty pitchy.
Let's take a listen to that.
00:03:09 This is a pretty quick note
so it's not the end of the world
but with the tools
provided to us in Flex Time
we can do a few things
to help this note out.
00:03:17 The first thing that you'll
notice when I hover over a block
is that 6 different hot spots appear.
00:03:22 These contain my different editing tools.
00:03:25 The top middle one
is my Fine Pitch tool.
00:03:27 From here I can adjust
the pitch up or down.
00:03:35 The range goes from -50 cents flat
to +50 cents sharp.
00:03:46 Once I cross over 50 cents sharp
I'm into the range of the next note.
00:03:50 The top left hot spot
is our Pitch Drift In.
00:03:53 This lets me tame the
beginning of the note.
00:03:58 And the top right is my Pitch Drift Out.
00:04:03 Often singers will hit a
note kind of sharp or flat,
maybe they will swoop into a note
or they'll fall flat at the end.
00:04:09 This just gives us
individual control over the
beginning and the ends of the notes.
00:04:14 Our bottom middle hot spot
is the vibrato.
00:04:16 Vibrato is how much our
pitch wavers inside of a note.
00:04:19 It starts at 100%
and if we want to tame it
we can bring it down.
00:04:24 But the more that we do
the last natural it will sound.
00:04:27 If we go all the way down to zero
you'll see that we have
a bunch of flat lines.
00:04:31 Let's take a listen to
what that sounds like.
00:04:37 Notice that this first
note isn't completely flat,
that's just because our pitch drift
in and out, or both, already edited.
00:04:46 As you can see,
with any of these adjustments,
the more extreme we go
the last natural it starts to sound.
00:04:51 So if you're in a situation where
you've gone too far
you can simply select notes
that you wanna start over with,
right-click and hit 'Reset all'.
00:04:59 Now we're back to where we started.
00:05:01 You also notice that I have some
other edit options when I right-click,
like 'Set to original pitch'.
00:05:06 Or I can set it to the perfect pitch.
00:05:08 I'm gonna make a quick point about
what Logic thinks it's perfect pitch.
00:05:12 Logic is just looking
at the average pitch throughout
the duration of the note
and not really taking
in the context of the note.
00:05:18 So if we look at this note for instance,
Logic has moved the block
all the way up to the F
but if we look at the white line,
it's almost entirely sharp,
except for in the beginning
where it's super flat.
00:05:29 So this is note is actually
gonna sound a lot more sharp
than if we left it alone.
00:05:33 Here's where Logic put it
when we set it to perfect pitch.
00:05:37 It's pretty sharp.
00:05:38 If we set it back to the original pitch
you can see most of this white line
is a lot closer to the center of that F,
which is what would be in-tune.
00:05:48 Maybe it's a little bit flat,
let's just use our
Fine Pitch hot spot to adjust it.
00:05:58 That sounds a lot more
in-tune than when Logic
just used the average
pitch to set the perfect pitch.
00:06:03 Anytime you're letting the
computer make decisions for you
it's really important to go back
and listen to it.
00:06:08 You also notice on the left,
we have some more
parameters that we can edit.
00:06:12 One of them being Pitch Correction.
00:06:14 With this slider here
we can select certain notes
and then correct them
from 0 to 100,
100 being, once again,
what Logic thinks is perfect.
00:06:25 And if we were closer to 50
it would be halfway in-between
our original pitch, and perfect.
00:06:32 Now remember,
we can't really trust
Logic's perfect pitch.
00:06:35 But if we have a really
problematic singer
who's all over the place
this might give us
a better starting point.
00:06:41 So we could,
if we zoom out by hitting
'Z' to see our entire region,
we could select all
and now adjust
the pitch correction
to wherever we feel like
gives us a good starting point.
00:06:52 Remember to go back and listen.
00:06:54 At the bottom of these
parameters we have scale quantize.
00:06:57 So I know the song is in C Major
and I can choose C Major in my
scale quantize
to conform all of my
pitches to the C Major scale.
00:07:05 To do this I'm gonna select C...
00:07:08 And major is already selected.
00:07:11 And I'm gonna select the notes
I want to quantize
and hit the 'Q'.
00:07:17 And you can see these
notes move around quite a bit.
00:07:20 Notice that it maintained the
sharpness or the flatness of my notes.
00:07:23 So I'm gonna wanna use this in
combination with the pitch correction.
00:07:30 Let's take a listen.
00:07:35 It's starting to sound better.
00:07:37 But this note here,
I actually know that he intended
to sing an E, not a D.
00:07:41 So I'm just gonna change
that note by using the Hand tool.
00:07:43 If I just click and hold over the block
it let's move normally by a half-note
but because I'm in C Major quantize
it's gonna move by a whole note
and conform to the scale.
00:07:56 It's important to know that even though
I only quantized a selection of notes
Scale Quantize is actually
implemented on a track level.
00:08:04 So as I move other notes around
the conform to the C Major scale.
00:08:10 To disable this
I just need to select 'off'
in the scale quantize menu.
00:08:15 And I know I can move
my notes chromatically.
00:08:19 You have to more hot spots to go over.
00:08:21 The bottom left is gain.
00:08:23 Gain allows us to adjust
the level of individual notes.
00:08:26 Let's check it out.
00:08:28 Gain is really convenient if a singer
sang a note too quiet or too loud.
00:08:32 We can easily make adjustments
without having to reach,
for a compressor or automation.
00:08:43 You can see we can get
way too extreme with this if we want to,
going from -30 dB all the way up to +30.
00:08:50 And you can see my waveform in
the background getting pretty crazy.
00:08:53 I can also change the gain by using
the slider on the left side of my screen.
00:08:57 But remember, as with pitch correction,
we have to select our
notes first to use the slider.
00:09:05 Our final hot spot
is our Formant Shift.
00:09:07 Formant Shift is changing the
timbre of the note higher or lower
without actually changing the pitch.
00:09:12 Let me show you.
00:09:14 To use Formant Shift
I'm gonna select a couple of notes here
and I'm gonna grab
my bottom right hot spot
and let's shift this up.
00:09:26 OK, so as I shift my formants up
it starts to sound more feminine
and as I get more extreme
it sounds kind of like a chipmunk.
00:09:38 If I go lower it's gonna start to
sound more masculine.
00:09:48 And if I wanna get a super
cool hip monster vocal FX
I'm gonna go super low.
00:09:57 Oddly enough we're hearing that
FX a lot in pop music right now.
00:10:01 Besides these especial effects
a formant shift actually has a place
in making a vocal sound more natural.
00:10:07 The more we move a
note from its original pitch
the more feminine or masculine
it's gonna sound
if we're moving up or down.
00:10:15 We can compensate for this
by moving the formant down.
00:10:24 It's important to know
that the further away
my note gets from its original pitch
the more artifacts I'm gonna get
and the last natural it's gonna sound.
00:10:32 If you're going for a
natural sound while tuning
less is more.
00:10:35 We can also adjust the timing of our audio
by using the Flex tool on
the edges of our blocks.
00:10:41 Notice that as I adjust the
beginning or end of one note
I'm affecting the adjacent note.
00:10:51 I can also Time Quantize my audio.
00:10:53 To do this I need to
select my quantize value,
select the notes I wish to quantize
and then press 'Q'.
00:11:02 I can also adjust the
strength of my quantize here.
00:11:07 It's important to note that Time Quantize
is dependent on Logic's
ability to read transients.
00:11:12 And vocals don't always
have super defined transients.
00:11:16 So your mileage may vary on this one.
00:11:19 So now that we understand
the tools we have at our disposal
let's go through and tune
this vocal up a little bit.
00:11:24 Before I start I'm gonna
take everything we've done
and reset it by selecting all,
using the key command Cmd + A,
right-clicking
and selecting 'Reset all'.
00:11:34 A quick tip about workflow,
it's important to listen to your vocal
both soloed out so you can
hear the details of what's going on
and in context with your song
because your pitch reference of the song
isn't always going to be perfect.
00:11:47 And you wanna make sure
it actually sounds in tune.
00:11:50 To quickly solo and unsolo a track
you need to know the key command 'S,'
for solo track.
00:11:55 Whichever track we have
selected in our tracks area
will then solo and unsolo,
even when we're working
in our audio editor.
00:12:04 So I can solo a track
and then press 'S' to unsolo it
and check it to my pitch reference.
00:12:14 It's also useful to change
my play-head behavior
to play from last locate position.
00:12:19 I can do this by
clicking and holding on my play button
and selecting
'Play from last locate position'.
00:12:25 This way I can listen to the same part
over and over again
without having to relocate my play-head.
00:12:30 Like this.
00:12:37 Let's edit.
00:12:42 So I'm gonna bring down the pitch drift
in here a little bit,
take down the vibrato.
And I'm just gonna nudge it up
just a little bit.
00:12:50 This note right here,
if we listen to it...
00:12:54 It's actually two different words
so I'm gonna switch
to my scissors tool by hitting 'T'
and selecting scissors tool or 'I'
and I'm gonna chop this note in half.
00:13:04 Now I have individual control
over both halves of this note.
00:13:08 So let's bring this pitch up,
bring down the pitch drift in
and we're gonna adjust
the pitch out a little bit.
00:13:20 Let's check it out.
00:13:22 It sounds good by itself,
let's unsolo and take a listen.
00:13:29 It's starting to sound better.
00:13:31 This guy is a little sharp.
00:13:32 I'm gonna through and
quickly visually edit this
and then we'll go back and listen
to check our work.
00:13:42 Notice that I'm not necessarily
concerned once again
with the block being exactly in the middle.
00:13:48 I'm mostly focusing visually
on the white line.
00:13:57 This note here is super flat.
00:14:01 So I'm gonna use the hand tool
to drag it up a half-step
before making my edit.
00:14:11 This one looks pretty good.
00:14:15 And this section,
let's take a listen real fast.
00:14:17 I noticed a few times
that this is super flat.
00:14:21 So we'll give this a little
bit of extra attention here.
00:14:24 Just hit 'S' to solo
Let's bring this whole
thing up quite a bit.
00:14:39 In this note here he's kind of
swooping up
so I can do one of two things:
I can leave it alone and just
let it be natural.
00:14:45 Or I can set it up to this F.
00:14:47 And we'll see how that sounds.
00:14:49 Bring it down just a little bit.
00:14:56 That sounds more in-tune
but less natural.
00:14:58 I actually like where it was originally.
00:15:01 I'm gonna Edit and Undo to get there.
00:15:05 Cool.
00:15:07 So let's take a listen to this
in context real fast.
00:15:20 Alright,
this is starting to sound more in-tune.
00:15:23 One cool thing about Flex Pitch
is that it's non-destructive
so we simply deactivate it
and take a listen to where it came from.
00:15:31 I'm gonna close my editor
by using the key command 'E'
and on my track we have a Flex button
where we can deactivate the whole track.
00:15:38 Here's where we started.
00:15:47 And here's where we
ended up after we tuned.
00:15:59 We're getting closer, let's go through
and make some final adjustments.
00:16:38 This note here is
being a little bit difficult
so I'm gonna use my scissors tool
to chop it in half
and give me a little
bit more control over it.
00:17:08 Alright,
that's starting to sound more in tune.
00:17:19 That's starting to sound pretty good.
00:17:22 Before we move on I wanna
call attention to the fact that
we have two different Flex
buttons in the tracks area.
00:17:27 The Flex button in the individual tracks
actually deactivates Flex Pitch.
00:17:32 Whereas the Flex button
in the edit menu of the track's area
simply deactivate our view
of Flex Pitch.
00:17:39 So now, even though we're
not seeing our Flex Pitch,
Flex Pitch is still activated,
just in the background.
00:17:45 We can now work with our audio
as if it's a normal audio track.
00:17:48 The last thing we're gonna go over is
how to make a quick
harmony using Flex Pitch.
00:17:52 To do this I'm gonna duplicate my track
and I'm going to use
the Opt + drag method
to copy and paste my region
onto the following track.
00:18:02 From here I can double
click and open up Flex Time
and I'm going to have this
conformed to my C Major scale.
00:18:10 I'm gonna start by
moving my notes up a third
and then we'll see how it sounds.
00:18:29 And here I'm gonna go
off-script a little bit
and go up to the root note which is a C.
00:18:42 And let's actually put
this one down to the B.
00:18:45 Let's take a listen.
00:18:47 Here this is soloed.
00:18:55 And in context.
00:19:02 Now we can do a couple things
to make this sound more natural
like adjust the formant.
00:19:10 Just bring it down a little bit.
00:19:18 Alright. And then let's also
take this region
and we're gonna shift it back a little bit
so that the timing of
both these audio tracks
aren't lined up exactly.
00:19:28 To do that we're gonna use
the region portion of our Inspector.
00:19:31 And let's delay it by
thirty some ticks.
00:19:35 Let's take a listen to
both vocals soloed out.
00:19:45 And in context.
00:19:53 So that was a quick and dirty way
to make a harmony.
00:19:56 I also use this technique
to audition
different harmony ideas that
I have without burning out my singer.
00:20:01 As you can see Flex Pitch can
give you a lot of powerful tools.
00:20:05 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.
Those clicks and pops occur may be due to insufficient buffer size. Try increasing the buffer size all the way to 1024 to see if you can prevent. Logic Flex pitch is CPU hungry.
beau.s
2019 Jul 02
Hey Scott! I've never been able to get through a session of Flex Pitch without an insane amount of artifacts being introduced. How are you preventing those pops and ticks from happening? Great tutorial! Thanks!
TheBHGroove
2018 Nov 15
Great video! I sometimes get little blips in flex that sound like artifacts even before I've edited anything. Any ideas on what those are and how to fix them?
