Logic Pro ’Tips’ - Working With Cover Songs | Smart Tempo, Flexpitch + more

[@1mattattaker]

After HOURS of search, you finally gave me the answers I needed🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🎉🎁🎉🎁🎉!!!

[@almonaro855]

Ditto! Just what I've been looking for. Bravo!

[@fergalconway]

Great tutorial Jeff ! 👍 Calm, clear, concise and most importantly accurate - so, so helpful 🙏 I've been trying to do this for quite a while, wasting time watching many KZbin videos trying to find exactly this - thank you very much for your help ❤

[@JimHornaday]

Great video. I've been doing similar things with cover tunes for some time now. A couple notes: 1) You can actually skip the step of opening the Smart Tempo editor window by merely right-clicking (control-click) on the region (imported track) in the arrange window, scroll down to "Tempo" and select "Remove Tempo Information." Click OK to delete tempo information and then immediately right-click again, scroll to "Tempo" and select "Apply Region Tempo to Project Tempo." I leave "Align downbeat to nearest project downbeat" selected and "Maintain relative downbeats..." de-selected. Boom, the analysis is done with the new alignment in one fell swoop. Super fast. 2) There is a better way IMO to quickly slow down sections to learn phrases, solos, etc. without having different tempos all over the place. Right-click or Control-click in the gray area of the Control Bar (near the transport and LCD) and select "Customize Control Bar and Display..." Under "LCD," select "Custom" and enable "Varispeed." Now, you will see a drop down option in the LCD for "Speed Only", "Varispeed (Speed and Pitch)" and "Varispeed and MIDI". You can drag the percentage anywhere down to 50% or up to 100%. Depending on your Control Bar display settings, you will see a "+-" button to the right of the LCD, near the Low Latency button, auto punch, tuner, etc. This toggles the varispeed on and off. No need to mess with tempos. 3) "Other" tracks are simply anything that are not drums, bass, or vocals. I was using the paid version of FADR to handle stem separation for a while, which can further separate piano, strings, guitars, etc. Logic Pro added native support for stem separation on silicon macs since this video was published, so now you can do the basic separation "in the box" on an M1 mac or better. 4) Occasionally, some tunes might have a rhythmically ambiguous section that requires extra tempo/beat manipulation with beat mapping (CMD-Shift-B). Search "Intro to Beat Mapping" for more info. Basically, you can drop a marker on a downbeat transient and align a specific bar line or beat to that marker by merely dragging a line to it. Understanding double-time and half-time manipulation may also come in handy. 5) IMO some tunes should never have the tempo fluctuations ironed out. E.G. Bohemian Rhapsody, Unchained, Stairway to Heaven, etc. Tempos that breathe can be very musical!

[@JeffyG]

Excellent tips! Thx 👍

[@dordenbivings4872]

You mean to tell me that I don't have to painstakingly do all of this work manually??? Sir, you have just given me the tools and the knowledge to overcome obstacles that I wasn't previously willing to tackle. I knew the technology existed, but being an OG I had no idea how to do this. This is exactly the video I have been looking for. And the fact that you made it clear, palatable, and understandable makes it that much better. Thank you for taking the time to help out your fellow musicians and engineers. Much appreciation!

[@GustavoLovato]

This was exactly the video tutorial I was looking for! In my case, not for a cover but to tweak an original song recorded by me 20 years ago without a click track. Now with the native stem splitter and your tips I can resurrect the song and finally finish it properly. Thank you so much!

[@JeffyG]

No problem!

[@terrymerrick5617]

That was just brilliant you explained this really well . There are a number of videos out there which can be confusing on the subject matter but your video is totally on the ball . This will be a great reference video for me thank you so much

[@JeffyG]

Glad it was helpful!

[@guruvarammusicschool9893]

Thanks for sharing this.

[@jangayen]

Thank you very much for these easy to follow and excellent explanations. This was extremely helpful to me!!🙏👍👍👍🤩

[@1mattattaker]

I have a remark to make. When I use Smart Tempo to analyze very fast songs that are saturated with loud and distorted instruments (metal-hard rock, etc), I first slow down the tempo with FLEX, then export the file and re-import it on a new project to be able to Edit the Downbeats and Beats that Smart Tempo mistaken with the upbeats with the keyboard (D for downbeats, T for 1/4 notes), because the transients are very hard to detect visually. Try to put a constant metronome for a rehearsal with a drummer with separated tracks (voice-guitar-drum(muted)-bass(muted) with the Iron Maiden song « Heaven Can Wait » and you will undersand how puzzled it can be👀

[@JeffyG]

Good technique. So much depends on the starting audio source and the nature of the music.

[@1mattattaker]

@@JeffyG Smart Tempo gets puzzled and confused as soon as you have syncopation in the song. Anyway, THANK YOU for getting me a real good start on my project. You rule man🤘🏼🤠!!!

[@amchi_talent_ki_khoj]

Awesome ......so informative. Thank you so much. Hopefully, it will solve many of my problems.....

[@ulip0609]

Thank you very much. Learning cover songs is one of my main use cases for Logic and I have never been able to get then adapted varied tempo to a consistent tempo.

[@JeffyG]

Happy to help!

[@ForageMaster413]

Exactly what I was looking for, Thank you sooooo much!

[@serenitynow66]

Another awesome way!! You ROCK!!

[@JeffyG]

Thanks again!

[@colinowenuk]

Great vid. Thanks.

[@heritagelegacy]

Pretty cool and helpful info

[@JeffyG]

Glad it was helpful!

[@chucksaeger7500]

Excellent video dude! Can you do this with multiple tracks, like tracks you purchase from karaoke version? A lot of older songs that weren’t recorded to a click will vary throughout the length of the song. Thanks so much!

[@JeffyG]

I think so. What format are the Karaoke files?

[@chucksaeger7500]

@@JeffyG They’re mp3 if that’s what you mean. I’m not real computer savvy. Thanks for responding!

[@kcX75]

Thaaaaaaanks!!!!!

[@JeffyG]

You're welcome!

[@Creature_NL]

Very cool, but some parts in the audio file are shifting a bit. So select the region, goto the left region panel and quantize to 1/16, shifting gone!

[@JeffyG]

Thanks for the tips!

[@Creature_NL]

@@JeffyG Btw,..why use moises when Logic does a way better and faster job for stem splitting. You need a payed account too for hifi quality. Moises also leaves a lot of non drum sounds in the stems. Also iZotope RX11 does a way better job

[@mcirone]

@@Creature_NL he made this video prior to Apple releasing stem splitter in the new logic update :)

[@Creature_NL]

@@mcirone Aaah thanx, that explains!