MIDI Editing In Logic Pro X
19min
(17)
In part five of our Logic Pro X Quickstart Series, Scott Griffin shows you use the powerful MIDI Editor in Logic Pro X. Logic has a long history of being one of the most powerful MIDI sequencers available. See why.
Learn How To:
- Quickly edit MIDI performances
- Use key commands to avoid the need of scrolling through menus or using envelope views to change your MIDI editing tools
- Adjust the timing of your MIDI performances with Logic's deep quantization features. See how to to perfect your performances, or inject groove and feel to add realism.
- Use the elegant Drum MIDI editing features
Watch part 6 here
See the rest of the series here
Once logged in, you will be able to click on those chapter titles and jump around in the video.
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:23 - Midi Regions
- 01:06 - The Piano Roll
- 01:43 - Zooming
- 03:38 - Midi Notes
- 05:30 - Using the Pointer Tool
- 07:06 - The Pencil Tool
- 08:06 - The Velocity Tool
- 08:45 - Velocity
- 12:49 - Quantizing
- 17:57 - The Piano Roll and Drums
00:00:07
Hey guys!
Today we're gonna talk about
MIDI editing inside of Logic.
00:00:11
Logic actually got started back in the 90s
under the name Notator Logic
and its main function was
MIDI sequencing.
00:00:17
So after twenty some years
of development
it's still one of the
leaders in industry today.
00:00:22
Let's check it out.
00:00:24
So, here we have a project
with three software instrument tracks
and a vocal track.
00:00:29
The vocal track
has audio regions in it.
00:00:32
The software instrument tracks
have MIDI regions in them.
00:00:36
Also, by default,
MIDI regions are green
and audio regions are blue.
00:00:41
Much like our audio regions
we can edit and arrange
them in the tracks area.
00:00:46
So, I can use my pointer tool
to select,
to copy and paste by holding
down Opt and dragging.
00:00:54
I can use a lot of the same key commands,
like, join, Cmd + J.
00:00:58
I can use my marquee tool to make all the
same edits I would with my audio regions.
00:01:02
So you can see it's pretty familiar
but there's a huge added
advantage with MIDI tracks.
00:01:08
We can open up something
called the piano roll
and edit our MIDI information.
00:01:13
So, to open the piano roll
we either hit 'P'
or we double click on a MIDI region.
00:01:20
Now, right away we're gonna
notice a couple of familiar things.
00:01:24
For instance, just like in the
track's area we have
our edit function and
view drop-down menus
we also have a primary and secondary tool.
00:01:32
We have this little
display that's gonna tell me
what note I'm on and what my position is.
00:01:37
And then we have the snap
modes just like in our track's area.
00:01:41
And also the zoom sliders.
00:01:45
So before I go any further
let's just talk about
zooming again because
I'm gonna be flying around this project
and you need to know what's going on.
00:01:52
There are quite a few different ways
to zoom inside of Logic.
00:01:56
The inefficient way would be to
come over and user your mouse
to vertically and horizontally
move the zoom sliders.
00:02:03
A much more efficient way would be
to hold down Opt
and then scroll
vertically and horizontally.
00:02:10
If your mouse only has
a vertical scroll wheel
you can hold down Opt and Ctrl
to zoom horizontally.
00:02:18
You could also hold down Ctrl
to scroll horizontally.
00:02:22
You may also notice, when I hold down Opt
I have the familiar
little magnifying glass
in which I can draw a zoom area.
00:02:31
And if I hit 'Z',
I'm using the key command
Zoom to Fit
all contents
or Zoom to Fit selection.
00:02:39
So, whichever notes I have selected
will fill my screen.
And then if nothing is selected
and hit 'Z',
I zoom out to show all of my MIDI notes.
00:02:48
We also have
and automatic horizontal
zoom button that we can hit.
00:02:53
So, if we select this
we will horizontally zoom to show
the entire region that is selected.
00:02:59
So, if I select more than one region
it zooms to fit all of the regions.
00:03:04
And, as I deselect regions
it will automatically adjust.
00:03:10
Now my piano roll is showing me
whichever regions I have
selected in my tracks area.
00:03:15
So, if I select more than one
region I can see all of the regions.
00:03:20
But notice that I can
actually deselect regions
and it will go away.
00:03:25
I can even select multiple regions
on different tracks
which gets pretty messy
but if you're trying to make
two different parts work together
timing wise this can be pretty handy.
00:03:39
Let's talk about MIDI notes.
00:03:41
These blocks are my MIDI notes,
they're set up on a matrix.
00:03:44
Vertically we have pitch control.
00:03:47
So, if I move a note up and down
it changes pitch.
00:03:53
And on our left we have a piano roll
that shows us what note we're on
and also what octave.
00:03:58
Notice,
if I select a note in the piano roll,
for instance, C4,
it selects all of the C4s in that region.
00:04:05
This is a great way to quickly change,
say, if you have a hi-hat,
which is normally an F#,
and you wanna change them all to
a different cymbal, or maybe a tom,
you can change them quickly.
00:04:16
So, vertically we have our pitch.
00:04:19
Horizontally we have our time.
00:04:21
You may recognize our
bars and beats grid from
up in the tracks' area.
00:04:26
This is our ruler.
00:04:28
So this shows us
bar 2, beat 2, 3 and 4.
00:04:33
We also have 16th note
subdivision in our grid.
00:04:36
We can change our grid
by coming up to the LCD
and select customize
control bar and display.
00:04:43
We're gonna switch that
to custom and make sure
that time signature and division are on.
00:04:49
We're concerned with the division here.
00:04:52
Notice my grid lines
change from 16th notes
to 8th notes.
00:04:56
Or I can go crazy and do
something like 96th notes,
I don't know why you'd
ever need to do that
but if you need to it's an option.
00:05:05
Let's go back to 16th notes
which I find manageable
in most situations.
00:05:11
So, my primary tool is my pointer tool.
00:05:13
And much like in the tracks' area
I can make selections or move
my notes around just
I like I would regions.
00:05:20
First of all I'm gonna turn off this
MIDI out button
so it doesn't audition the note
every time I select it.
00:05:25
Or can use the key command Opt + O.
00:05:29
So, with the pointer tool I can select
and change my pitch by moving vertically.
00:05:34
Or I can move my position
by moving horizontally.
00:05:38
So here I have
a C4 on beat 2 where
it used to be on beat 1.
00:05:46
Or I can move it back
to its original position.
00:05:51
Now notice, when I'm auditioning
these MIDI parts, I have this
handy little audition button up here
which solos just this region
and it will also automatically loop it.
00:06:08
So I can go through and
edit while this is playing.
00:06:10
And it does that automatically,
which is great,
what it's actually doing
it's putting it into solo mode,
which solos out whichever
region I have selected
and then also giving me
a cycle area.
00:06:21
Pretty awesome.
00:06:23
With the pointer tool I can also
trim the length of my notes
if I come to the edges.
00:06:30
So, here I can make a note really short.
00:06:32
Let's just delete these
real fast and play that.
00:06:35
Or I can extend the release
so it's super long.
00:06:43
I can also copy and paste notes
just like in the tracks area
by holding down Opt
and clicking and dragging.
00:06:53
And I can select multiple notes,
for batch editing.
00:07:02
Delete.
00:07:03
Cool.
00:07:06
Our secondary tool by default
is the pencil tool.
00:07:11
To use the pencil tool
or any of our secondary tools,
we hold down Cmd
and we can draw in
brand new notes.
00:07:18
And notice that it will draw
in the note to length
and also velocity which
we'll talk about in a second.
00:07:23
But to the length that we have
most recently used.
00:07:27
So I just changed the length
and it will now draw
them in as half-notes.
00:07:31
If I make it a quarter note
I'm using quarter note lengths.
00:07:36
So we can actually, if we wanted to,
come into the tracks area
and we can right click or Ctrl click
to create an empty MIDI region
and without ever playing a note
I can start drawing in
a piano part.
00:07:52
And let's just copy and
paste that right there
and I'm gonna make it
a G chord real fast.
00:07:59
And now we have...
00:08:03
a piano part
without ever playing a single note.
00:08:07
The next tool that I see people
switching to a lot is the velocity tool
which we can open up our tools
by pressing 'T'
and coming down to the velocity tool
or hitting 'V'.
00:08:17
This tool allows to change the velocity
but before we get to that
I'm gonna make the same point I made
back in the tracks area.
00:08:25
There's almost never a good
reason to switch your tools
because there's some
sort of behavior that
you probably just don't know
about yet that's more efficient.
00:08:33
So, instead of switching our tool
to the velocity tool
we can actually stay on the pointer tool
and hold down Ctrl + Cmd
and as we hover over a note
it switches to the velocity tool.
00:08:45
What is velocity.
00:08:47
Velocity is how
quiet or loud you played a note.
00:08:51
More specifically,
how soft or hard you hit that note.
00:08:55
It's measure on a scale
of 1 to 127
because of
binary and MIDI stuff that's
better left for another time.
00:09:01
But just know that 127
is as loud as you can play
and 1 is as soft as you can play.
00:09:07
So, if I
take this note,
I'm just gonna single
out this note real fast,
and I use my velocity tool
to drag it all the way down,
I'll have a very quiet note.
00:09:21
So quiet I'm not even
sure if it was there.
00:09:24
I'm gonna make it a little bit louder.
00:09:27
Yeah, it's there. It's just,
as I said, super quiet.
00:09:29
If we drag it all the way up
it's gonna be super loud.
00:09:35
Notice that I have
a velocity slider on the left.
00:09:39
So one way I can edit my velocity
is by using the slider.
00:09:43
And you're gonna notice a
couple things that Logic does
that are super cool on the piano roll
that I wish everyone would do.
00:09:49
Number 1, you have
a little bar going across
the middle of your MIDI note
that mimics your velocity slider.
00:09:55
So as I slide down
to a quiet note
the bar gets shorter
and as I slide up to a louder note,
it gets longer.
00:10:03
Also,
you'll notice that the color is changing.
00:10:06
So, a really loud note
is an aggressive red.
00:10:09
Whereas a quiet note
goes all the way down
this color spectrum from like
orange to greens and then if we go
all the way down, like,
some cool blues and purples.
00:10:19
That just lets us look at
a whole bunch of notes
and know immediately
which notes are played really loud
and which ones are quiet.
00:10:26
And man, I can tell exactly like:
"Oh, this 124."
But I know that as I get
to the end of this measure
I'm starting to play harder.
00:10:33
So, I could, if I wanted to,
select a bunch of notes at the same time
and slide the velocity slider down
to make them softer.
00:10:41
Or I can use my velocity tool.
00:10:45
Now, there's another way
to view your velocity
and that's with the MIDI draw function.
00:10:50
If we come up to this guy
and click this button
we open up MIDI draw.
00:10:54
The key command is Cmd + Y.
00:10:57
Here we have a bunch of
MIDI controller information.
00:11:01
So we can select from our normal
MIDI control information.
00:11:04
For instance we have things like breath,
sustain pedal.
00:11:07
So if you're using a sustain pedal
this is where that information lives.
00:11:11
Or pitch bend and note velocity.
00:11:14
So here our note velocity
is on a scale of 0 to 127,
going vertically.
00:11:20
So I can take
individual notes
and drag them up or down.
00:11:26
The problem is it's super hard
if you have multiple notes layered up
to figure out which note is which.
00:11:33
So I can come up here and I can
select that and then move this down
but I don't know why you would do that
instead of just using
the Cmd Ctrl velocity tool.
00:11:41
This is gonna be much faster.
00:11:44
There is one time I find myself going
to the note velocity in the MIDI draw
and that's if I wanna do a
crescendo or something like that.
00:11:50
So, let's take a drum part
and I'm gonna switch the grid
to 32
and I'm gonna put in
a little snare roll at the end.
00:12:00
Once again I'm just using
my pencil tool
and I'm gonna draw in for
32nd notes.
00:12:06
And if I select these notes I can draw
a line, if I click and hold.
00:12:11
And it's kind of funky sometimes
but if you can get it
it draws
a crescendo
and then move to that line.
00:12:18
So now,
if I,
I'm just gonna delete this and loop this,
check out this little snare roll
out of this measure.
00:12:30
And you can go in and adjust
as you need to.
00:12:37
Pretty cool.
00:12:38
Now, you might be saying to yourself,
the feel of this drum parts,
and bass parts is not exactly great.
00:12:45
I'd like to say I did that
to bring out a teaching point.
00:12:48
So, yeah, let's go with that.
00:12:50
We're gonna address that
with something called quantizing.
00:12:53
Quantizing essentially snaps your notes
to your selected subdivision.
00:12:59
And the point of it is to make
up for your crappy playing.
00:13:02
Let me show you.
00:13:04
There are a couple different
ways to quantize inside of Logic.
00:13:07
Let's start with the piano roll.
00:13:09
If I select several
notes in my piano roll
I can go over to this time quantize area
and hit the 'Q'.
00:13:16
And notice they snapped to the grid.
00:13:18
Specifically they're
snapping to the 16th note.
00:13:20
The nearest 16th note
where they originally played.
00:13:23
If I were to switch this to 8th note
anything that's on a 16th note
will then snap to the nearest
8th which was originally played.
00:13:32
Like this.
00:13:33
Now, you may have noticed
I didn't have to hit 'Q' that time,
that's because if I have notes selected
and I make a new selection
in this time quantize drop-down,
it will assume that
I was about to hit the 'Q'
and quantize the notes.
00:13:45
We also have some different
swing and triplet quantize
values that we can choose from.
00:13:51
And some crazy talented 5 tuplet,
7, 9 tuplet things
that are beyond my musical abilities but
let's just see what that sounds like.
00:14:03
Dope. It sounds great.
00:14:05
Let's go back to 16th notes.
00:14:09
We also can adjust
the strength and the
swing of our quantize.
00:14:13
So, if I take my strength down from 100
back to zero
my notes are now where they were
originally played.
00:14:21
And as I increase my strength
my notes get closer and closer
to the nearest 16th note.
00:14:28
If you quantize everything
perfectly on the grid
it can start to sound robotic
which might be cool for the type
of music that you're making
but if you want it to sound
like a human played it
you might wanna dial that strength down.
00:14:38
We also have a swing slider here
which you'll notice my 16th note
start to move over
as I dial it up.
00:14:46
So let's listen to it with the swing.
00:14:51
A nice little groove there
and let's dial it back.
00:14:59
I do also have swing sub-divisions that
I can quantize to,
which are just preset values of swing.
00:15:05
A is barely any swing,
F is a whole bunch of swing.
00:15:08
I normally find myself hanging out
in the C to D range,
depending on the part.
00:15:13
Now, I could come into my piano roll,
select all, and quantize
to 16th note. And that's great.
00:15:21
Maybe I wanna quantize
to 16th note swing.
00:15:24
And that works great but
there is another way to quantize
entire regions at a time.
00:15:29
We use our region Inspector.
00:15:32
So, let me just rename some of these
regions so we can tell the difference.
00:15:36
Let's call this 'Chorus'.
00:15:37
And by the way, I'm renaming by using
the key command Shift + N.
00:15:41
And let's call this 'Verse'.
00:15:45
You may also notice that
on the top left of the piano roll
it shows you your selection as well.
00:15:50
So, if I have my chorus region selected,
it says 'Chorus',
and my Verse region.
And actually if I select notes,
it will show me how many notes
I have selected.
00:15:58
And it's a fun little tip for you.
00:16:00
What we're concerned with
is the quantizing in the region.
00:16:04
The Inspector is showing us
parameters for the entire region.
00:16:07
So, if we come to the quantize section
and select the drop-down
you have the same
sub-divisions as in our piano roll.
00:16:13
But instead of quantizing
individual notes
we're quantizing the entire region.
00:16:18
So, if I select 16th notes
watch my entire
regions worth of notes
snap to the 16th note grid.
00:16:25
I can do the same thing as before,
selecting different swings.
00:16:30
Or I have, at the bottom,
it's actually more quantize
parameters than I had in my piano roll.
00:16:35
I have additional
parameters, like strength,
which I can click and drag down.
00:16:40
And, if you're quantizing
something like a piano
there's things like flam
so I can quantize this.
00:16:47
But if I was playing this piano
I probably wouldn't have hit all
these notes at the same exact time.
00:16:52
I can increase
the flam so it plays
more like in the order
that I actually played it.
00:17:00
And you can really exaggerate this to
some interesting effects.
00:17:06
You have some other quantize parameters
over here that you can mess around with.
00:17:11
And we actually have
this thing called the Smart Quantize,
which is new, revolutionary and awesome
and we're gonna have to get into it
in a different video because
it's a whole thing.
00:17:20
We'll check that out later.
00:17:22
Scale quantize lets me choose my scale,
so I'm gonna choose C and major.
00:17:27
And it basically says,
any note that is played not in C major,
if you hit quantize
it will move it to the nearest note
in C major.
00:17:35
The problem with that is
you normally a half-step
away from two different notes.
00:17:39
And I can't figure out which
way it normally moves it.
00:17:43
But it seems pretty much random
and that to me makes it kind of useless.
00:17:48
Maybe if you played an arpeggiated part
where you played massive chords
you might find a reason to use it,
I personally would rather go through
and correct any notes I
may have misses manually.
00:17:58
Let's take a look at
some cool things Logic does
for drums when we're
using the piano roll.
00:18:02
First of all, let's notice on the left
that we not only have our piano roll
but we also have
a readout of what sample
is mapped to that piano roll.
00:18:11
So, a C1 when we're playing our drum
isn't a C1 note,
it's just a kick drum
that's mapped to a C1.
00:18:17
So that's great
but it gets better.
00:18:20
We can view this in collapse mode
which filters out all
of our unused notes.
00:18:26
So now I just have my kick, snare, hi-hat,
both opened and closed, and my crash.
00:18:31
Notice that if I delete that crash...
00:18:33
Now when I go into collapse mode
the crash is no longer viewed.
00:18:37
This is specially cool when
we're editing drums because
we're not using most of the
88 keys that are available.
00:18:43
We're only using like a kick, snare,
hi-hat, crash, maybe some toms.
00:18:47
It just makes it a lot more manageable.
00:18:49
One last thing that
I'm going to point out is,
remember,
in this piano roll we used Cmd + Y,
we're in MIDI draw.
00:18:57
So we can view things
like our note velocity.
00:19:00
In the track's area we can actually,
if we right-click
we actually have a MIDI draw area too.
00:19:08
And we can view our velocities
up in the tracks area.
00:19:12
Or whichever MIDI channel
information you're using.
00:19:16
So, if I'm rocking out,
I'm in the zone and I'm
hanging out in my tracks area
I can come in and quickly,
while I'm just hanging out here,
hit Cmd + Y and I'm cycling through
any of the MIDI channel information
that I'm using.
00:19:30
So, Cmd + I, find my velocities
and I'm good to go.
00:19:34
Cmd + Y, get back.
00:19:36
It's pretty awesome.
00:19:38
As you can see MIDI editing
inside of Logic is super powerful.
00:19:41
And we've really only just
begun to scratch the surface.
00:19:44
See you in the next video.
00:19:44
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Software
- Logic Pro X
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