Chapter 16: Mixing Your Project 287
Follow these steps to change the scale of your channel strip level meters:
\1.\ Choose Logic Pro X Preferences Display.
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The Display Preferences window opens. |
\2.\ Click the Mixer tab.
\3.\ On the Scale drop-down menu, choose one of the following:
•Exponential: This scale has a higher resolution in the upper range of the meter. Use this scale if you want finer control at the top of the meter.
•Section dB-linear: This scale has a near-even resolution throughout the meter. Use this scale if you want an even control over the entire level.
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If you think you might want to change the level-meter scale frequency, you can |
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assign a Toggle Level Meter Scale key command. For details on creating key |
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commands, see Chapter 3. |
Adjusting Channel Strip Controls
The channel strip is where you adjust the volume and sound of a track. You can view a selected track’s channel strips in the following ways:
\\Choose View Show Inspector or press I. The channel strip is shown on
the inspector. You may have to close the region and track inspector to view all channel strip controls.
\\Choose View Show Mixer or press X. The selected channel strip appears
light gray in the mixer. You may need to adjust the size of the mixer to
\\Choose Window Open Mixer or press -2 to open the mixer in a newview all channel strip controls.
window.
You can adjust multiple selected channel strips simultaneously. To select multiple channel strips, Shift-click the channel strips or make a choice on the Edit Select menu in the mixer. You can select multiple tracks in the mixer also by dragging along the channel strip names of the channel strips you want to select.
\By default, not all channel strip controls are shown. To show or hide channel strip components, Control-click any track in the mixer or inspector and
choose the components you want to show on the Channel Strip Components menu. You can also show and hide channel strip components by using the View menu in the mixer.
288 Part V: Mixing, Mastering, and Sharing Your Music
Adjusting volume and toggling between levels
Adjust the volume of your tracks by raising or lowering the fader on each channel strip. The default fader state (no boost or cut) is called unity gain. You can quickly restore your fader to unity gain by Option-clicking the channel strip.
\Your faders are capable of .01 dB changes. Don’t drive yourself crazy with these tiny increments. At least 1 dB of change is required before you reach a
just noticeable difference, so moving your fader less than 1 dB isn’t worth the effort. Depending on the frequency and complexity of a sound, even a 3 dB change in level is barely noticeable. Save time by moving your faders in increments of 1 dB or more.
Adjusting the pan balance
The pan balance knob is located above the fader and dB readout. Rotate the knob to find the ideal position in the stereo spectrum and Control-click it to reset it to center. Use pan to balance tracks from left to right and to find clarity on individual instruments. You can achieve balance by positioning tracks evenly throughout the stereo field. If the arrangement is balanced, it can dictate the panning. For example, a call and response between two groups of instruments can be panned on opposite sides of the stereo spectrum.
\Your three most sacred positions are center, hard left, and hard right. Vocals, bass, kick drum, and snare are almost always panned center. What you put in
the left and right positions will depend on the mixing concept, as described previously in the “Understanding Important Mixing Concepts” section. If two guitar tracks are playing at the same time, they are often panned hard left and hard right with other instruments filling in between.
Muting and soloing tracks
At the bottom of the channel strips are two buttons labeled M (mute) and S (solo). Mute a track to disable it from the mix. Solo a track, and all the other tracks’ mute buttons blink to indicate they are muted. Sometimes, you can’t find a track that was originally soloed because it’s hidden or among many other tracks. In that case, press Control-Option- -S to engage the Solo Off for All key command. You can also Option-click a solo button to unsolo all the other tracks.
Chapter 16: Mixing Your Project 289
\You can put a track into solo-safe mode so it won’t mute even if you solo another track. Control-click the solo button of a track to toggle solo-safe mode.
A red slash will cross the solo button. Solo-safe mode is useful when you want to hear more than one track at a time when you use solo mode.
Grouping tracks
After you get the balance of a group of instruments, such as drums, just right, you can adjust their volumes together as a group. Good candidates for channel groups are drums, background vocals, doubled lead vocals, and anything that goes together and should be adjusted together. To group tracks and choose group settings, follow these steps:
\1.\ Click the channel strip’s Group slot and choose Open Group Settings,
or press Shift-Option-G.
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The Group Inspector opens, as shown in Figure 16-6. |
Figure 16-6:
The group inspector.
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290 Part V: Mixing, Mastering, and Sharing Your Music
\2.\ Select the Groups Active check box.
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When you want to edit a track individually, deselect the Groups Active |
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check box. |
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3.\ Select the track group check box in the list. |
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A track can be in more than one group at a time. You can also rename |
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the group by double-clicking in the name field and entering the new |
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group name. |
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4.\ Select the track settings you want to adjust as a group. |
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If you don’t see the group settings, click the Settings disclosure triangle. |
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Note that you can also edit tracks as a group by selecting the Editing (selec- |
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tion) check box. This option is useful when you want to edit drum tracks or |
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background vocal tracks as a group. If the grouped tracks are audio tracks |
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and were recorded together, such as drum tracks, select the Phase-Locked |
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Audio check box to ensure that your edits don’t adjust the phase of the |
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tracks, which can produce unwanted cancellations of frequencies between |
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the tracks. |
\After you add a track to a group, the group inspector pane is added to the inspector between the region and track inspectors. From the group inspector,
you can quickly deselect the Groups Active check box to allow individual track adjustments or make other group adjustments without opening the group inspector window.
Choosing input and output settings
The input and output settings you have available are determined in part by your hardware. During the mixing of your project, you rarely need to change input settings because you’re not recording audio sources. You might want to change your output settings, however. In particular, you can do some creative audio routing by choosing a bus as an output.
Buses are used to route audio to and from auxiliary tracks. To route the output of a track to an auxiliary track, click-hold the output slot and choose a bus on the menu. If a bus is already being used to route audio to an auxiliary track, it will have the name of the auxiliary track in parenthesis. Because you can route many tracks to the same auxiliary track, you can process them as a group. You learn more about auxiliary tracks later, in the “Using auxiliary channel strips” section.