Click here to download

Logic Pro X Accessibility Overview Draft 7
Edited by Keith Reedy
wa9dro@gmail.com

This overview is just to get you started. Nothing should or could take the place of spending time in the Logic Pro X User Guide found on the Apple website.
If you don’t read this book, shame on you!

Chapters to remember,

16 Mixing
18 Smart Controls
21 Bouncing
25 Preferences, Project Settings and Key Commands.

Personal notes:
There are a number of bounce options, with Logic Pro X, however sharing your song to iTunes is very nice. First of all, go into tracks contents in your project and select all with command-a, or, from the edit menu, then follow the instructions for sharing your song to iTunes in the file menu.

This overview will cover
Beginning a recording with Logic Pro X
Drag and drop loops in to a project
stretching and moving a loop
Editing in the timeline/regions
Navigation
Mixing tips with Voiceover
Advanced features,
Comping, a brief description,
Time stretching, a brief description
Nudge values.

Beginning a New Project in logic Pro X, Selecting Time, Key, Beats per Minute and More.

I will be providing examples here. What you may want to do may be much different than what I am doing however, it should work even with variations.

Remember, you can change many of these parameters from the Control Bar group. See control bar group in navigation.

From the opening logic screen, start up dialog, select open an empty project and press OK.

A new screen will allow you to choose the type of project you want to open. in this case I chose audio. At this point you can make a number of choices, like input and output, number of tracks and so on or you may choose to make these choices later in the set up.

Now press escape which will take you into yet another screen. Interact with the first table in my case I chose new project, now stop interacting.

Now interact with the grid and in my case I chose open an empty project now stop interacting with a table.

Used VO keys-right arrow to use musical grid and I have that box checked.

VO keys-right arrow to type in your tempo for example 100.

VO keys-right arrow to the keys signature button and activate this button with the VO keys-space bar. Using the up and down arrow keys select your key. When you have selected your key press VO keys-space bar to choose your selection.

Next are two radio buttons for major or minor.

Next is time signature you may type in your choice for example 4/4.

Next you can choose audio inputs and outputs, choose sample rates and frame rates or take the default, if you have surround enabled you can check the proper surround parameters.
When you have made your desired choices in the screen arrow down to choose and press this button with VO keys-space bar.

Now you will be back in the original project creation window. where you can VO keys right arrow to the number of tracks field and type in the number of tracks you would like. Now VO keys right arrow until you hear create button, press this button with VO keys-space bar.

Drag-and-drop Loops into a Logic Project and Moving Loops in the Timeline

***This only works with Mavericks, OS 10.9.1 and later.

Open Loops with o. At this point you can use the search box to find the kind of loop you want to use, examples guitars, or, piano and so on. Move to the table and interact and choose your loop. interact with the loop you want to move and make sure you are on the name of the loop you want to move. try the loop with VO keys-shift-space bar and stop the loop with the same keys. It seems to be important to start and stop the loop to change the status of the loop.
The easiest way to move a loop is, while you are on the loop, press command-c to copy and then command-v to paste and you will find the loop in your project in a new track just where you want it..
Another way is to Use VO keys-comma to mark the loop for moving. Stop interacting with loops and move to the logic project to tracks contents to the area below tracks and use the old keys-period to drop the loop.
It does not drop it where I want it, but, you can move the loop anywhere in the time line by doing the following.

In the tracks contents area interact with the track you want to work with. Now interact with the region. Now, VoKeys-right arrow over to the loop handle and with the mouse keys turned on press control and the five on the number pad which will bring up a menu of about 19 items giving you information on how to move the loop where you want it.

Stretching and Moving a Loop

To make sure that the track you want to work with is selected go to Track Headers and make sure that the solo check box is checked on the track with which you wish to work .

Go to tracks contents and find the track where the loop you want to stretch is located. Now interact with the track and interact with the region, go to the loop handle, use VO keys-command-accent to access the handle and use the left and right arrow keys to stretch or shrink the loop,. This will only move the loop in small steps and does not give you feedback from Voiceover. however, you can use command-r to copy the loop, region, event. You will be asked for number of copies. This comes in handy if you want to stretch lets say a drum loop to the end of the song.
If you wish to use the loop, or region somewhere else in the song and you don’t want to stretch the loop, move to the place in the song where you want the loop, or region placed. Now move to the loop/ region and press command-c to copy the loop/region and command-v to place it where you want it. ***You may not hear any feedback from Voiceover, but, when you check your work you should find that the loop, or, region has been copied and pasted.

Editing in the Timeline/regions
In the tracks contents area, Move to the place where you want to edit with the control bar, or play the recording until you find the place where you want to edit, stop playing the recording and press command-t to split the region at the playhead. Now in the tracks contents window, you should find a new numbered region and do command X to cut, or use cut from the edit menu, or delete from the edit menu. You can also rename, move, or a number of other actions. Just like editing in GarageBand 6.

Navigation

Control bar group--located in the control bar tool bar

When you interact with the control bar group you will find the following,,
1. play head position group--Interacting with this group will allow
you to move through the track by bar, beat, tick and so on. Just interact with the slider you wish to change.
2. The tempo slider. interact with it to change the tempo of the song.
3. A pop up button with which you may change the key of the song.
4. Signature, number of beats slider. interact with the slider.
5. Signature note value pop up button.

Moving Through a Project from the Keyboard

Rewind comma
Forward period
Fast Rewind shift-comma
Fast Forward shift-period

Hints to Help Smooth Your Work Flow
Tools for Your Project

Maybe, by now, some of you have created a session with lots of tracks. I am currently working on a session which will have around 24 tracks. Here is a way I have found to, keep track of my tracks.

First of all you can re name a track in the track header. Find the track you want to rename and press shift-enter and just type in the new name. It will be important to name the track something that reflects what is on the track, like guitar bed, or guitar fill 1 or guitar fill 2 or guitar lead 1; you get the picture. You may have created a guitar track and then a piano track and maybe used a loop so they are all spread out and out of order, but there is a way to bring order to this mess. You have named your tracks, guitar something, or, piano something, or, horn something, so now you can go in to the tracks menu and choose, sort tracks sub menu. You will find some choices of how you want to sort your tracks. But the ones I use most are, by track name, or by instrument name. This will group all of the instruments together in line so that I don't have to chase them all over the screen. This has been a real work flow improver for me, hope it will be for you as well.

Keyboard Commands
There are hundreds of Keyboard commands and many of them are already programed or used. These almost always are added to with a new Logic upgrade or when you program a new function by assigning one of the unused keys.
You will probably want to copy a list of the used keyboard commands to your word processor and then copy a new list when Logic is upgraded or when you have programed a new key. for easy access. To do this do the following.
Press " option k" then look for "options menu button" to the right of "options menu button" is show; with a pop up button to pick what key commands you want to be displayed pick used to copy the used keyboard commands. Then VO space on it, now back to options menu button and look for export key commands or copy key commands to clip board, I use this one.
That should get you started.

Now what I have done is when I find a keyboard command that I think I may use often I place that command in a new smaller list which I have created with TextEdit called personal keyboard commands so that I don’t have to look through hundreds of commands to find the one I want.
Logic Pro X has over 500 keyboard commands and many of them are already programed.

Adding Buttons to the Control Bar by Customizing the Control Bar and Display

You may choose to set up key commands for some of these functions rather than using the buttons in the control bar. If you choose to use the buttons in the control bar,
you can accomplish this by doing the following:

1. Press VO+m to go to the menu bar.
2. go to the view menu by either pressing "the letter v or VO+RightArrow.
3. scroll down to "Customize Control Bar and Display” and press VO+Spacebar. This will open a dialog where you can customize the appearance of the main window in Logic. There are a number of checkboxes that correspond to buttons that can be shown or hidden on the Control bar or display. For example, go to the "Set Left/Right Locator Numerically" check box and check it.
4. then press the okay button.
5. The "Set Left Locator Numerically button" and the "Set Right Locator Numerically button" will now be shown on the Control Bar tool bar in the main window.

Note: in order to activate the buttons, you will have to use the mouse click by pressing VO+shit+spacebar. Pressing either button will open the same dialog.

Mixing Tips with Voiceover

Pan and level can be found in the track headers. You can configure the track header to include more information in the tracks menu.

Patches
A patch is a pre-defined group of audio settings, plugins, EQ and so on that you can use in your project. There are around 1500 patches selectable depending on which type of project you have selected.
When you have the library checked you can either interact with the browser to find a list of patches you might want. For example for voice, VO keys-right arrow to another list and be amazed at all of the choices of sounds. Or you can use the search box to find what you are looking for. There are several sounds for nearly everything you might want which you can add to your track.

More About Patches

Producer patches are the neatest invention since pockets on a shirt. Patches may have a couple of reverb plugins a spring and a plate, a dynamics compressor and maybe another kind of compressor and maybe flange or coarse and the list goes on. These are real patches used by real music producers and they can be modified in smart controls. Rather than looking through all of the patches every time you need a specific patch you can place the ones you use most often in one place.

When you have chosen a patch stop interacting with the table and VO keys-right arrow over to save and press it and you will be given the choice to rename it if you wish and press save and the patch will show up in a new section called, "user patches". Now you can find that patch when you need it again. I have a few voice, or vocal patches a few guitar patches and a piano patch and a few others saved in this way. Just because the patch is listed as a guitar patch or whatever, does not mean that you can not use it on something else.

Smart Controls

You may want to adjust the EQ settings or the plugin parameters of your patch. To do so do the following:
Leave the patch library, or close it with y. Next press b or command-3 to open smart controls and you will find your plugins and EQ in smart controls, the parameters are readable with Voiceover and adjustable.
In the smart controls toolbar, selecting the controls button will give you a list of the plugins and EQ used in the patch you have selected and you can interact with any of them to change their settings.

Here is an example. I use the Vintage Voice patch for a lot of my voice coloring.
Once you have press the controls button, stop interacting with the control bar and interact with the smart controls group
The first group you will find will be the Dynamics group..
The next group is the EQ group. Some EQ changes are possible in this group.
The next group is the Echo group if your patch uses echo.
Next the Sends group. This is almost always where your reverbs are located if your patch uses reverb.
Interact with the group in which you wish to make changes.
The first control in these groups is almost always the control which will adjust the level of intensity of that group, examples level of compression, reverb, echo and so on.

***Important information sent to the list by Daniel Contreras
Before you interact with one of these groups you can control-click on a group with control and the mouse or control num pad 5 if you have mouse keys enabled. Now VO keys-arrow down to open plugin window and VO keys-space to bring up a menu which will give you several choices of other things you may want to do with that group. Just continue to VO keys-right arrow to explore the menu.

Pressing the EQ button in the smart controls tool bar will give you fine tuning EQ settings when you stop interacting with the smart controls toolbar and interact with smart controls.

Advanced Features

Comping--a Brief Description

Comping seems to work this way: When you record over a part on a track a new take folder is created. Now go to the tracks contents area and interact with the track you wish to work with.
Now interact with the region. If you have more than one take on this track the first button you will see will be the take folder pop up button. Press this button with VO keys-shift-space bar which will give you a list of takes. Just check the one you want to listen to. There will be a number of other choices like, rename take, delete take, move take to another track and many more options. Or if you like you can Press option-f to show, or, hide the take folder.
Now using the item chooser type take and your takes by number will be found.
You can sample them by VO keys-space on the one you want and playing your project.
There are key commands for packing the take folder, unpacking the folder to existing tracks, or to new tracks.
Please read the Logic Pro X User Guide found on the Apple website.

Time stretching.
I am only including this blurb in the overview because I want you to know that time stretching is usable with Voiceover.
Cut the region you want to stretch and use the corresponding Keys in the used key commands.
For more information on time stretching, please read the Logic Pro X User Guide found on the Apple website.

Nudge values.

Nudge values can be set up with keyboard commands. Some of the keys are already programed. You may set up some of the other nudge value command keys as you need them.
For example to set your nudge value by bar use Control-option-m
I know what you are thinking, control and option are Voiceover commands, so you will need to press VO keys-tab first so that the next key press will be past through by Voiceover and then press control-option-m if you want to set nudge by bar.
Now to use nudge press option-right arrow to nudge right and option left arrow to nudge left.

Nudge commands and settings,
Nudge right, option-right arrow
Nudge left, option-left arrow

***Use vo keys-tab to bypass the next key press to set nudge values.
     Set Nudge Value to Tick     ⌃⌥T
     Set Nudge Value to Division     ⌃⌥D
     Set Nudge Value to Beat     ⌃⌥B
     Set Nudge Value to Bar     ⌃⌥M
     Set Nudge Value to SMPTE Frame     ⌃⌥F
     Set Nudge Value to 0.5 SMPTE Frame     ⌃⌥H
     Set Nudge Value to 5 SMPTE Frames     
     Set Nudge Value to SMPTE Bit     
     Set Nudge Value to Sample     ⌃⌥S
     Set Nudge Value to 1 ms     ⌃⌥1
     Set Nudge Value to 10 ms     ⌃⌥0
     

Disclaimer: The information on this site is provided as a public service to the blind and visually handicapped community. While we have done our best to ensure the information provided is accurate, please realize the use of any information on this site is solely at your discretion and we take no responsibility for use or attempted use of this information.