Chapter 13: Organizing for the Mix

Organization is essential because an ounce of preparation is worth a pound of cure. Mixing is difficult, so we want to do anything we can to get our project ready to go.

We will discuss the following topics in this chapter:

• Folder Stacks in the Track List
• The Mixer's three views – Single, Tracks, and All
• Advantageous use of Screensets
• Creating Markers and using them for navigation
• Giant Beats and Bar display

If you like, you can either use the project from Chapter 12, Getting the Arrangement Right, for this or use your own.

As you can see, I have already made a good start to getting organized. There are not that many tracks and my track and region names match, and they are colored so that they are easily identifiable, as we discussed in Chapter 4, Editing Audio:

Figure 13.1 – A project with tracks and regions name- and color-matched

But since I am mostly now going to...

Getting familiar with Folder Stacks

In Chapter 5, Recording MIDI, we were introduced to Summing Stacks, and we could well employ them here, but since all we are looking at is organization, there is another type of Track Stack, called a Folder Stack, that is well suited for this purpose.

Following my color-coding, I now want to create four Folder Stacks.

Creating Folder Stacks

With all the vocal tracks selected, if I go under the Track menu to Create Track Stack, or press Shift + Command + D, I am given a choice between creating a Summing Stack and a Folder Stack. The description tells me that Folder Stack is well suited for the simple organization of tracks in the track list:

Figure 13.2 – Creating a Folder Stack

Let's begin with a Folder Stack for the vocals:

1. Choose Folder Stack and you will now have a Folder Stack named Sub 1 with a waveform icon and a different color.
2. Double-click on the name in the Track Header and rename...

Mixer views

You can either view the Mixer as part of the integrated main window by simply pressing X on your computer keyboard, or as a standalone window by going under the Window menu and selecting it, or by pressing Command + 2 on your keyboard. For now, let's go with the integrated Mixer.

Tracks view

This is the default view. It is ordered following the Tracks List order. Across the top on the right are tabs that allow you to choose what you want to see displayed at any given time and what you do not. Here, you can see mine with Master/VCA and MIDI filtered out, and without following Track Stacks but with the Drums Folder Stack open:

Figure 13.7 – Tracks view in the Mixer

Note

A long-standing request by users to the developers is the ability to reorder tracks directly in the Mixer, disregarding their order in the Track List. Maybe sometime in the future, maybe even by the time this book is in your hands, this will be possible, but at...

Creating customized Screensets

Screensets are an awesome feature of Logic Pro. They allow easy recall with a keystroke to create combinations of windows and editors, resized and zoomed in the way you want them, with the tool assignment and with Snap and Drag assignments. It's the only way, for instance, that you can see both the Piano Roll and Score editors in the same window.

For our purpose in this chapter, we will explore using them to combine Mixer views. The more screen real estate you have with your monitor(s), the more advantageous they can be.

Creating a locked custom Screenset

Let's begin by pressing the number 2 on your computer keyboard. By default, it opens a main window. If you click on the Close button at the top-left corner of the window, you will quickly discover that Logic thinks you want to close the project, which you don't. So, before you can close this window in the Screenset, you need to add another. If you want the Main Window to remain...

Creating Markers

Markers are a great way to get around a Logic project, and you can resize their length and move them around easily. So, you should save them in your template. But for this book, I will create them in my project. You can create markers in either the Global Tracks or the Marker List editor. I will do so in the global Marker track.

Creating markers in the Marker track

Here is my process:

1. Press Option + G to bring up the Global Tracks configuration window and hide all but Marker.
2. Click the + sign at the upper right at bar 10 to create Marker 1.
3. I'm going to create another at bar 5, where my verse begins, and another at 22, for my chorus.
4. Double-click or use the Text tool to rename Marker 1 to Intro.
5. Rename the second Marker to Verse, and the third to Chorus.

The Marker Track now looks like this:

Figure 13.17 – Beginning to create a Marker Track

This doesn't look very inspiring but we will soldier...

Giant Beats and Giant Time display

No matter what size display you have or how many, you may well find that you want to see your bars and beats really large.

On the right side of the LCD, there is a disclosure arrow where you can choose the LCD view, and there you will see the Open Giant Beats Display and Open Giant Time Display options:

Figure 13.22 – Enabling a Giant display

You have to do them one at a time, which only takes a few seconds. You can then position them on your Screenset, and if it is locked, unlock it, then relock it, and, as our British friends say, Bob's your uncle:

Figure 13.23 – Giant Beats and Giant Time displays

Summary

In this chapter, we covered using Folder Stacks for less screen clutter, the three views of the Mixer, and how to best utilize them in custom Screensets. We learned all about markers: creating them, coloring them, and using them to navigate our project and create Cycles. We also learned how to edit them. Finally, we learned how to create giant displays of beats and time.

In the next chapter, we will become familiar with the goals of mixing, discuss considerations, and learn how to use the different categories of plugins to achieve good results.