Chapter 4: Editing Audio

Logic Pro makes editing audio easy with its tools to copy sections, delete sections, and replace sections, all non-destructively in the Tracks area. There are also two other places to edit audio, the Track Editor and the File Editor. The former is also non-destructive while the latter is destructive.

Specifically, this chapter covers the following topics:

• Soloing and muting in Logic Pro
• Renaming and colorizing tracks and regions
• Zooming in and out on regions
• Copying and repeating regions using the Snap and Drag settings
• Working with an imported audio file in the Audio Track Editor

Logic Pro gives you many ways to solo and mute either tracks or regions, and it can get confusing. Let's try to give you some clarity on this first.

Soloing and muting tracks and regions

Frequently, you will want and need to solo or mute tracks and regions while editing audio, and frankly, it can be confusing in Logic, because there are so many ways.

Here you see the beginnings of a little blues song I created for this chapter:

Figure 4.1 – My blues song tracks and regions

Mute/solo buttons on the Track Header

On my track header in the preceding screenshot, you can see an M and an S, for mute and solo. If you don't see it, you need to configure the track header, and this is something you will need to know how to do, so let's take advantage of this opportunity to learn how.

If you right-click (or Ctrl-click) in the track header, or simply press Option + T, it brings up a window in which you can choose the things you want to see in the track header, including the Mute and Solo buttons. (If, like me, you find that you frequently have multiple tracks flowing through a channel strip...

Renaming and colorizing tracks and regions

Before you get down to some serious audio editing, you may want to rename your tracks and regions so that they are consistent.

You can rename a region either by changing your left-click tool from the Pointer to the Text tool. With the Text tool, you can then simply select the name on the region and type in the new name. Even easier, after selecting the region with the Pointer tool, just press Shift + N.

Alternatively, with the region selected, you can click on the name in the Region Inspector and do it there.

In the following screenshot, you see that my track names and region names are not consistent with each other, nor are their colors:

Figure 4.4 – Inconsistent track/region names and colors

On track 1, I want the region to have the track name, while on the other tracks I want each track to have the region name and I want the region's colors to be the track's colors.

Easy-peasy.

...

Zooming in and out on regions

When you are editing, especially with audio waveforms, you will want to zoom in and out to accommodate the regions or sections of regions you are trying to edit.

Logic, being Logic, gives you a number of ways to do this.

Let's practice zooming in on some regions. Press 2 to open Screenset 2, as shown in the following screenshot. (We will discuss the use of screensets more deeply in Chapter 13, Organizing for the Mix):

Figure 4.5 – Regions for zooming

In the upper-right corner of the Tracks area are two zoom sliders: vertical and horizontal, highlighted on the right of the following screenshot:

Figure 4.6 – Zoom sliders

Dragging these sliders zooms in or out of all the regions.

There are also a bunch of helpful key commands already assigned:

1. Press Option + K to open the Key Commands window.
2. In the search field, type the word zoom:

   Figure 4.7 – Preassigned zoom...

Copying and repeating regions

Presently, my song is only 8 bars long and I want to make it longer. Logic being Logic, there are a few user-friendly ways.

Copying by holding Option + dragging

I decide to mute my vocals and work on the instrument tracks. I can copy the regions easily by holding the Option key and dragging them, keeping an eye on the help tag for positioning.

NOTE

If when you do this, but you do not first release the mouse and then the Option key, you will find that instead of copying it, you have moved it.

Copying parts of regions with the Marquee tool

My chord progression is a basic blues phrase: G7 for 2 bars, C7 for 2 bars, G7 for 2 bars, D7 for two bars. Now, I want the next section to be: C7 for 1 bar, D7 for 1bar, C7 for 1 bar, D7 for 1 bar C7 for 3 bars, and finally, D7 for 1 bar.

The Marquee tool is ideal for this task, but my Snap settings can make it even easier.

If you hold down the mouse on the field to the right of Snap, you&apos...

Working with an imported audio file in the Audio Track Editor

Returning to our Chapter 4.logicx project, let's learn a couple of ways to import an audio file into a Logic project.

You can open the All Files Browser by clicking the icon in the Control bar, or pressing F, and then navigating to where the file is stored:

Figure 4.12 – Selecting an audio file in the Browser

The advantage of importing an audio file this way is that you can click the speaker icon at the bottom of the window to audition it.

To add an audio file into the Tracks area at a specific position in the project, change the left-click or Command-click default tool to the Pencil tool, then hold it down on the track in the Tracks area at that position.

Alternatively, you can import an audio file by dragging it from the Finder to the same place or go to the File menu | Import | Audio File.

Audio Track Editor

Once it is in your project and you have placed it approximately...

Summary

In this chapter, we covered different ways of soloing and muting tracks and regions. You have learned how to use the Marquee tool to copy, repeat, and move regions and parts of regions in the Tracks area, and how the Snap settings and modes affect the result. Also, you are now familiar with techniques for importing audio files and working with them in the Audio Track Editor, while the destructive Audio File Editor was briefly discussed.

In the next chapter, we will become familiar with how to record MIDI parts with Logic Pro’s many Software Instruments and view and edit them in Logic Pro’s MIDI editors. You will also learn about Logic’s Arpeggiator and how to create layered and split sounds with Summing Stacks, that you can save in the Library.