April 22, 2025 • 37 mins
Are you underusing the tools you already own in Logic Pro? In this episode of Inside the Mix, Marc Matthews is joined by Justin Hochella, producer and co-host of Face Your Ears, to uncover Logic Pro’s native power that most producers overlook. We answer the questions every independent artist should be asking: What are the essential Logic Pro keyboard shortcuts for beginners? What are the best shortcuts for speeding up workflow in Logic Pro? How do I use Logic Pro shortcuts for automation and MIDI editing?
From game-changing tips like the Z and V keys to hidden sound isolation plugins, we dive deep into Logic’s workflow-enhancing features. Justin also shares how built-in tools like Studio Piano and Sculpture rival paid plugins—offering pro-quality sound without extra cost. Wondering how to use built-in Logic Pro plugins effectively or which plugins every beginner should explore? This episode is your guide.
Plus, learn how to unlock Logic’s 39,000+ Apple Loops and sound packs—packed with vintage drum machines and high-end textures hiding in plain sight.
If you’re producing in Logic, this is your shortcut to working faster and smarter—with the tools you already have.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Follow Face Your Ears
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Thanks for listening!!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justin Hochella (00:00):
I think early on I got it drilled in my mind
that, like the third party,stuff is so much better and
there may have been some truthto that earlier in the music
technology timeline.
But nowadays that's not reallytrue anymore, and I think Logic
is a great example of it.
Mike Marsh (00:17):
Hey, Inside the Mix podcast fans.
It's Mike Marsh here from MikeMarsh Mastering.
You can follow me and check outmy Facebook and Instagram pages
on the socials to find out moreabout what I'm working on in
the studio.
Right now You're listening tothe Inside the Mix podcast and
here's your host, Mark MatthewsWelcome to Inside the Mix, your
(00:39):
go-to podcast for music creationand production.
Marc Matthews (00:42):
Whether you're crafting your first track or
refining your mixing skills,join me each week for expert
interviews, practical tutorialsand insights to help you level
up your music and smash it inthe music industry.
Let's dive in.
Hey folks, welcome to Insidethe Mix.
Today I'm joined by JustinHoschella, music producer,
(01:06):
teacher and co-host of the Faceyour Ears podcast.
Justin, along with his co-host,rich Bosick, helps musicians
bring their creative ideas tolife through approachable, fun
and informative discussions.
A very good podcast.
So in this episode we're divinginto Logic Pro's unsung heroes,
those hidden features, hotkeysand tools that can seriously
(01:29):
speed up your workflow andimprove your production.
So if you're a Logic Pro user,you're going to love this one,
and if you're not a Logic Prouser, listen anyway, because you
might find something in therethat piques your interest.
You might want to jump over toLogic or see if your DAW does
something similar.
Justin, welcome to the show.
Welcome to Inside the Mix.
How are you?
Thank you for joining me today.
Justin Hochella (01:51):
Thank you so much, mark.
It's great to be here.
I am doing really well and I'mvery excited to be on your show
and talk about something that Ilove, which is Logic Pro.
Marc Matthews (02:03):
Yes, I'm looking forward to this.
As the audience knows, I'm aLogic Pro user myself, so this
is right up my street and justbefore we were recording this
episode, we were discussing aparticular Apple plugin that I
had no idea existed.
So, audience listening, you'regoing to get a lot out of this.
So if you're feeling stuck inyour DAW or want to get the most
out of Logic Pro, this episodewill give you the practical
(02:32):
takeaways to help you producefaster, better and smarter.
So the power of hot keys,speeding up our workflows.
So I've done episodes on hotkeys before, so I'm not going to
go into the ones I use.
But, justin, can you talk aboutyour go-to Logic Pro hot keys
and how do they improve yourworkflow?
Justin Hochella (02:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know I think there'sprobably a new hotkey I'm
discovering, at least like oncea week, if not once a day.
There's just so many and asLogic evolves and changes over
time, they're just adding moreand more.
But there's some, like you said, that I just use all the time.
So one of them is just the zkey.
(03:06):
So z for zoom, and this isreally helpful if you're wanting
to zoom in on a region like aregion of audio or midi, and you
know if you're way zoomed outand on a really busy project, it
sometimes can be cumbersome totry and like zoom in with the
sliders or your mouse and tryingto do that over and over.
So the z key just boom, zoomsin like full screen pretty much
(03:29):
on whatever region you'relooking at maybe you're looping
it, listening to it, that kindof thing.
So I love using that just for,like navigation purposes.
Um, another one that I reallylike it actually relates to
markers.
So in Logic Pro for those thatdon't know markers are
(03:49):
essentially like almost likenotes, like sticky notes at the
top of the screen that allow youto have different sections of
your track marked, and I usethose a lot.
So I really like to use thosewith clients, especially just to
help differentiate parts of thesong, but I love using option
(04:09):
shift comma and option shiftplus, and so what those do is
they actually navigate backwardsand forwards through the
markers really quickly.
So that's a nice littleworkflow that I've come up with.
So option shift comma If youlook at your keyboard it's
actually like the back arrow, sothe comma and the back arrow,
(04:33):
and so option shift period forthe other one to go forward, so
that one is really helpful tonavigate and then, in
conjunction with that, the G keyfor global so to find where
these markers are and otherglobal features of Logic Pro.
Just hitting that G key allowsyou to open it up, to manipulate
(04:57):
those markers or the tempo forthe track, all kinds of global
things for the project.
And another one that I love Iactually found this one out
fairly recently is the V key.
So V as in Victor.
So if you have a really busyproject with like eight
(05:17):
different plugin windows thatyou're shuffling through, if you
simply hit the V key, they alldisappear, and so I love that.
It just cleans it up.
So if you just want to look atthe arrangement, you're like I
don't want to like dig throughall these plugin windows and
click, click, click and drag anddrop and all that.
The V key is great.
So those are just some.
(05:39):
Like there's literally, youknow, like you said at the top,
like there's so many.
There's some that you use,there's some that we're
discovering, but yeah, they'refantastic.
And I just kind of, if I findmyself using something a lot in
a menu, I'll be like, okay,what's the keyboard command for
(05:59):
that?
Marc Matthews (06:00):
And I'll try and look that up.
No, that makes perfect sense.
So, just to recap, you've gotthe zoom, so we're zooming in on
a particular region.
We've got option shift commaand option shift period, which
is going to help us navigatethrough markers, which I didn't
know was a shortcut, so I'mgoing to use that myself, so
I've learned that one.
We've got G for global as well,and v to make everything
(06:28):
disappear, which I love.
So all options, uh, or rathershortcut, short keys, hot keys,
if you will, that, um, that I'mgoing to take forward and use
myself.
Do you use the third tool inlogic pro, because that's one
thing that I use a lot?
Well, I use all the time.
Justin Hochella (06:37):
To be fair yeah , I I've heard a lot about it
and I I've people advocate forit, but I haven't gotten in the
habit of using it and I'mcurious, like how do you use it
in in your day-to-day work?
Marc Matthews (06:50):
Yeah, I mean for me, I've I've got it nine times
out of 10, it's gain.
I've got it set so I can useclip gain on an audio region and
that's that's where I use itmostly Cool Podcast editing and
also editing in terms of alljust like a music production
session as well.
So I use it for the gain tool.
And then my second I can'tremember which ones they are now
(07:11):
is it the?
The right click is my um.
Justin Hochella (07:16):
I use that for the marquee tool oh yeah, a lot
yeah yeah, I use that so much tomark probably like the single
most important tool in logic Ithink, it's so, so useful and
and I love it yeah, yeah,definitely.
Marc Matthews (07:28):
And there's one that I use a lot, hotkey in
particular, and I wish I shouldhave made a note of it.
So slap on the wrist for me andthat is the shortcut key
command for fades on an audioregion.
Um, I want to say it's shiftand something.
I can't remember what it is offthe top of my head, but I do
know there is a setting, I wastold in Logic, where you can go
in and change it.
So when you hover over the leftor right of an audio region, it
(07:51):
will automatically snap, likeReaper does, so you can apply a
fade.
But that's another one I use.
Justin Hochella (07:57):
That's actually how I have my Logic Pro set up.
Is that?
The fades are just like theclick and drag on the regions.
Yeah, yeah, super helpful To befair.
Marc Matthews (08:05):
I should probably do that.
It would make my life easier,specifically with podcast
editing, rather than having touse shortcuts.
I should probably change that,because it's what I use all the
time, which would make sense.
But no, some really really goodoptions there and, like you say
, I mean we could spend a wholeepisode you could do a whole
series really on going throughthe different sort of hotkeys
(08:25):
and shortcuts available in LogicPro.
But I think what we'll move onto next is, or rather our
plugins, so plugins in Logic Pro, of which there are many, and
there are some amazing pluginsas well.
I've got to say I'm an aviduser of those, as, again, the
podcast listeners know this.
So could you share a logic proplugin that you think is
(08:46):
underrated but incredibly useful?
Justin Hochella (08:49):
absolutely.
You know, I think there's somany, there's a lot, uh, and I
think what happens a lot oftimes and I've been guilty of
this too is like kind ofignoring the stock plugins
because the, the marketing is soaggressive and, and you know,
uh, ubiquitous for third partystuff.
And I think early on I got itdrilled in my mind that, like
(09:11):
the third party stuff is so muchbetter and there may have been
some truth to that earlier in inthe, you know, music technology
timeline, but nowadays that'snot really true anymore, and I
think logic is a great exampleof to that earlier in the music
technology timeline, butnowadays that's not really true
anymore and I think Logic is agreat example of it.
So for me there are so manyplugins built into Logic that
are fantastic.
So, as you can see, behind meI've got a whole array of
(09:35):
synthesizers, hardwaresynthesizers, old and new, and
some with MIDI, some without,all of that.
But one thing I use a lotbecause of all of these external
hardware synths is the externalinstrument plugin, and so what
I used to do before I knew aboutthis plugin was you know if I
wanted to use my DX7, right, Iwould set up an audio track to
(09:58):
capture the audio, a MIDI trackto capture the MIDI, and you
know, go from there to kind ofrecord things independently.
And so what this plugin does isit sort of combines those two
into one track.
So I can set the MIDI to theDX7, and I can tell it to listen
to whatever you know ports onmy audio interface.
(10:21):
And I can do that all in oneplugin.
And, even better, I have all ofthese presets right.
So if I want to use a piece ofexternal gear quickly, I just
select the preset for, you know,the Mo grandmother that I have,
or the Yamaha SY77, or whateveryou know.
I just pull up that plugin andboom, I can start, you know,
(10:44):
recording a part in.
And so it's really justefficient to get a hardware
synth up and running.
And I should say that if you areusing that and you record a
part in, it will show up inLogic as MIDI and you can then
bounce it, you know in place,and it will capture the audio.
It has to play it in real time.
But, uh, you know that way youcan uh integrate it in as an
(11:08):
audio file.
Uh, if you want to, you knowprint that and go forward with
it.
So I love that plug-in, use itall the time.
Um, another one and you and Iwere talking about this before
we started is called the SoundIsolation plugin and it's made
by Apple.
So if you go into Logic and youlook at the Apple listing of
(11:31):
audio units, there's one calledSound Isolation and this one's
pretty neat.
Like, basically what it does isit removes like room noise and
reverb to some extent.
So if you have like aninstrument or a voice where it's
like recorded in a bathroom, orsomething.
It isolates the sound.
And I've got a quick exampleI'm just going to kind of turn
(11:52):
the plug in on and off and we'llbe able to kind of hear the
effect that this plug in has.
So here we go.
I'm currently standing in abathroom within my house because
the ceiling, walls and floorare all hard, flat surfaces, so
the audio is going to have a lotof natural reverb to it and
(12:17):
using Apple's sound isolationplugin I can actually isolate my
voice and cut out some of thereverb that's naturally
occurring within this recordingdue to the nature of this room.
So in that example you candefinitely hear like the room
(12:39):
room tone, I guess, or thereverb kind of getting quite a
bit reduced, if not eliminated,when I turn that plug-in on and
off.
So it's, it's like man, this isfree and it's built in like
that's, that's wild, like it's.
It's such a cool plug-in, um,and I've used it.
You know, like, for example, ifyou get a, a sample of some
(12:59):
sort, and there's just a lot oflike room noise or reverb to it,
like it really cleans it up.
So it's, it's pretty amazing.
Another plugin that I use it'sit's not super slick and cool
but it's very utilitarian thetuner plugin.
So Rich and I are part of aproduction company called RJB
(13:22):
Music Production and we'll do alot of vocal tuning for clients
and it just comes in clutch fordoing all of that editing and
just making sure we're dialingthings in and you know tuning
whether it's tuning a guitar ora voice or whatever it's right
there.
So you know, it's one of thosesimple little things that like,
(13:44):
if you don't know it's there,you might go out and spend, you
know, 10 or 20 bucks on a tunerwhen you don't need to.
It's like it's right there.
And another one I really likeis the BPM counter, which works
really well with, like drums orpercussion, and so it's just a
simple metering plugin.
I think it's in the meteringsection of Logic.
(14:05):
You just drop it in, put in adrum loop and it'll detect the
BPM of whatever that loop is,and I remember when I found that
I was like that exists in Logic.
Marc Matthews (14:17):
I had no idea.
Justin Hochella (14:20):
That's amazing.
So, you know, those are justsome of the plugins like just in
terms of like kind of bread andbutter, like everyday stuff.
But there's one plugin it's aninstrument that I feel like is
super underrated, and it'sAlchemy.
So, you know, alchemy to me isis unbelievably cool, like it is
(14:46):
super versatile, right, you canuse it for drums, pads, bass,
literally anything, um, whetherit's like retro sounding or like
futuristic sounding, it justcovers multiple forms of
synthesis and I think what Ireally love about it and respect
about it is it's built to beaccessible for people who are,
(15:08):
like new users, don't know a lotabout synthesis, but just kind
of want to quickly dial in asound.
You know, it makes it reallyeasy to do that.
But for people that are, youknow, veterans of the synthesis
world, you can open up the hoodand get into some pretty
sophisticated settings andfeatures and so forth to really
(15:29):
go nuts and dial in a reallycool sound.
And you know, I'll talk aboutthis a bit more later.
But you know, apple has createdjust a universe of sounds that
I think are woefullyunderutilized by people, and a
lot of these are related toalchemy, and so there's just so
much that it has to offer.
(15:50):
And it's like, you know, somany people are out there buying
things like you know Serum 2 orReactor or you know other cool
synths that are out there anddon't get me wrong, they're
awesome or Reactor or other coolsynths that are out there, and
don't get me wrong, they'reawesome.
But it's like, don't forget,you've got this powerhouse
waiting for you within Logic Pro.
Marc Matthews (16:07):
Yeah, those are all really, really interesting
ones.
Alchemy I'm a massive fan ofI've said this on the podcast
before and I've done little sortof tutorial episodes where I've
used Alchemy to create like asynth bass or something along
those lines, and tour episodeswhere I've used alchemy to
create like a synth bass orsomething along those lines.
And you're totally right inthat it's accessible if you're
first starting out withsynthesis, but if you want to
dig deeper, then you cancertainly do that with alchemy
and I've used it on so manytracks in one way, shape or form
(16:29):
.
Some of the sound designs inthere and the effects sounds
that they have are so good thathave been created and curated in
there.
The BPM counter I did not knowexisted and there's me tapping
on my desk trying to work outwhat the BPM is.
Or I think you can press T.
That might be quite anantiquated way of doing it in
Logic, but pressing T to try andget the tempo.
(16:52):
But I didn't know there was aBPM counter.
Yeah, and I'm always, alwayslooking for something like that
whenever I pull in a track orsomething like that to try and
work that out, man.
Justin Hochella (17:02):
I did not know that existed.
Yeah, I think I really got intoit because I was trying to do
tap tempo.
It's one of my gripes, I guess,with Logic is they don't make
it super intuitive or easy totap tempo.
And I was just trying to figureout what is the tempo of this
loop or whatever.
And I think I came across it inlike a youtube video or
(17:22):
something and I was like whatthat exists it's amazing and so
I tried it out on like drums andstuff like that and it works
really well very cool plugin,the sound isolation plugin.
Marc Matthews (17:32):
So that is an apple plugin.
Yeah, is that in the libraryitself or how do you access that
in logic is?
That what folder like, orcategorization as it.
Where is it under?
Justin Hochella (17:43):
um, if you go into the logic under the audio
units menu, um, it's not one ofthe stock like logic plugins.
You know how logic lists likeamps and pedals delay,
distortion, all that, it's notthere you have to go under audio
units, apple, and then if yougo into the apple menu they're
all listed as au and then thename of the plugin.
So this one is au soundisolation.
(18:05):
So it's actually the lastplugin within the apple list, um
, and if you have the latestversion of logic, you can just
search for sound isolation oneword and it'll pop up.
Marc Matthews (18:18):
Right, I get you.
That makes sense.
That makes sense.
Now I'm thinking to myself whyI wouldn't have seen that, and
it's probably because I don'tdive into that particular folder
air quotes, as it were.
But again, podcast editingthat's something that is
incredibly useful because younever quite know the interviewee
, what environment they're goingto be in, what noise you're
(18:42):
going to have to possiblyattenuate so that existing is
very useful to anyone who wantsto start a podcast or anything
or anything else.
Justin Hochella (18:49):
They need to remove that sound from yeah,
super easy to use just a wet dryslider.
So as you pull it towards dryyou get more of the like room
tone or reverb.
Pull it to wet, you know, youget more of an isolated sound.
Marc Matthews (19:04):
Sometimes there's artifacts that get presented,
so you want to kind of dial itinto the right setting for for
your application I think it's aclassic one of those, because
there are I can think of a wavesplugin that will do it, and now
I know that isotype have one aswell, because I do use it
myself.
But but it's a classic exampleof like, and I should do this is
just to dig a bit deeper intothe native plugins, as you'll
(19:25):
probably find something thatwill do the job or at least
bridge the gap until you canfind something else in your
native DAW and which kind ofgoes back to what I said earlier
about if you're not a Logic Prouser, this could still, um be
relevant to you because it couldget you thinking about okay,
well, I wonder if that existswithin my daw cubase, ableton
(19:47):
tools, reaper, uh, whatever,fruit loops the list goes on,
whatever it is so reallyinteresting stuff.
I think it'd be nice now tomove on, because I think you
alluded to a bit there about thelogic instruments.
So we've spoken about alchemy,sound design, synthesis.
Could you talk about some go-tologic instruments?
Because there are, again, thereare many, many instruments in
(20:09):
logic pro and packs, sound packsyeah you find yourself using
regularly absolutely so.
Justin Hochella (20:15):
You know, for a long time I was sort of
defaulting to a contact nativeinstruments contact piano called
the grandeur, just a superthick, lush piano.
I'm like man, this thing'sgreat, use it all the time.
And then I came across thestudio piano built into logic,
and I had the same reaction andI'm like what?
Like this is built in to logicand on top of that it offers up
(20:41):
different styles of piano.
So like an upright piano.
You know that you might find inlike an old church basement,
kind of that clanky sound, andit's just got a wealth of
fantastic sounds, whether it's,you know, some sort of lush,
orchestral kind of piano stylesound or something more affected
(21:02):
and kind of older sounding,that kind of thing.
It's amazing.
So you know, for all of thoselistening, if you use Logic Pro,
please just give the studiopiano a look, because it's so
easy to skip over something likethat, so something, so
something so basic and simple.
But you know, they nailed it, Ithink, with the studio piano
(21:26):
and, um, I was definitely one ofthose people that was like, oh,
it's a stock piano, it'sprobably not that great or
whatever, and it's like, youknow, put it, put it in a track
recently and was like dang, thisthing is incredible.
They nailed it.
So it's also really easy to use, um, and so there's not a ton
(21:47):
of uh, you know knobs and soforth on it in the interface,
but there doesn't need to be,and the ones that are there are
very specific and easy to use,so very intuitive, to get that
really nice piano sound.
Um, and you mentioned soundpacks, and so that's something
that like it's franklyoverwhelming in the best way
(22:07):
possible.
I I actually went into my logicpro recently just to kind of
get a sense of like what are wedealing with here when it comes
to like these loops and soundpacks and stuff, and like I
think my Apple loops library isnow 39,000 plus and that's from
Apple, and I mean you thinkabout like how much producers
(22:31):
spend on like sound packs andstuff and again, they're great,
they're really cool.
There's a lot of awesome stuffout there, but, like there is a
universe of sound that isavailable in Logic Pro, and so
you know, and I love the wayLogic has built the loop browser
where you can drill into likegenre and like, you know, style
(22:56):
and instrument and stuff likethat, and there's also the
ability to like, select aspecific sound pack.
And there's also the ability toselect a specific sound pack.
So if you kind of like the vibeor the feel of a certain sound
pack, you can just select thatsound pack and start to navigate
through that one and explore it.
And so just incredible.
I mean you could spend weeksgoing through and just
(23:18):
previewing these loops and thesesamples and stuff.
So just unbelievable,unbelievable stuff in there.
And Apple's releasing more andmore and they work with, you
know, current artists, likecontemporary artists that are
out there.
A guitarist that I really lovenamed Tosin Abassi, created a
(23:38):
sound pack for Logic.
I think it's only available inthe iPad version, and so I'm
like just waiting for them todrop it for the Mac version,
because I love that guy, he'samazing, and I heard some of
what they did for iPad.
Like man, I want that on theMac.
So, yeah, it's cool to see thatthey're continually growing and
(24:00):
expanding that universe ofsound.
Um, and you know, we talkedabout like, just like internal
instruments, of built-ininstruments, and for me, there's
one that I love.
It's been around a while now.
It's called sculpture, and Ilove sculpture for its organic
sounds.
So sculpture is great atmodeling.
(24:21):
It's like like I guess youwould call it a modeling synth
and it um, it's basicallymimicking uh, surfaces is the
best way to describe it, I thinklike glass or metal or wood,
and you can kind of craft yoursounds around those surfaces so
like it's really easy to getlike a marimba sound, uh, for
(24:43):
example, with like the woodsurface, that kind of thing.
But I love it for bass, like itjust comes up with these gnarly
like thick punchy basses.
So if you're looking for thatkind of a sound, check out
sculpture dial in a bass soundon it and you'll have a lot of
fun.
It's super amazing, veryversatile, you know, and it's
sound design.
(25:04):
So that's one that I reallylove.
Another one that I think is easyto overlook is RetroSynth.
And you know, because there'sso many third party plugins that
kind of do that sort of thinglike emulating like an old
analog Moog synth or like an 80sfm synthesizer or like a wave
(25:27):
table kind of synthesizer.
But again, I think what they'vedone is they've made it really
accessible, and so if you'resomebody that doesn't have a
huge budget to go out and buy abunch of third-party plugins,
retro synth is there waiting foryou to make some of these retro
kind of sounds.
And the thing I'd love about umretro synth is that it's very
(25:50):
faithful, very pure, likerecreation of popular retro
sounds, but it's it's.
It's that purity that I lovebecause it lends itself really
well to effects like delays andreverbs that are there's a whole
host of those, as you know, inLogic, but it just it's so nice
to have such a clean, almostlike perfect sounding synth,
(26:12):
especially if it's retro.
You know where you can like goto town on effects and really
dial it into your taste.
So love that.
And there's a couple sound packs.
I wanted to highlight a couplefavorites of mine.
One is Vintage Drum Machines.
So Logic has a sound pack bythat name and what I love about
(26:33):
it is it has these drum machinesthat are very sought after.
But if you were to try and goout and buy them you would need
like a massive loan from thebank, because you know you're
talking about like a Lynn drummachine and then the Roland line
, the like 606, the 808, the 909, like you're talking like
(26:53):
literally like 15, $20,000,right.
And drum machines there andthose sounds especially the 808,
right, like those are supersought after and you know it's
so easy to um, go out and buy aplugin or a sound pack, but you
don't need to if you're a logicuser, like they're.
They're there, um, and they're,they're ready to use and
(27:16):
they're professionally uh,produced.
They sound fantastic, easy touse and I love them.
So definitely recommend, uh,vintage drum machines and
there's another one calledtransition effects, a sound pack
called transition effects, andit has a lot of alchemy, uh,
like presets to it, but it'sjust, it's a great pack or
(27:40):
collection of these sort oftransition sounds, like risers
and sweeps and like that kind ofthing, and they're really good
at creating like tension and, um, you know, transitions between
sections of the song or like anintro or outro, like that kind
of thing, um, and so reallygreat starting point.
(28:00):
Some of them you can just, you,you know, insert right into a
production.
But, um, those are just acouple that I I definitely
recommend.
And if, if you're listening tothis and you're like, oh, wow, I
didn't really realize thisabout sound packs, how do I get
them?
Um, if you go into logic, uh,just the logic pro menu, there's
(28:20):
a selection called SoundLibrary and you can go in there
and you can open your SoundLibrary Manager and it will kind
of show you what you currentlyhave, what you don't have, and
there's an option to evendownload all available sounds.
So if you have a really bighard drive and you want to go to
town and get those 39,000sounds like I was talking about,
(28:42):
you can do that.
You can just download them onFelsweep.
So again Logic Pro SoundLibrary and then you can
download sounds from there.
So super cool feature of Logic.
Marc Matthews (28:54):
Pro Amazing.
There was a lot that you wentthrough there.
So, in particular, the studiopiano I think I've dabbled once
or twice with that Very, verygood sculpture I'm trying to.
I was racking my brainsthinking have I ever used that
and do I recognize it?
So that's something I'm goingto dig into as well, because
it's not something I'm familiarwith.
What the retro synth I've usedit on occasion I need to spend
(29:16):
more time with.
But what I think is reallyimportant is that you mentioned
the this, the sound library andthe sample packs that are
available, because I myself I'ma splice user, um, but I just
never, it never crosses my mindjust to think and in particular,
transition effects, becausetransition effects are something
that I'm always digging out,digging into and trying to find
(29:37):
more of to suit the piece thatI'm working on, and I never
think, never consider, actually,well, what is there in Logix
hands in the air?
I don't think I've used anythingfrom the sample packs since
Logic Pro 9, so that's how farback it goes since I last used
anything from there.
And there are so many andthey're on my hard drive already
and I just don't pay anyattention to them.
(29:58):
So this has sort of kickstarted that in me now to think,
ok, well, maybe I just need to.
Before I reach just over tosplice, I'm gonna check and see
what is already here for me, andmaybe even as a song starter as
well, who knows.
But yeah, it's very inspiringstuff.
But sculpture in particular,I'm gonna dig into because again
(30:18):
, not something I've ever, neverexperienced.
Well, used, check out the bass,like I said, check out the bass
.
Justin Hochella (30:24):
Like I said, check out the bass presets on
Sculpture.
I think some of the pads andstring sounds on it are really
good.
It does a great job of modelingstring sounds as well.
But also, I would just remindeverybody listening, if you dial
into those vintage drummachines, they work with Logic
Pro Drummer so you can, you know, combine them with that to come
(30:46):
up with some really cool beatsand and fills and stuff like
that.
So definitely worth checkingout amazing stuff.
Marc Matthews (30:53):
I realize the, the, the time we have here, uh,
justin.
So I think it'd be quite coolif we go to the, the final part
here, which is uh, what's onelogic pro trick?
Every producer, artist, user oflogic pro should know.
So if you could share just onelogic pro trick or tip technique
, let's go tip or trick.
(31:13):
Every producer, artist,musician should know.
If you had to highlight onethis is a long way of me saying
this or asking this questionwhat would it be?
Justin Hochella (31:23):
yeah, I actually just found this out and
I would recommend this toanybody because this was driving
me absolutely bonkers for thelongest time.
So here's the problem, here'sthe, here's the setup.
So in logic pro, I would beworking on a song, you know, and
I'd have say like, like a MIDIregion, and I'd be like, okay,
(31:45):
this is cool, I want this to youknow.
Come in at this other part inthe song.
So I'd select it and copy itand, just you know, hit, paste
without thinking about it, andinvariably what was happening
almost nine times out of 10 isthe region I copied would paste
on some other track that Ihappen to have selected.
(32:06):
And this happened all the time.
And so I'd be like copying MIDIand trying to paste it to an
audio track and then likecopying a drum loop and then
pasting it to the guitar trackand just being like, oh, like
you know, having to constantlylike redo my work, and it's not
a big deal, but you know, overtime it adds up right.
So the I had this happen to merecently and I'm like that's it.
(32:29):
There has got to be a featureto solve this problem for me.
And, lo and behold, I found it.
So let me save you, dearlistener, some time by uh,
directing you to logic prosettings.
So if you go to Logic Prosettings, select general, which
(32:52):
is, I think, the default.
So from general, go intoediting and there is a checkbox
there that says select tracks onregion slash marquee selection.
Boom Solves the problem.
So if I go to select a regionto copy it, it will then by
default select the same trackthat that region is on.
So I don't have to think aboutlike, oh, do I have the right
(33:12):
track selected, you know, andhave to clean that up and it
works beautifully.
So now you know, I go in like oh, I like this drum loop, I want,
I want, I want to.
You know, paste this over here.
Just select it, copy it, movemy playhead to where I want it,
paste it in works beautifullyperfect.
Marc Matthews (33:30):
I didn't know that existed and it's one I'm
going to use, because I did justthat either yesterday or the
day before and then, yeah, itwas an audio region.
It jumps to the wrong place.
So I I totally share yourfrustrations with that and I'm
so glad that you found it andyou're able to share it and now
that I can use it.
So now, excellent stuff.
So, as a recap, folks withJustin's expertise here, we've
(33:52):
been through shortcut keycommands, hotkeys, plugins that
deserve more attention, hiddengems in Logic Pro's sound
library, and also that onetime-saving tip, so stopping
audio.
Did it work for MIDI as well?
So it's audio regions and MIDI,or is?
Justin Hochella (34:09):
it yeah, any anything yeah for both.
Marc Matthews (34:12):
Yep, amazing.
I'm gonna open Logic as soon aswe're done and I'm gonna enable
that so I don't forget.
Uh, justin, it's been amazingto deep dive into Logic Pro's
hidden features with you today,so I thought it'd be doing you a
disservice if I didn't give youthe opportunity maybe just to
talk a bit about Face your Ears,the podcast you do with your
friend Rich.
If you could tell us a bitabout that.
Justin Hochella (34:34):
Absolutely so.
My dear friend Rich Bozic and Ihave a podcast called Face your
Ears and it's sort of aportmanteau of Face your Ears
and it's sort of a portmanteauof face your fears.
And you know, the reason westarted the podcast is because
we were thinking about ourselves.
When we first started, you know, we had a lot of base level
(34:54):
questions that we wanted helpwith, and you know, we just
created this podcast to helppeople who are new to music
production and DIY audio and soforth, and so that's kind of the
angle that we're coming from.
But at the same time, we alsodo cover topics for seasoned
veterans, and so we try reallyto bring both new users and
(35:18):
seasoned users together in thispodcast and focus on DIY audio
and music production.
So check it out.
You can find us on any podcastplatform.
So wherever you get yourpodcasts Apple podcasts, spotify
, et cetera you'll find us.
Just search for face your earsand you can find us online at
(35:39):
face your earscom, and we'realso on YouTube and Instagram at
Face your Ears Podcast.
So check us out.
Marc Matthews (35:49):
Fantastic.
I will put links to all of thatin the episode show notes,
folks, so do go check out thepodcast this is a great podcast
and also give them a follow onInstagram and YouTube as well.
Justin, it's been an absolutepleasure.
Thank you for joining me today.
I know the audience are goingto get loads out of this.
I know I have, if it's just mealone as a Logic Pro user.
(36:11):
So I cannot thank you enoughand I will catch up with you
soon.
I think early on I got it drilled in my mind
that, like the third party,stuff is so much better and
there may have been some truthto that earlier in the music
technology timeline.
But nowadays that's not reallytrue anymore, and I think Logic
is a great example of it.
Mike Marsh (00:17):
Hey, Inside the Mix podcast fans.
It's Mike Marsh here from MikeMarsh Mastering.
You can follow me and check outmy Facebook and Instagram pages
on the socials to find out moreabout what I'm working on in
the studio.
Right now You're listening tothe Inside the Mix podcast and
here's your host, Mark MatthewsWelcome to Inside the Mix, your
(00:39):
go-to podcast for music creationand production.
Marc Matthews (00:42):
Whether you're crafting your first track or
refining your mixing skills,join me each week for expert
interviews, practical tutorialsand insights to help you level
up your music and smash it inthe music industry.
Let's dive in.
Hey folks, welcome to Insidethe Mix.
Today I'm joined by JustinHoschella, music producer,
(01:06):
teacher and co-host of the Faceyour Ears podcast.
Justin, along with his co-host,rich Bosick, helps musicians
bring their creative ideas tolife through approachable, fun
and informative discussions.
A very good podcast.
So in this episode we're divinginto Logic Pro's unsung heroes,
those hidden features, hotkeysand tools that can seriously
(01:29):
speed up your workflow andimprove your production.
So if you're a Logic Pro user,you're going to love this one,
and if you're not a Logic Prouser, listen anyway, because you
might find something in therethat piques your interest.
You might want to jump over toLogic or see if your DAW does
something similar.
Justin, welcome to the show.
Welcome to Inside the Mix.
How are you?
Thank you for joining me today.
Justin Hochella (01:51):
Thank you so much, mark.
It's great to be here.
I am doing really well and I'mvery excited to be on your show
and talk about something that Ilove, which is Logic Pro.
Marc Matthews (02:03):
Yes, I'm looking forward to this.
As the audience knows, I'm aLogic Pro user myself, so this
is right up my street and justbefore we were recording this
episode, we were discussing aparticular Apple plugin that I
had no idea existed.
So, audience listening, you'regoing to get a lot out of this.
So if you're feeling stuck inyour DAW or want to get the most
out of Logic Pro, this episodewill give you the practical
(02:32):
takeaways to help you producefaster, better and smarter.
So the power of hot keys,speeding up our workflows.
So I've done episodes on hotkeys before, so I'm not going to
go into the ones I use.
But, justin, can you talk aboutyour go-to Logic Pro hot keys
and how do they improve yourworkflow?
Justin Hochella (02:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know I think there'sprobably a new hotkey I'm
discovering, at least like oncea week, if not once a day.
There's just so many and asLogic evolves and changes over
time, they're just adding moreand more.
But there's some, like you said, that I just use all the time.
So one of them is just the zkey.
(03:06):
So z for zoom, and this isreally helpful if you're wanting
to zoom in on a region like aregion of audio or midi, and you
know if you're way zoomed outand on a really busy project, it
sometimes can be cumbersome totry and like zoom in with the
sliders or your mouse and tryingto do that over and over.
So the z key just boom, zoomsin like full screen pretty much
(03:29):
on whatever region you'relooking at maybe you're looping
it, listening to it, that kindof thing.
So I love using that just for,like navigation purposes.
Um, another one that I reallylike it actually relates to
markers.
So in Logic Pro for those thatdon't know markers are
(03:49):
essentially like almost likenotes, like sticky notes at the
top of the screen that allow youto have different sections of
your track marked, and I usethose a lot.
So I really like to use thosewith clients, especially just to
help differentiate parts of thesong, but I love using option
(04:09):
shift comma and option shiftplus, and so what those do is
they actually navigate backwardsand forwards through the
markers really quickly.
So that's a nice littleworkflow that I've come up with.
So option shift comma If youlook at your keyboard it's
actually like the back arrow, sothe comma and the back arrow,
(04:33):
and so option shift period forthe other one to go forward, so
that one is really helpful tonavigate and then, in
conjunction with that, the G keyfor global so to find where
these markers are and otherglobal features of Logic Pro.
Just hitting that G key allowsyou to open it up, to manipulate
(04:57):
those markers or the tempo forthe track, all kinds of global
things for the project.
And another one that I love Iactually found this one out
fairly recently is the V key.
So V as in Victor.
So if you have a really busyproject with like eight
(05:17):
different plugin windows thatyou're shuffling through, if you
simply hit the V key, they alldisappear, and so I love that.
It just cleans it up.
So if you just want to look atthe arrangement, you're like I
don't want to like dig throughall these plugin windows and
click, click, click and drag anddrop and all that.
The V key is great.
So those are just some.
(05:39):
Like there's literally, youknow, like you said at the top,
like there's so many.
There's some that you use,there's some that we're
discovering, but yeah, they'refantastic.
And I just kind of, if I findmyself using something a lot in
a menu, I'll be like, okay,what's the keyboard command for
(05:59):
that?
Marc Matthews (06:00):
And I'll try and look that up.
No, that makes perfect sense.
So, just to recap, you've gotthe zoom, so we're zooming in on
a particular region.
We've got option shift commaand option shift period, which
is going to help us navigatethrough markers, which I didn't
know was a shortcut, so I'mgoing to use that myself, so
I've learned that one.
We've got G for global as well,and v to make everything
(06:28):
disappear, which I love.
So all options, uh, or rathershortcut, short keys, hot keys,
if you will, that, um, that I'mgoing to take forward and use
myself.
Do you use the third tool inlogic pro, because that's one
thing that I use a lot?
Well, I use all the time.
Justin Hochella (06:37):
To be fair yeah , I I've heard a lot about it
and I I've people advocate forit, but I haven't gotten in the
habit of using it and I'mcurious, like how do you use it
in in your day-to-day work?
Marc Matthews (06:50):
Yeah, I mean for me, I've I've got it nine times
out of 10, it's gain.
I've got it set so I can useclip gain on an audio region and
that's that's where I use itmostly Cool Podcast editing and
also editing in terms of alljust like a music production
session as well.
So I use it for the gain tool.
And then my second I can'tremember which ones they are now
(07:11):
is it the?
The right click is my um.
Justin Hochella (07:16):
I use that for the marquee tool oh yeah, a lot
yeah yeah, I use that so much tomark probably like the single
most important tool in logic Ithink, it's so, so useful and
and I love it yeah, yeah,definitely.
Marc Matthews (07:28):
And there's one that I use a lot, hotkey in
particular, and I wish I shouldhave made a note of it.
So slap on the wrist for me andthat is the shortcut key
command for fades on an audioregion.
Um, I want to say it's shiftand something.
I can't remember what it is offthe top of my head, but I do
know there is a setting, I wastold in Logic, where you can go
in and change it.
So when you hover over the leftor right of an audio region, it
(07:51):
will automatically snap, likeReaper does, so you can apply a
fade.
But that's another one I use.
Justin Hochella (07:57):
That's actually how I have my Logic Pro set up.
Is that?
The fades are just like theclick and drag on the regions.
Yeah, yeah, super helpful To befair.
Marc Matthews (08:05):
I should probably do that.
It would make my life easier,specifically with podcast
editing, rather than having touse shortcuts.
I should probably change that,because it's what I use all the
time, which would make sense.
But no, some really really goodoptions there and, like you say
, I mean we could spend a wholeepisode you could do a whole
series really on going throughthe different sort of hotkeys
(08:25):
and shortcuts available in LogicPro.
But I think what we'll move onto next is, or rather our
plugins, so plugins in Logic Pro, of which there are many, and
there are some amazing pluginsas well.
I've got to say I'm an aviduser of those, as, again, the
podcast listeners know this.
So could you share a logic proplugin that you think is
(08:46):
underrated but incredibly useful?
Justin Hochella (08:49):
absolutely.
You know, I think there's somany, there's a lot, uh, and I
think what happens a lot oftimes and I've been guilty of
this too is like kind ofignoring the stock plugins
because the, the marketing is soaggressive and, and you know,
uh, ubiquitous for third partystuff.
And I think early on I got itdrilled in my mind that, like
(09:11):
the third party stuff is so muchbetter and there may have been
some truth to that earlier in inthe, you know, music technology
timeline, but nowadays that'snot really true anymore, and I
think logic is a great exampleof to that earlier in the music
technology timeline, butnowadays that's not really true
anymore and I think Logic is agreat example of it.
So for me there are so manyplugins built into Logic that
are fantastic.
So, as you can see, behind meI've got a whole array of
(09:35):
synthesizers, hardwaresynthesizers, old and new, and
some with MIDI, some without,all of that.
But one thing I use a lotbecause of all of these external
hardware synths is the externalinstrument plugin, and so what
I used to do before I knew aboutthis plugin was you know if I
wanted to use my DX7, right, Iwould set up an audio track to
(09:58):
capture the audio, a MIDI trackto capture the MIDI, and you
know, go from there to kind ofrecord things independently.
And so what this plugin does isit sort of combines those two
into one track.
So I can set the MIDI to theDX7, and I can tell it to listen
to whatever you know ports onmy audio interface.
(10:21):
And I can do that all in oneplugin.
And, even better, I have all ofthese presets right.
So if I want to use a piece ofexternal gear quickly, I just
select the preset for, you know,the Mo grandmother that I have,
or the Yamaha SY77, or whateveryou know.
I just pull up that plugin andboom, I can start, you know,
(10:44):
recording a part in.
And so it's really justefficient to get a hardware
synth up and running.
And I should say that if you areusing that and you record a
part in, it will show up inLogic as MIDI and you can then
bounce it, you know in place,and it will capture the audio.
It has to play it in real time.
But, uh, you know that way youcan uh integrate it in as an
(11:08):
audio file.
Uh, if you want to, you knowprint that and go forward with
it.
So I love that plug-in, use itall the time.
Um, another one and you and Iwere talking about this before
we started is called the SoundIsolation plugin and it's made
by Apple.
So if you go into Logic and youlook at the Apple listing of
(11:31):
audio units, there's one calledSound Isolation and this one's
pretty neat.
Like, basically what it does isit removes like room noise and
reverb to some extent.
So if you have like aninstrument or a voice where it's
like recorded in a bathroom, orsomething.
It isolates the sound.
And I've got a quick exampleI'm just going to kind of turn
(11:52):
the plug in on and off and we'llbe able to kind of hear the
effect that this plug in has.
So here we go.
I'm currently standing in abathroom within my house because
the ceiling, walls and floorare all hard, flat surfaces, so
the audio is going to have a lotof natural reverb to it and
(12:17):
using Apple's sound isolationplugin I can actually isolate my
voice and cut out some of thereverb that's naturally
occurring within this recordingdue to the nature of this room.
So in that example you candefinitely hear like the room
(12:39):
room tone, I guess, or thereverb kind of getting quite a
bit reduced, if not eliminated,when I turn that plug-in on and
off.
So it's, it's like man, this isfree and it's built in like
that's, that's wild, like it's.
It's such a cool plug-in, um,and I've used it.
You know, like, for example, ifyou get a, a sample of some
(12:59):
sort, and there's just a lot oflike room noise or reverb to it,
like it really cleans it up.
So it's, it's pretty amazing.
Another plugin that I use it'sit's not super slick and cool
but it's very utilitarian thetuner plugin.
So Rich and I are part of aproduction company called RJB
(13:22):
Music Production and we'll do alot of vocal tuning for clients
and it just comes in clutch fordoing all of that editing and
just making sure we're dialingthings in and you know tuning
whether it's tuning a guitar ora voice or whatever it's right
there.
So you know, it's one of thosesimple little things that like,
(13:44):
if you don't know it's there,you might go out and spend, you
know, 10 or 20 bucks on a tunerwhen you don't need to.
It's like it's right there.
And another one I really likeis the BPM counter, which works
really well with, like drums orpercussion, and so it's just a
simple metering plugin.
I think it's in the meteringsection of Logic.
(14:05):
You just drop it in, put in adrum loop and it'll detect the
BPM of whatever that loop is,and I remember when I found that
I was like that exists in Logic.
Marc Matthews (14:17):
I had no idea.
Justin Hochella (14:20):
That's amazing.
So, you know, those are justsome of the plugins like just in
terms of like kind of bread andbutter, like everyday stuff.
But there's one plugin it's aninstrument that I feel like is
super underrated, and it'sAlchemy.
So, you know, alchemy to me isis unbelievably cool, like it is
(14:46):
super versatile, right, you canuse it for drums, pads, bass,
literally anything, um, whetherit's like retro sounding or like
futuristic sounding, it justcovers multiple forms of
synthesis and I think what Ireally love about it and respect
about it is it's built to beaccessible for people who are,
(15:08):
like new users, don't know a lotabout synthesis, but just kind
of want to quickly dial in asound.
You know, it makes it reallyeasy to do that.
But for people that are, youknow, veterans of the synthesis
world, you can open up the hoodand get into some pretty
sophisticated settings andfeatures and so forth to really
(15:29):
go nuts and dial in a reallycool sound.
And you know, I'll talk aboutthis a bit more later.
But you know, apple has createdjust a universe of sounds that
I think are woefullyunderutilized by people, and a
lot of these are related toalchemy, and so there's just so
much that it has to offer.
(15:50):
And it's like, you know, somany people are out there buying
things like you know Serum 2 orReactor or you know other cool
synths that are out there anddon't get me wrong, they're
awesome or Reactor or other coolsynths that are out there, and
don't get me wrong, they'reawesome.
But it's like, don't forget,you've got this powerhouse
waiting for you within Logic Pro.
Marc Matthews (16:07):
Yeah, those are all really, really interesting
ones.
Alchemy I'm a massive fan ofI've said this on the podcast
before and I've done little sortof tutorial episodes where I've
used Alchemy to create like asynth bass or something along
those lines, and tour episodeswhere I've used alchemy to
create like a synth bass orsomething along those lines.
And you're totally right inthat it's accessible if you're
first starting out withsynthesis, but if you want to
dig deeper, then you cancertainly do that with alchemy
and I've used it on so manytracks in one way, shape or form
(16:29):
.
Some of the sound designs inthere and the effects sounds
that they have are so good thathave been created and curated in
there.
The BPM counter I did not knowexisted and there's me tapping
on my desk trying to work outwhat the BPM is.
Or I think you can press T.
That might be quite anantiquated way of doing it in
Logic, but pressing T to try andget the tempo.
(16:52):
But I didn't know there was aBPM counter.
Yeah, and I'm always, alwayslooking for something like that
whenever I pull in a track orsomething like that to try and
work that out, man.
Justin Hochella (17:02):
I did not know that existed.
Yeah, I think I really got intoit because I was trying to do
tap tempo.
It's one of my gripes, I guess,with Logic is they don't make
it super intuitive or easy totap tempo.
And I was just trying to figureout what is the tempo of this
loop or whatever.
And I think I came across it inlike a youtube video or
(17:22):
something and I was like whatthat exists it's amazing and so
I tried it out on like drums andstuff like that and it works
really well very cool plugin,the sound isolation plugin.
Marc Matthews (17:32):
So that is an apple plugin.
Yeah, is that in the libraryitself or how do you access that
in logic is?
That what folder like, orcategorization as it.
Where is it under?
Justin Hochella (17:43):
um, if you go into the logic under the audio
units menu, um, it's not one ofthe stock like logic plugins.
You know how logic lists likeamps and pedals delay,
distortion, all that, it's notthere you have to go under audio
units, apple, and then if yougo into the apple menu they're
all listed as au and then thename of the plugin.
So this one is au soundisolation.
(18:05):
So it's actually the lastplugin within the apple list, um
, and if you have the latestversion of logic, you can just
search for sound isolation oneword and it'll pop up.
Marc Matthews (18:18):
Right, I get you.
That makes sense.
That makes sense.
Now I'm thinking to myself whyI wouldn't have seen that, and
it's probably because I don'tdive into that particular folder
air quotes, as it were.
But again, podcast editingthat's something that is
incredibly useful because younever quite know the interviewee
, what environment they're goingto be in, what noise you're
(18:42):
going to have to possiblyattenuate so that existing is
very useful to anyone who wantsto start a podcast or anything
or anything else.
Justin Hochella (18:49):
They need to remove that sound from yeah,
super easy to use just a wet dryslider.
So as you pull it towards dryyou get more of the like room
tone or reverb.
Pull it to wet, you know, youget more of an isolated sound.
Marc Matthews (19:04):
Sometimes there's artifacts that get presented,
so you want to kind of dial itinto the right setting for for
your application I think it's aclassic one of those, because
there are I can think of a wavesplugin that will do it, and now
I know that isotype have one aswell, because I do use it
myself.
But but it's a classic exampleof like, and I should do this is
just to dig a bit deeper intothe native plugins, as you'll
(19:25):
probably find something thatwill do the job or at least
bridge the gap until you canfind something else in your
native DAW and which kind ofgoes back to what I said earlier
about if you're not a Logic Prouser, this could still, um be
relevant to you because it couldget you thinking about okay,
well, I wonder if that existswithin my daw cubase, ableton
(19:47):
tools, reaper, uh, whatever,fruit loops the list goes on,
whatever it is so reallyinteresting stuff.
I think it'd be nice now tomove on, because I think you
alluded to a bit there about thelogic instruments.
So we've spoken about alchemy,sound design, synthesis.
Could you talk about some go-tologic instruments?
Because there are, again, thereare many, many instruments in
(20:09):
logic pro and packs, sound packsyeah you find yourself using
regularly absolutely so.
Justin Hochella (20:15):
You know, for a long time I was sort of
defaulting to a contact nativeinstruments contact piano called
the grandeur, just a superthick, lush piano.
I'm like man, this thing'sgreat, use it all the time.
And then I came across thestudio piano built into logic,
and I had the same reaction andI'm like what?
Like this is built in to logicand on top of that it offers up
(20:41):
different styles of piano.
So like an upright piano.
You know that you might find inlike an old church basement,
kind of that clanky sound, andit's just got a wealth of
fantastic sounds, whether it's,you know, some sort of lush,
orchestral kind of piano stylesound or something more affected
(21:02):
and kind of older sounding,that kind of thing.
It's amazing.
So you know, for all of thoselistening, if you use Logic Pro,
please just give the studiopiano a look, because it's so
easy to skip over something likethat, so something, so
something so basic and simple.
But you know, they nailed it, Ithink, with the studio piano
(21:26):
and, um, I was definitely one ofthose people that was like, oh,
it's a stock piano, it'sprobably not that great or
whatever, and it's like, youknow, put it, put it in a track
recently and was like dang, thisthing is incredible.
They nailed it.
So it's also really easy to use, um, and so there's not a ton
(21:47):
of uh, you know knobs and soforth on it in the interface,
but there doesn't need to be,and the ones that are there are
very specific and easy to use,so very intuitive, to get that
really nice piano sound.
Um, and you mentioned soundpacks, and so that's something
that like it's franklyoverwhelming in the best way
(22:07):
possible.
I I actually went into my logicpro recently just to kind of
get a sense of like what are wedealing with here when it comes
to like these loops and soundpacks and stuff, and like I
think my Apple loops library isnow 39,000 plus and that's from
Apple, and I mean you thinkabout like how much producers
(22:31):
spend on like sound packs andstuff and again, they're great,
they're really cool.
There's a lot of awesome stuffout there, but, like there is a
universe of sound that isavailable in Logic Pro, and so
you know, and I love the wayLogic has built the loop browser
where you can drill into likegenre and like, you know, style
(22:56):
and instrument and stuff likethat, and there's also the
ability to like, select aspecific sound pack.
And there's also the ability toselect a specific sound pack.
So if you kind of like the vibeor the feel of a certain sound
pack, you can just select thatsound pack and start to navigate
through that one and explore it.
And so just incredible.
I mean you could spend weeksgoing through and just
(23:18):
previewing these loops and thesesamples and stuff.
So just unbelievable,unbelievable stuff in there.
And Apple's releasing more andmore and they work with, you
know, current artists, likecontemporary artists that are
out there.
A guitarist that I really lovenamed Tosin Abassi, created a
(23:38):
sound pack for Logic.
I think it's only available inthe iPad version, and so I'm
like just waiting for them todrop it for the Mac version,
because I love that guy, he'samazing, and I heard some of
what they did for iPad.
Like man, I want that on theMac.
So, yeah, it's cool to see thatthey're continually growing and
(24:00):
expanding that universe ofsound.
Um, and you know, we talkedabout like, just like internal
instruments, of built-ininstruments, and for me, there's
one that I love.
It's been around a while now.
It's called sculpture, and Ilove sculpture for its organic
sounds.
So sculpture is great atmodeling.
(24:21):
It's like like I guess youwould call it a modeling synth
and it um, it's basicallymimicking uh, surfaces is the
best way to describe it, I thinklike glass or metal or wood,
and you can kind of craft yoursounds around those surfaces so
like it's really easy to getlike a marimba sound, uh, for
(24:43):
example, with like the woodsurface, that kind of thing.
But I love it for bass, like itjust comes up with these gnarly
like thick punchy basses.
So if you're looking for thatkind of a sound, check out
sculpture dial in a bass soundon it and you'll have a lot of
fun.
It's super amazing, veryversatile, you know, and it's
sound design.
(25:04):
So that's one that I reallylove.
Another one that I think is easyto overlook is RetroSynth.
And you know, because there'sso many third party plugins that
kind of do that sort of thinglike emulating like an old
analog Moog synth or like an 80sfm synthesizer or like a wave
(25:27):
table kind of synthesizer.
But again, I think what they'vedone is they've made it really
accessible, and so if you'resomebody that doesn't have a
huge budget to go out and buy abunch of third-party plugins,
retro synth is there waiting foryou to make some of these retro
kind of sounds.
And the thing I'd love about umretro synth is that it's very
(25:50):
faithful, very pure, likerecreation of popular retro
sounds, but it's it's.
It's that purity that I lovebecause it lends itself really
well to effects like delays andreverbs that are there's a whole
host of those, as you know, inLogic, but it just it's so nice
to have such a clean, almostlike perfect sounding synth,
(26:12):
especially if it's retro.
You know where you can like goto town on effects and really
dial it into your taste.
So love that.
And there's a couple sound packs.
I wanted to highlight a couplefavorites of mine.
One is Vintage Drum Machines.
So Logic has a sound pack bythat name and what I love about
(26:33):
it is it has these drum machinesthat are very sought after.
But if you were to try and goout and buy them you would need
like a massive loan from thebank, because you know you're
talking about like a Lynn drummachine and then the Roland line
, the like 606, the 808, the 909, like you're talking like
(26:53):
literally like 15, $20,000,right.
And drum machines there andthose sounds especially the 808,
right, like those are supersought after and you know it's
so easy to um, go out and buy aplugin or a sound pack, but you
don't need to if you're a logicuser, like they're.
They're there, um, and they're,they're ready to use and
(27:16):
they're professionally uh,produced.
They sound fantastic, easy touse and I love them.
So definitely recommend, uh,vintage drum machines and
there's another one calledtransition effects, a sound pack
called transition effects, andit has a lot of alchemy, uh,
like presets to it, but it'sjust, it's a great pack or
(27:40):
collection of these sort oftransition sounds, like risers
and sweeps and like that kind ofthing, and they're really good
at creating like tension and, um, you know, transitions between
sections of the song or like anintro or outro, like that kind
of thing, um, and so reallygreat starting point.
(28:00):
Some of them you can just, you,you know, insert right into a
production.
But, um, those are just acouple that I I definitely
recommend.
And if, if you're listening tothis and you're like, oh, wow, I
didn't really realize thisabout sound packs, how do I get
them?
Um, if you go into logic, uh,just the logic pro menu, there's
(28:20):
a selection called SoundLibrary and you can go in there
and you can open your SoundLibrary Manager and it will kind
of show you what you currentlyhave, what you don't have, and
there's an option to evendownload all available sounds.
So if you have a really bighard drive and you want to go to
town and get those 39,000sounds like I was talking about,
(28:42):
you can do that.
You can just download them onFelsweep.
So again Logic Pro SoundLibrary and then you can
download sounds from there.
So super cool feature of Logic.
Marc Matthews (28:54):
Pro Amazing.
There was a lot that you wentthrough there.
So, in particular, the studiopiano I think I've dabbled once
or twice with that Very, verygood sculpture I'm trying to.
I was racking my brainsthinking have I ever used that
and do I recognize it?
So that's something I'm goingto dig into as well, because
it's not something I'm familiarwith.
What the retro synth I've usedit on occasion I need to spend
(29:16):
more time with.
But what I think is reallyimportant is that you mentioned
the this, the sound library andthe sample packs that are
available, because I myself I'ma splice user, um, but I just
never, it never crosses my mindjust to think and in particular,
transition effects, becausetransition effects are something
that I'm always digging out,digging into and trying to find
(29:37):
more of to suit the piece thatI'm working on, and I never
think, never consider, actually,well, what is there in Logix
hands in the air?
I don't think I've used anythingfrom the sample packs since
Logic Pro 9, so that's how farback it goes since I last used
anything from there.
And there are so many andthey're on my hard drive already
and I just don't pay anyattention to them.
(29:58):
So this has sort of kickstarted that in me now to think,
ok, well, maybe I just need to.
Before I reach just over tosplice, I'm gonna check and see
what is already here for me, andmaybe even as a song starter as
well, who knows.
But yeah, it's very inspiringstuff.
But sculpture in particular,I'm gonna dig into because again
(30:18):
, not something I've ever, neverexperienced.
Well, used, check out the bass,like I said, check out the bass
.
Justin Hochella (30:24):
Like I said, check out the bass presets on
Sculpture.
I think some of the pads andstring sounds on it are really
good.
It does a great job of modelingstring sounds as well.
But also, I would just remindeverybody listening, if you dial
into those vintage drummachines, they work with Logic
Pro Drummer so you can, you know, combine them with that to come
(30:46):
up with some really cool beatsand and fills and stuff like
that.
So definitely worth checkingout amazing stuff.
Marc Matthews (30:53):
I realize the, the, the time we have here, uh,
justin.
So I think it'd be quite coolif we go to the, the final part
here, which is uh, what's onelogic pro trick?
Every producer, artist, user oflogic pro should know.
So if you could share just onelogic pro trick or tip technique
, let's go tip or trick.
(31:13):
Every producer, artist,musician should know.
If you had to highlight onethis is a long way of me saying
this or asking this questionwhat would it be?
Justin Hochella (31:23):
yeah, I actually just found this out and
I would recommend this toanybody because this was driving
me absolutely bonkers for thelongest time.
So here's the problem, here'sthe, here's the setup.
So in logic pro, I would beworking on a song, you know, and
I'd have say like, like a MIDIregion, and I'd be like, okay,
(31:45):
this is cool, I want this to youknow.
Come in at this other part inthe song.
So I'd select it and copy itand, just you know, hit, paste
without thinking about it, andinvariably what was happening
almost nine times out of 10 isthe region I copied would paste
on some other track that Ihappen to have selected.
(32:06):
And this happened all the time.
And so I'd be like copying MIDIand trying to paste it to an
audio track and then likecopying a drum loop and then
pasting it to the guitar trackand just being like, oh, like
you know, having to constantlylike redo my work, and it's not
a big deal, but you know, overtime it adds up right.
So the I had this happen to merecently and I'm like that's it.
(32:29):
There has got to be a featureto solve this problem for me.
And, lo and behold, I found it.
So let me save you, dearlistener, some time by uh,
directing you to logic prosettings.
So if you go to Logic Prosettings, select general, which
(32:52):
is, I think, the default.
So from general, go intoediting and there is a checkbox
there that says select tracks onregion slash marquee selection.
Boom Solves the problem.
So if I go to select a regionto copy it, it will then by
default select the same trackthat that region is on.
So I don't have to think aboutlike, oh, do I have the right
(33:12):
track selected, you know, andhave to clean that up and it
works beautifully.
So now you know, I go in like oh, I like this drum loop, I want,
I want, I want to.
You know, paste this over here.
Just select it, copy it, movemy playhead to where I want it,
paste it in works beautifullyperfect.
Marc Matthews (33:30):
I didn't know that existed and it's one I'm
going to use, because I did justthat either yesterday or the
day before and then, yeah, itwas an audio region.
It jumps to the wrong place.
So I I totally share yourfrustrations with that and I'm
so glad that you found it andyou're able to share it and now
that I can use it.
So now, excellent stuff.
So, as a recap, folks withJustin's expertise here, we've
(33:52):
been through shortcut keycommands, hotkeys, plugins that
deserve more attention, hiddengems in Logic Pro's sound
library, and also that onetime-saving tip, so stopping
audio.
Did it work for MIDI as well?
So it's audio regions and MIDI,or is?
Justin Hochella (34:09):
it yeah, any anything yeah for both.
Marc Matthews (34:12):
Yep, amazing.
I'm gonna open Logic as soon aswe're done and I'm gonna enable
that so I don't forget.
Uh, justin, it's been amazingto deep dive into Logic Pro's
hidden features with you today,so I thought it'd be doing you a
disservice if I didn't give youthe opportunity maybe just to
talk a bit about Face your Ears,the podcast you do with your
friend Rich.
If you could tell us a bitabout that.
Justin Hochella (34:34):
Absolutely so.
My dear friend Rich Bozic and Ihave a podcast called Face your
Ears and it's sort of aportmanteau of Face your Ears
and it's sort of a portmanteauof face your fears.
And you know, the reason westarted the podcast is because
we were thinking about ourselves.
When we first started, you know, we had a lot of base level
(34:54):
questions that we wanted helpwith, and you know, we just
created this podcast to helppeople who are new to music
production and DIY audio and soforth, and so that's kind of the
angle that we're coming from.
But at the same time, we alsodo cover topics for seasoned
veterans, and so we try reallyto bring both new users and
(35:18):
seasoned users together in thispodcast and focus on DIY audio
and music production.
So check it out.
You can find us on any podcastplatform.
So wherever you get yourpodcasts Apple podcasts, spotify
, et cetera you'll find us.
Just search for face your earsand you can find us online at
(35:39):
face your earscom, and we'realso on YouTube and Instagram at
Face your Ears Podcast.
So check us out.
Marc Matthews (35:49):
Fantastic.
I will put links to all of thatin the episode show notes,
folks, so do go check out thepodcast this is a great podcast
and also give them a follow onInstagram and YouTube as well.
Justin, it's been an absolutepleasure.
Thank you for joining me today.
I know the audience are goingto get loads out of this.
I know I have, if it's just mealone as a Logic Pro user.
(36:11):
So I cannot thank you enoughand I will catch up with you
soon.
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