Automation
Lesson 32 from: Songwriting in Logic Pro X for Electronic Music ProductionTomas George
Automation
Lesson 32 from: Songwriting in Logic Pro X for Electronic Music ProductionTomas George
Lessons
Writing Drums and Bass Part Introduction
01:11 2Making Drums Beats with Ultrabeat
14:27 3Beats with Ultrabeat and Drummer
08:48 4Writing Bass Parts - Part 1
15:03 5Writing Bass Parts - Part 2
04:53 6Writing Drums and Bass Parts Assignment
00:44 7Writing Chords Introduction
00:56 8Writing Chords
19:38Experimental Chords
09:44 10Writing Chords Assignment
00:56 11Writing Melodies Introduction
00:58 12Writing Melodies - Part 1
19:28 13Writing Melodies - Part 2
05:12 14Writing Melodies - Part 3
10:38 15Arpeggiator
08:02 16Writing Melodies Assignment
00:59 17Arrangement Introduction
00:45 18Arrangement
18:14 19Arrangement Continued
16:16 20Adding Effects and Instruments
18:28 21Arranging into a New Song - Part 1
14:57 22Arranging into a New Song - Part 2
17:31 23Arranging into a New Song - Part 3
08:24 24Arrangement Assignment
00:38 25Mixing Introduction
01:02 26Cleaning up and Basic Mixing
15:52 27EQ
11:46 28Tuning Drums
05:58 29Compression
10:56 30Sidechain Compression
10:30 31Reverb and Delay Sends
07:58 32Automation
06:59 33Mixing Assignment
00:58 34Recording Audio Equipment
10:55 35Recording Audio
04:01 36Vocal Melodies Introduction
01:04 37Vocals Intro
00:26 38Verse A Section
06:56 39Chorus and Harmonies
05:12 40Verse B and Pre-Chorus
05:20 41Verse 2, Chorus and Middle 8
17:37 42Song Title
00:50 43Vocal Melodies Assignment
01:00 44Lyrics Introduction
01:02 45Creating a Story with Lyrics - Part 1
15:25 46Creating a Story with Lyrics - Part 2
14:37 47Lyrics Assignment
00:54 48Adaptive Songwriting with Peter Darling
12:13 49Thanks and Bye
00:09Lesson Info
Automation
Now let's have a look at automation. So automation is where we can change parts of the track throughout time. So for example, we could have the volume allowed at the start and have it gradually decrease. It's really easy to do. In logic pro 10, all we have to do is hit this button over here and this will open up the automation window. And then for example, volume, we have to go on here, make sure it says volume and then we can quite simply just click and drag and now you'll notice that this wash effect or this reverse symbol would gradually increase in volume and we can also automate other things as well. We don't necessarily have to automate just the volume, we could automate some of the effects. So say, for example, we want to automate a setting on the ES two, we could do that quite easily. So let's find this base part here that says ES two. So what we can do is click on here and go on ES two. This will look a bit complex if you're not used to the ES two synthesizer, all these differ...
ent ones here. So what we can do is actually do something called live automation, which is what I personally really like. So change this read to either touch or latch. I wouldn't change it to. Right. And this will basically create live automation. So now if we go into the ES two synthesizer and we change some stuff around, it's actually gonna change in here as well. So we can automate it live so we can change the effects live. We do have a few different options here. We have touch and we have latch. Latch basically means when we change the effect, it will continue at the changed effect. So I'm just gonna show you now. So if you put cut off all the way down, it will continue going down. And if this is on touch, it will snap back to where it was. So I'll show you this as well. Snapped back. Eva's fine. I personally prefer touch, but you can choose latch as well. I wouldn't really use right. That can have more problems. So I would use read latch or touch. And when you've finished automating, remember to go back to read, you could accidentally automate the track. The good thing now is we know we wanted to change, wanted to change that cut off Macro here and when we click on automation here, here we go, we have cut off. So we know straight away that this is the cut off. So we can just go through and correct some of this. Now you can go to the pencil tool. So if we go to the right click button up here, whole command, we can just draw it in ourselves. Like so now let's hear this back. It's a good idea to be subtle with this. That sounded a bit too extreme to me, but we can change the cut off like this. There we go, you can always change this to the eraser tool and erase all this information as well. So that's how we can do live automation. I personally really like a live automation, especially for SIMS like the ES two. When there's just so much stuff going on, you might not necessarily know that this dial here. What that actually does in comparison to where it is on one of these things here. So it could be quite hard to find. If you just use live automation, you just move it and automate it, you know, straight away. It's one of these in this list here. So that's basically automation. I do recommend going through just automating certain things, just making stuff sound like it's a bit more live. If that makes any sense. Of course, this is electronic music, but you don't want it to be repetitive all the time. You do want some changes, you do want stuff to sound more interesting. And automation is an easy way to do that. I'd recommend starting off a volume and then go into certain effects, you can even add new tracks. So if you go down here, add so an audio track and right click this and reassign the track, we can actually reassign this to auxiliaries. So we can reassign this to certain effects. So this will control the delay, this will control the overdrive, we can even control each group here. So say we want to automate the drums. So this is now the drums group, let's automate the volume of this notice now that drums have gone down volume. So what I recommend doing is maybe even automate the group. So you don't necessarily have to automate each instrument. But a lot of it is just about going through and automating your track. So I hope this helps just knowing what automation really is and live automation, especially if you are used to automation can really save you a lot of time finding out what each specific part is. So I do recommend spending a bit of time, go in and automate your track. So let's just do one more example, let's just automate this marimba and it enters here. So we can have a bit of more of a fade in. Just have it gradually come in like, so do you have a fade in here as well? Example here as well, it drops out, we could even put the volume down a bit and then when it enters again, you can have it increase. So it's all about subtle changes just to make it sound a bit more interesting. So that's how you automate in logic pro that's how you basically can change the effects or the volume over time and you don't have to keep it the same all the way through, right? You can make it a bit more fluid, a bit more exciting for the listener and have a bit more things going on. You can be creative, you can try loads of new ideas. And of course, if you do make mistakes, you can undo what you did, you can erase, you can go to the pencil tool and correct stuff and that's how you automate in logic Pro 10. So thank you for watching this lecture and I'll see you in the next one.
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Bonus Materials