DAW Shortcuts That Have Saved Me 100+ Hours

[@schrodingerboy]

So Helpful! For those who don't know, here's a tip that helped me a lot with automations. If you go to the "Mix" menu in Logic and activate the "Autoselect Automation Parameter in Read Mode" option, you'll save a lot of time because you won't have to scroll through the myriad parameters of a plugin to automate. Just by clicking on it inside the plugin, it will be automatically activated in the automation lane!

[@RogerioValgode]

You really open my mind for shortcuts!!

[@victorhakim1250]

The capture recording and locate shortcuts are super useful, thank you!

[@JmlMusicNorway]

Excellent video on shortcuts, thanks a lot for this video.

[@easonyanmusic]

Hi from China. Thanks for sharing!

[@TristanNoon]

Awesome video, Zach! Thanks for sharing!

[@ZachHeyde]

Hey thank you Tristan!! 🙌

[@mrmikis]

That was a very good video. I have to watch again now and take notes!

[@vittoriosommatinoSounDesign]

Awesome video Zach! Can you do a video where you talk about mixing (and mastering) orchestral music? there would be useful. Thank you!

[@calebshannon11]

Here to support this comment!

[@guymiddleton5275]

The golden keyboard shortcuts 🤩 Cheers man!

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

Great video. The close and open all stacks was missing for me. I do with # for the single stack, and shift # for all. If you do a 1000 tracks template by articulations this is essential

[@birgerwessel]

I love this. Thank you for making my life a little easier. :))

[@Phloxx1]

Do you use a Kontakt plug-in for each instrument or do you use multi outs? And how do you keep your cpu performance so steady and low? When I load up more than 30 instruments up, my computer freaks out on me 😢

[@j3tman]

I'm new to the channel but enjoying these videos! I appreciate how you covered some hidden gems here. I'll have to dig more into macros! This is an old video, but I just wanted to add that right-clicking the play button gives you the option to always play from last locate position by default. I just discovered this recently and it's been a game changer!

[@GnuSCello]

Amazing video!

[@ZachHeyde]

Thank you!

[@liambrownpianoproductions3445]

faster workflow, yes please!

[@ChinmayMurthyX220]

THANK YOU

[@santir5091]

Thank you!!

[@OrisStories]

THANK YOU!

[@kjabsdfkjta]

Hi I am just starting out and want to learn keyboard shortcuts early on. I've noticed a lot of your keyboard shortcuts are custom - do you have/would you make a video on your keyboard shortcuts? I'd like to match yours as I plan on following along to your tutorials and your setup seems efficient, but don't want to change existing keyboard shortcuts without understanding full set up

[@tsmiguel]

Great Zach. Very usefull tips. Do you ever use smart quantize at all?

[@ZachHeyde]

Thank you! Not currently, but I've tried it in the past :)

[@pumpkinobi8231]

Hello, i want to ask when you and frank do 4 hand piano plays again. I am playing so much of your plays and I love it

[@Franck_Hoffmann]

Since the latest update, turning on/off tracks (key command "O") unloads the instruments. You no longer need to option-click. As a matter of fact, the option click turns the track off but no longer unloads the instrument. Is it just me, or is it a new behavior in logic?

[@ZachHeyde]

Yeah I've noticed it too!

[@jensschrader7356]

Hi Zach: just found this tutorial because of your new newsletter you sent around - thanks for sending it! And many thanks for all the valuable shortcuts to further improve the workflow. I always learn so much from your videos!! I am only wondering why you always nudge the first note by one grid division (1/16) to the right, e.g. at 10:29? Is there any technical reason for it? I am sure there is a good reason for it, but I can't see it at the moment ...🤔

[@ZachHeyde]

Thanks Jens! It's to align the starting note of the legato tracks, which have a predelay on them when legato is active (but not on the first note) 👍🏻

[@jensschrader7356]

@@ZachHeyde You mean, you've set a negative delay on the whole track? (Because I can't see it in the inspector window in your demo). Or am I still missing something here? Sorry for asking again...but I am still searching for the best way to handle the legato delays of the different instruments and articulation modes like in CSS 🙄 ...thanks, Zach!

[@ZachHeyde]

That's right! Negative delay on the whole track, to offset whatever delay a given library has to accomodate legatos (the manual should indicate that)

[@jensschrader7356]

@@ZachHeyde Thanks, Zach, got it 😀!

[@tsmiguel]

About the TAC Breath controller you use in other videos...mine is arriving today:) Can you give me any tips for its use with the orchestral libraries. i imagine that CC 1 CC 11 and CC 21 can be used for dynamics, expression and vibrato...but do you have some spetial settings that work better with it? Maybe you can use a short video abvout it giving your personal aproach ussing th BC :)

[@ZachHeyde]

Hope you enjoy! I have the basic one that just controls modulation, with a slight adjustment in the curve to make it lean towards quieter modulations. Beyond that, just a lot of practice playing it!

[@tsmiguel]

@@ZachHeyde So for CC11 expression vol and vibrato you use sliders, right?

[@ZachHeyde]

Yep, that's right!

[@korniceman3000]

Awesome video!! I definitely learned a lot! Hope you won't mind advising a Windows user on how powerful a laptop must be to be able to simultaneously run all those Kontakt libraries or at least some them at the same time. I do some orchestral composing for fun but realized I can only run 1-2 libraries at a time so I'm curious what price level laptop I should purchase to better accommodate this style of music production. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you and looking forward to your next video :D!

[@ZachHeyde]

Thank you! From my experience, your best bet to reduce RAM is to keep all tracks unloaded/disabled, and load them in as needed. Having a large buffer size (1024) in your I/O settings in Logic or other DAWs will help reduce CPU. In terms of specs, there's no right answer, but generally at least 16gb for orchestral music, and more is almost always better. I'm currently on a Mac Studio with 20 cores and 64gb of RAM, but before that I had a 4-core iMac and upgraded to 64gb RAM with pretty solid performance (if everything was unloaded to start). 👍🏻

[@korniceman3000]

@@ZachHeyde Thank you so much!!! That definitely helps immensely!!

[@liambrownpianoproductions3445]

Hey Zach, would you do a breakdown of how the old disney overtures start?, they all do a very simular thing that just gives it such a classic sound and I would love to see what you hear that I don't.

[@ZachHeyde]

Awesome suggestion Liam! I'll definitely cover some Disney stuff at some point soon!

[@tsmiguel]

Hey Zach. I notice that the template you use in the video is different that the one you made in the 5 month ago video "how to make an Orch. template2" so my question is: do you use diferent templates for diferent situations? thanks

[@ZachHeyde]

Hi Tomas--my template is always evolving, so it's the same template but with new additions and adjustments! Currently I just use one template.

[@mybiggrin]

Is the “keyboard macro” thing a stock mac capability?

[@ZachHeyde]

Keyboard Maestro, I'm not sure but macros can be made with lots of programs!

[@mybiggrin]

@@ZachHeyde Thank you. You've made my day productive by forcing me to putting most of these commands into my template!

[@pjordanmusic]

How do you deal with CSS' delay time?

[@ZachHeyde]

Currently I've got legatos on one track, articulations on another, with track delays on each--I use a macro to set equal velocities on all legato notes so the legato plays at the speed/delay I need, and adjust in bulk 👍🏻

[@dafingaz]

Nice!

[@liambrownpianoproductions3445]

if you do not have one why not!, but a stream deck is really really useful

[@JennyWrenAlbert]

Hello Mr. Heyde I am a young music player (mainly interested in piano), and I was wondering, can you give me piano lessons? I'm going on vacation soon and my mom said that if I want piano lessons, I have to do it before we go. I hope you can respond, thanks!

[@ZachHeyde]

Thanks for reaching out! Currently not doing piano lessons--just composition. Sorry!