Logic Pro User Guide for iPad
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- What is Logic Pro?
- Working areas
- Work with function buttons
- Work with numeric values
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- Intro to tracks
- Create tracks
- Create tracks using drag and drop
- Choose the default region type for a software instrument track
- Select tracks
- Duplicate tracks
- Reorder tracks
- Rename tracks
- Change track icons
- Change track colors
- Use the tuner on an audio track
- Show the output track in the Tracks area
- Delete tracks
- Edit track parameters
- Start a Logic Pro subscription
- How to get help
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- Intro to recording
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- Before recording software instruments
- Record software instruments
- Record additional software instrument takes
- Record to multiple software instrument tracks
- Record multiple MIDI devices to multiple tracks
- Record software instruments and audio simultaneously
- Merge software instrument recordings
- Spot erase software instrument recordings
- Replace software instrument recordings
- Capture your most recent MIDI performance
- Route MIDI internally to software instrument tracks
- Record with Low Latency Monitoring mode
- Use the metronome
- Use the count-in
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- Intro to arranging
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- Intro to regions
- Select regions
- Cut, copy, and paste regions
- Move regions
- Remove gaps between regions
- Delay region playback
- Trim regions
- Loop regions
- Repeat regions
- Mute regions
- Split and join regions
- Stretch regions
- Separate a MIDI region by note pitch
- Bounce regions in place
- Change the gain of audio regions
- Create regions in the Tracks area
- Convert a MIDI region to a Session Player region or a pattern region
- Rename regions
- Change the color of regions
- Delete regions
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- Intro to chords
- Add and delete chords
- Select chords
- Cut, copy, and paste chords
- Move and resize chords
- Loop chords on the Chord track
- Edit chords
- Work with chord groups
- Use chord progressions
- Change the chord rhythm
- Choose which chords a Session Player region follows
- Analyze the key signature of a range of chords
- Create fades on audio regions
- Extract vocal and instrumental stems with Stem Splitter
- Access mixing functions using the Fader
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- Intro to Step Sequencer
- Use Step Sequencer with Drum Machine Designer
- Record Step Sequencer patterns live
- Step record Step Sequencer patterns
- Load and save patterns
- Modify pattern playback
- Edit steps
- Edit rows
- Edit Step Sequencer pattern, row, and step settings in the inspector
- Customize Step Sequencer
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- Effect plug-ins overview
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- Instrument plug-ins overview
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- ES2 overview
- Interface overview
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- Modulation overview
- Use the Mod Pad
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- Vector Envelope overview
- Use Vector Envelope points
- Use Vector Envelope solo and sustain points
- Set Vector Envelope segment times
- Vector Envelope XY pad controls
- Vector Envelope Actions menu
- Vector Envelope loop controls
- Vector Envelope point transition shapes
- Vector Envelope release phase behavior
- Use Vector Envelope time scaling
- Modulation source reference
- Via modulation source reference
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- Sample Alchemy overview
- Interface overview
- Add source material
- Save a preset
- Edit mode
- Play modes
- Source overview
- Synthesis modes
- Granular controls
- Additive effects
- Additive effect controls
- Spectral effect
- Spectral effect controls
- Filter module
- Low, bandpass, and highpass filters
- Comb PM filter
- Downsampler filter
- FM filter
- Envelope generators
- Mod Matrix
- Modulation routing
- Motion mode
- Trim mode
- More menu
- Sampler
- Studio Piano
- Copyright
Synthesizer fundamentals
Sound synthesis is the electronic production of sounds—starting from basic properties such as sine tones and other simple waves.
Synthesizers are so named because they can emulate, or synthesize, a wide variety of sounds—such as the sound of another instrument, a voice, a helicopter, a car, or a barking dog. Synthesizers can also produce sounds that don’t occur in the natural world. The ability to generate tones that cannot be created in any other way makes the synthesizer a unique musical tool.
The simplest form of synthesizer would be a basic sine wave generator that provided little or no control over pitch. Such a synthesizer would not be able to synthesize anything except a sine wave. Combining multiple sine generators with pitch control, however, can produce interesting and useful tones.
In a synthesizer, the task of tone generation falls to a component known as an oscillator. Most synthesizer oscillators generate harmonically rich waveforms such as sawtooth, triangle, square, and pulse waves, in addition to sine waves. These waveform names are based on the resemblance of their respective shapes to a tooth on the blade of a saw, to a triangle, to a square, and so on. For information about the most common synthesizer waveforms, see Oscillators.
Sculpting the fundamental tone and related harmonics into another sound is achieved by routing the signal from one component, also known as a module, to another in the synthesizer. Each module performs a different job that affects the source signal.
In a modular synthesizer, signal routing is achieved by physically cabling modules to each other. In most modern synthesizers the signal routing between modules is internally prewired and is typically changed using switches, knobs, and other controls.
For a discussion of synthesizer components and their interaction with each other to control and shape sound, see How subtractive synthesizers work.
Synthesizers have existed far longer than you might imagine. In the days that preceded the use of digital technology, all electronic synthesizers were analog. Prior to the use of electricity, synthesizers were mechanical. There are significant differences between analog and digital synthesizers:
Analog: An analog synthesizer combines voltage-controlled circuits—such as oscillators, filters, and amplifiers—to generate and shape sounds. The amount of voltage is typically related directly to the waveform pitch, with higher voltages equaling higher pitches.
Digital: In a digital synthesizer, the signal flow is digital. Binary descriptions of the signal—a string of zeros and ones—are fed from one algorithm to another.
Hybrid analog and digital synthesizers: Some synthesizer designs feature digital oscillators that generate signals—using binary descriptions of waveforms. The digital oscillator signal is then sent to analog filters and amplifiers. The main advantage of this approach is that digital oscillators don’t drift in pitch, which is a common problem in analog oscillators.
Virtual analog: A virtual analog synthesizer is a digital synthesizer that mimics the architecture, features, and peculiarities of an analog synthesizer. The behaviors and functions of the oscillators, filters, and other modules that you would find in an analog synthesizer are emulated by computer algorithms.
ES1 is a virtual analog synthesizer. Its virtual signal flow is that of a typical analog synthesizer, but all components and signal processing—the virtual oscillators, filters, and so on—are calculated by the central processing unit (CPU) of your computer.
ES1 emulates some of the idiosyncrasies of particular analog circuits—in cases where they tend to sound nice—such as high oscillator levels overdriving the filter. Other analog synthesizer phenomena, such as slowly drifting out of tune (as the instrument heats up), are not simulated. See ES1 overview.
Virtual analog synthesizers have other advantages over their analog counterparts as well. They are programmable, which means that you can save sound settings; they can be automated, so you can record and play back fader and knob movements; and they are often multi-timbral, which allows you to play different sounds at the same time, on different instrument channels. Aspects such as polyphony—the ability to play multiple notes—and velocity sensitivity are found in most virtual analog synthesizers but in very few analog instruments.
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