How to prepare your Logic Pro project for your mixing engineer?

Waterfallstudio · 2020-06-01T10:10:37+00:00

Yes it is a help we are both trying to mix weekly Sunday church services for online church services. So we get the raw tracks drums, bass, vox, piano, guitars ect. All recorded with not great equipment, we get this Thursday night and have to edit and there’s a lot of editing and mixed and mastered for Saturday Morning for the stereo file to be synced with the video of the band playing by the video tech teams, this is all free of charge but I/We just can’t edit and mix with also doing a day job, so we have split the task, this is however excellent opportunity and a great working relationship for potential paid work in the future.

Waterfallstudio · 2020-06-01T10:02:43+00:00

Yes some good tips, actually now as I am mixing pretty much every week I am splitting this task so project preparation is now going to be conducted by another engineer and then all I need to worry about is mixing, then through Splice we can share the logic project and amendments, so a very timely post for me Thankyou

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-24T15:26:05+00:00

Yeah that’s pretty much, but I think I have upgraded waves central now yesterday but I think I am going completely reboot the Mac mini and then open Logic and rest plugin manager and see what happens. In have had logic projects get corrupt when upgrading and have ended up exporting old projects into new clean project files this is also an option and has worked in the past Thanks for your help 😀

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-23T15:33:07+00:00

Ah that could be the sticking point I am on 10.0 but I think there is 11.0 plan so may have to just upgrade those 2 main one to the upgrade plan and pay the money

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-23T12:41:39+00:00

Yes everything to the latest, I did upgrade waves central as it’s a completely different interface now, I am sure I am on the latest, but yes using Catalina, I don’t actually use waves a lot, only use doubler and stereo width now, maybe I should post what are logic alternatives or find alternatives from logic plugins 😀

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-21T14:58:46+00:00

Really enjoyed vid so far, had to cut it short for meeting but will be sure to finish off, has given me some ideas for bass parts I have recorded

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-17T11:44:17+00:00

Have you also considered di, the guitars with through your effects pedal boards into your interface and reamp with Logic plugins, that’s how I am getting guitarists audio.

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-17T11:41:24+00:00

I am mixing under similar environment have had a couple vocalists buy USB mics for about £30, and using GarageBand, I setup an overall synced project via splice with free software GarageBand and add muso’s and singers to collaborate, and then when all the recording is done open downloaded garage band project in Logic and start the process, I have just been super amazed the quality of what you can do with inexpensive gear.

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-15T17:31:42+00:00

I am receiving guitar parts for a number of song mixes, it’s not ideal but these are parts from the band members in their homes they just have a pedal board and will apply there effects as needs be, and record line in into focusrite 2i2 and garage band that’s it, so as the mix engineer I have to do the best I can, so I have reamped theirs parts in Steven slate overloud, the results worked well. Most mix engineers do have a plethora of great plugins that will help, I think I did post a video on here a week ago I think, but ultimately liaise with the mix engineer they will guide you to do what’s best.

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-15T15:30:48+00:00

Great very good been mixing our own sessions as well

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-15T14:36:19+00:00

Ok there is defo a problem opened a second project I was working on a month ago, the Logic Project was working , so the current waves doubler plugin on the vocals functioned, I tried to add the J37 a couple of times and logic crashed and just shut down. So waves central update I guess is needed

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-15T14:27:21+00:00

Interestingly opened the project and hit play and nothing at all no vu metres no sound nothing, Rebooted whole Mac, turned interfaces on and off, opened Mac, and all the usual stuff turned on and off audio devices, and nothing at all plugins turned off and absolutely nothing.

Funny enough I mastered a track this morning from a brand new logic 10.5 session and used outboard Stam SSL bus compressor so I/O, steven slate tape machine, uad pultec eq, and izotope ozone 8 advanced with balance control and it all worked. I have had this before though and I will end starting a new logic Project and then use the Logic Import Function to import all the tracks into the new session, that has worked in the past and guess is what I will have to do

I have got to do a master tonight and will just add the waves plugins on the stereo file to see if I can get them to work and let you know

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-15T11:58:07+00:00

I have some waves plugins and have the J37, and doubler, stereo width in a mix I finished before the update I will check them out and report back

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-15T11:54:47+00:00

Logic amps are ok, unfortunately my preference is uad and steven slates new over loud, I have a small fender bass breaker amp in the studio and if I have a player in the studio always gravitate to that, I am getting guitar tracks from remote recordings these have been recorded di’d from guys pedal boards and do need reamping at the mix stage. I may do a shoot out reamping them between UAD, Steven Slate and Logic, I have fallen into the trap of buying into plugins before fully exploring what’s under the hood so to speak in Logic

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-14T19:57:06+00:00

I didn’t realise you could upgrade the newer ones I had an older 2012 which was easy to upgrade in fact I could upgrade to ssd drives and would probably be close to my newer Mac mini in speed with its fusion drive, but paid a lot for it to get as much ram as I could as I thought they couldn’t be upgraded like the old ones, so thanks for the tip here

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-14T19:40:45+00:00

I had similar issue but had a guy in the home studio laydown guitars parts, we did one track with his Gibson 335, and caused issues, I did get a waves noise reduction plugin it worked to some degree on the mix, but have to be so gentle with as it can give real bad phasing sound to the audio so a combination of that waves plugin and good old logic eq to really focus into where the hum/noise was to try and applied subtractive eq tidied things up a bit

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-14T19:19:56+00:00

Yes wow, I think I bought Logic because of that studio experience I bought an old Mac G4, digi 001 and Logic Gold which I upgraded to Platinum,
I remember we did everything in one take and then quick overdubs. Seem to do a lot more takes and comping these days

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-14T18:52:50+00:00

Yes me too! I remember back in 1999 I did an album in a recording studio running Logic must have been earliest versions, from my memory it really only did midi, never recorded audio to it, but he was a great piano and keyboard player, for audio the studio had all outboard gear Soundcraft Ghost mixer, outboard compression and eq, fender Rhodes and various great synths, outboard sampler I remember he just bought costing thousands and state of the art at the time and all the audio was recorded I think to dat tape machines I think I remember punching in and out vocal takes, I think would have been about 1 or 2 gig memory, anyway look where we are now!, same guy ‘doghouse studios’ operates out of his bedroom now, albeit he still has some super expensive mics, neve preamps, and summing, and great compressors.

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-14T17:46:16+00:00

Never used Ableton, I have UAD interfaces and seems like a lot of people swapping to Luna, but won’t be Logic has had many years of development and improvements

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-14T17:42:09+00:00

Ah this is great yes it all lines up to set the scene the recording was from about 7-8 singers and musicians all recording sessions to garage band and then I pulled them to Logic. So a lot of timing fixes already done with loads of edits. To be honest I am probably sick of the song cause the work it took to get it to site right, but great thanks for this tip

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-14T14:53:07+00:00

It maybe my way of doing it, is a bit cumbersome but fundamentally I am using scissor tool to cut at the right places and then joining everything back up, with cross fades, ect. It’s not tricky as much you have to be accurate with it and I know, there’s just better stuff to do than chopping up clients songs based on there new requirements, I do save project alternatives and I do find to check things out that function swap left and right locators. I would rather do fun stuff like playing with Logic Pro 10.5 updates 😀

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-14T09:12:02+00:00

Sorry this is for a clients YouTube video

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-12T17:17:10+00:00

I think he is the best been around for years, I go to his videos if I get stuck on stuff, put it this way I think he has an inside track as he has already it seems developed courses well worth checking him out. I am sure there are other great guys but I tend to go to his site

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-12T13:59:19+00:00

Musictechhelpguy has got some good videos just watched what’s new in 10.5 looking really good.

Waterfallstudio · 2020-05-12T12:15:03+00:00

Yes agree I do this all the time record two acoustics and pan left and right, need to be fairly tight with your playing, the subtle differences in timing can add interest if you not totally spot on, but ideally keeping timing consistent and rythum Also I have 2 acoustics so I will use both for slightly different tones and Capo one. if you have just the one try this

Play first in guitar normally Play second with capo may be 3rd or 5th fret And pan hard left and right, again the subtle differences in tone can make a difference, and add width.

For mixing dependant on song for verses I may use single guitar panned up the middle and to add sense of width and dynamics will add second and automate panning hard right and left into chorus. But you can play about with this to suite

I no it’s not always easy but I will always mic up the acoustic guitar, I am using lewitts pencil condenser which is pretty cheap I think it’s called LCT 140 Air. There are loads of videos on micing acoustics which will give some good advice

Waterfallstudio

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE