Intro to Session Players in Logic Pro for iPad

The Session Players in Logic Pro for iPad let you add realistic bass, piano, and drum performances to your project. Just like an expert backing band, the Session Players can quickly create musical performances and respond instantly to your input and direction in a near-endless variety of ways.

The Session Players feature the Bass Player, Keyboard Player, and Drummer. You can choose Session Players from a wide range of styles, from pop rock to R&B. Each Session Player comes with their own patch and a distinct playing style.

Figure. The Session Players in the Tracks area and Session Player Editor.

The harmonies played by the Bass Player and Keyboard Player follow the global Chord track or region chords. By using the Chord track, you can have multiple Session Players follow the same chords so that they play in sync. You can use region chords with Session Players so that the Session Player for that region plays chords different from those on the Chord track. For information about working with chords, see Intro to chords.

Session Player performances are contained on Session Player regions on software instrument tracks. You can create multiple Session Player regions on a track, each with a different playing style, allowing you to give different sections of your project a unique musical feel.

In the Session Player Editor, you can change the Session Player’s performance by changing to a different style, choosing different presets, selecting a predefined rhythmic pattern, and creating your own pattern from scratch. You can then fine-tune the performance using various settings and regenerate the performance based on the current settings. You can also edit region chords and have the Session Player regions incorporate the rhythm of another track.

The Bass Player and Keyboard Player come with plug-ins—the Studio Bass and the Studio Piano—to give you control over the players’ sound. The plug-ins are optimized for the two Session Players and for Session Player regions. Each plug-in has a selection of sample-based instruments and settings that you can use to faithfully reproduce bass and piano sounds.

The Drummer can play both electronic and acoustic kits. Acoustic Drummers use Drum Kit Designer, and electronic Drummers use Drum Machine Designer.

For even greater flexibility, you can influence the sound of Session Players by choosing patches in the Browser, adding plug-ins, and adjusting plug-in parameters. With the Drummer, you can exchange individual kit pieces and edit their settings in Drum Kit Designer or Drum Machine Designer.

The Browser features Session Player loops that you can add to your project the same way as other loops, which allows you to quickly build a song or find inspiration. See Add Apple Loops to your project.

Note: You can convert Session Player regions to MIDI or pattern regions so that you can edit them in other editors.

Add a track with a Session Player region

In Logic Pro, tap the Add Tracks button above the track headers.
In the New Tracks dialog, choose the Session Player you want to use (Keyboard Player, Bass Player, or Drummer) in the pop-up menu in the Session Player button.
To choose a different Session Player style, tap the More button in the Session Player button, then choose a style in the Style pop-up menu.
For the Bass Player or Keyboard Player, if you don’t want the Session Player region on the new track to use the default progression, tap the Use Default Chord Progression for New Regions switch to turn it off. See Use chord progressions.
To create the track, tap the Session Player button in the New Tracks dialog.
- If there are no chords on the Chord track, a default eight-bar chord progression is added (unless you deselected the Use default chord progression for new regions checkbox).
- If the cycle area is on, a software instrument track containing a Session Player region is created. The length of the Session Player region corresponds to the cycle area.

Create a track with a Session Player loop

In the Browser, you can find loops for all Session Players. Loops for the Bass Player and Keyboard Player are annotated with chords.

Tap the Browser button , then tap Loops.
Tap the All Filters button .
In the Type category, tap Session Player Loop.
Tap the More button in the Browser, then tap New Track with Loop.
A new track is created, and the loop is placed on the track at the beginning of the project.

When you add a loop containing chords to the Tracks area, you can choose to have the chords copied to the Chord track so that they can be followed by the Session Players in the project. See Add Apple Loops to your project.

Create an additional Session Player region on a track

In Logic Pro, with no other region selected, tap an empty area of the software instrument track, then choose Create Session Player Region from the shortcut menu.

You can choose whether a new Session Player region loads with the default chord progression for the style or loads with only the tonic chord of the project’s key. See Turn off adding a default chord progression.

Download this guide: PDF

Helpful?

Logic Pro User Guide for iPad

Intro to Session Players in Logic Pro for iPad

Add a track with a Session Player region

Create a track with a Session Player loop

Create an additional Session Player region on a track