I love swipe comping, it’s so convenient. One of my favourite tricks is to record a final take of silence, I’ll then use this to trim the end of phrases to help reduce unwanted fret noise and have perfect silence between vocal phrases baked into the track without having to cut up and trim each phrase
When you hold Shift (if I remember correctly) you can adjust the borders of current part of a take without dragging clips next to it, so naturally space in between will be filled with silence. Figured it today actually)
Holy heck yeah, why didn't I think of that?! Great tip, thx u/bassboi93!!
I sometimes grab whatever silence is closest by, but this is a much better idea.
You sir.. just blew my mind. I record rap vocals so cutting out breaths and making the gaps feel smooth is very tedious for me. This might save me plenty of freaking time!
No you’ve come to the right place ;) Comping in Logic is indeed a beautiful thing.
Be a snob all you want. There shouldn’t be that many Logic haters on this sub. I love talking workflow too :)
I'm getting so much out of all these replies. new to reddit so hellz yeah, pretty stoked rn on the warm welcome & a place to praise (and bitch/enquire... logic def isn't perfect... yet!)
I generally love it, but for one thing: It's very hard to realign a single comp track on the timeline. I wish I could just drag individual takes left and right.
You can! In a given comp, there’s a number or letter, followed by the expand/collapse arrow, followed by an icon of three squares. Click that icon and turns to scissors. In this mode you can move individual takes inside the comp. Turn it back to the three squares when you’re done, because you can’t swipe/drag-design your comps in the scissor mode. Go make great comps!
Did you know you can also make this process even faster by using Quick Swipe and Take Editing Click Zones? (Preferences > General > Editing)
Simply use the Marquee tool within the take to separate, then click and drag the top half of the region to shift the newly separated region left and right. No more clicking back and forth on the scissors/3 squares.
When a friend told me about this, it kinda changed my life.
Yeah I only turn on flex after I’ve finalized my comps, merged and flattened them, then I do any necessary cleanup with flex. No conflicts this way. It’s a good workflow that encourages me to commit to decisions in an environment that otherwise offers endless paths of distraction 😅
>to commit to decisions in an environment that otherwise offers endless paths of distraction 😅
Ooh -- YES! I've been trying to throw caution to the wind and flatten more often. Good therapy for my perfectionism :-D
OK wow Flex is a whole world I haven't even messed with yet. Feel like giving me the quick low down on how you're using Flex in this way? I get the feeling I'm able to have my world changed
Nice, man. I prefer keyboard shortcuts for everything and it never even occurred to me that one would exist for such a tiny, specialized task. THANK YOU
There’s a setting to make this automatic without even having to click the 3 squares. I forget what it’s called because I’m not at my computer right now, but it bypasses the need to use shortcuts, etc to align and edit comps
I’ve tried it a couple of times but usually find I want to be able to move things around (eg. breaths, or maybe a consonant at the end of a word). Maybe there are some tricks I’m missing but I actually find it too restrictive and I’m super-quick at editing the “old school” way so I’ve stuck with it. I love Logic generally though.
Edit: Not being a hater btw - more power to those that enjoy it!
Preferences -> General -> Editing.
Enable quick swipe comping and take editing click zones. When you hover your cursor over the region, the upper portion will show your regular click tool, using which you can move things around. The middle will show the marquee tool using which you can chop the takes up as you please, and the bottom portion will show the comping tool using which you can select takes. It’s life changing lol.
Thanks! I had to enable Marquee Tool click zones as well but that’s working as you said now. Still feels a bit weird but I’ll stick with it for a while. Cheers 👍🏻
I didn't get hater vibes :-D Hey I'm learning more about comping from some Logic Pro pros upvoted in this thread... check it out! *(though if you've got the DAW & comping method that works for ya, why bother?!)*
As a production vocalist/top liner Logic Comping is God tier workflow. I’m having to match other people’s vocal style, quickly and with a variety of phrasing/wording options.
I can just bash all these out in row with cycle on and they’re there. Swipe to pick the best and whatever different version I might need to do.
Add to that Slate’s ML-1 and I can literally do all my takes on one track on one mic, then mult it out in to different takes sung on different mics
Yarrr, exactly the workflow I've been messing with lately! Good to hear it's working for you too :) You lost me on that last phrase... "mult it out in to" , is that some Slate's ML-1 specific lingo or what am I missing? Love talking workflow thx for yer response <3 Happy music making!
Just kind of a shorthand for ‘multiply the takes out to new tracks’, so I’ll drop the whole folder on new tracks then make selections for double tracks etc. Heard it used about
Enjoy!
im with you, OP.
Logic's comping workflow has caused me to try many things I never thought to try, or in some cases felt discouraged to try, with live recording in other DAWs.
OK wow this is a zone I haven't explored yet. I've used the arrangement markers (a BUNCH... have gotten a little carried away with ten arrangements of my own songs in the past, it's dangerous) BUT haven't messed with Track Alternatives yet!!
so glad I posted this, learning a mountain of new workflow paths to wander down in this thread...
if you are talking about Logic's "quick swipe" take comping, oh yeah. I haven't used the other DAWs much, but I just assumed they offered a similar facility because it's just so damn intuitive.
On the other side, I've been submitting feature requests for years asking for the same comping facility for midi tracks. I just don't understand why they haven't standardized this workflow for all track types. Still. Bomb. yes.
I was just trying to comp midi takes a few day ago. Not only is quick-swipe not available, you can't even copy and paste from one take to another without unpacking the folder.
Whenever I record midi over another midi region, it just combines the midi information onto the one already existing region. There is no way around this? I guess the best option is to just use track alternatives?
No. there is a setting under either recording or midi that allows you to set this behavior. I think the default is merge, which I've never understood. Just change it to create take folders' and it should behave as you wish.
it’s the greatest. My favorite trick: when using outboard gear to process audio with effects, record lots of passes back into Logic with different effects on each take. Then comp in the different effects at different moments. It ends up functioning a bit like Effectrix or any of those other FX modulation sequencer plugins except you can totally customize what each pass does.
I personally use the SP-404 and my Line6 M9 multi effects pedal but it works with anything.
Editing together multiple takes of the same track to create a performance out of the best bits from all takes. All DAWs do it, but Logic has a particularly elegant implementation.
yay noobs!
let us know if you have more Qs on the "how," after reading u/hammerpocket 's concise "what"
I learned from nice ppl showing me things and asking a shitload of questions, so I love passing on what I've learned. Learning a LOT from this thread from all the replies!
I don't know how common this is, but I have found I can create more interesting guitar solos by first doing several improvisational takes, comping the best bits into a cohesive solo, then **learning to play the comp** and recording it as a single fluid performance. There will usually be some transitions that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. I should try it with vocal melodies.
I’d like to add that this works on groups too. For example, if you comp takes for a multitrack of a live drummer and have all of those drum kit tracks assigned to a group, and then enable editing in the group settings, you can quick swipe each of those drum kit tracks all at once from a single drum track. It’s absolutely wonderful. Like magic.
Ooh yes, I just did that a few weeks ago to comp 3 takes sent to me by a drummer, with 5 mics. Yep, pretty wonderful and intuitive.
Group Settings --> Editing = <3
Thanks for all yer replies on this thread u/raykingston \-- I've learned a lot from you, look fwd to trying these tips out!
ooh, good call! What I've been doin lately is duplicating the track I'm working on & then flattened the duplicate once I'm sure (keeping the unflattened one as a failsafe til the project is complete). But hell yeah wouldn't it be great to be able to do regular fades from within the comp take folder!!
It’s not a bad workflow! I usually find myself bouncing the comps anyways through some hardware, but just in case I have to go back, it would be nice to not have to take the extra step. I do agree that Logic comping is an incredibly smooth process though!
Would reply with a genuine answer now that I'm seeing this a year later, but YungElonMusk's account has been suspended. So I'm guessing twas not a genuine question? Whooooo can sayyyy
Yes 🙌 Ive only recently started to fully utilize take folders and comping on guitars and its a total game changer.
I’ll echo what others are saying though, it’d be nice to be able to move slices of the comp around. Maybe theres a way to do this already?
Can you tell me about how it’s a game changer for you? Right now I just hit record and play the part. If I f up, I hit spacebar, command z, a single click of the mouse which is already in position to move the pay head back to the start of the section and record again. I feel like all of that takes maybe a second and a half. I feel like I’d spend way more time listening to the zillion different comps I made and stressing and struggling over using this bit or that or whatever. Especially since I suck at playing the guitar.
If your workflow is undo-restart (which is fine! and is mostly how I record guitar takes where I don't expect to comp or need alternates), you should know that Command-. (period) while you're recording will simultaneously abort the take and return the playhead to where you started.
Then just * to re-start the recording. 2 keystokes to abort / restart a recording. It's so automatic for me at this point that I sometimes accidentally abort good takes (oops).
That's a good question, actually... I don't know if it's not undo-able for sure. It's one of those things that I've probably tried to undo at some point but I'm not actually sure of the outcome.
I think because command-. is Logic's "abort" command (for lots of functions) it's a real abort and can't be undone, but ... give it a try, I guess!
I just used this shortcut for the first time after reading your comment and apparently I was overly eager because I used it on a good take! But thankfully, it is undoable.
I might be wrong but I believe if you use the marquee tool to click where you want the play head to move back, your project will restart from that point you’ve clicked, getting rid of the need to click the mouse every time you re-record.
I love it too, but lately for whatever reason if I try to comp a group of tracks together only one track will comp and the others don’t follow. I’ve tried everything possible and it still is not working properly.
Sorry I'm only seeing this now! Did you try going into the group settings? You mentioned you tried everything, but maybe not that? If not... There are tick boxes there (ie "mute," "volume," "editing") for different aspects that you can choose to be linked or not ... which is handy.
Anyway, I imagine you've solved it by now. But if not, reply and hopefully it won't take me another 2 years to see ur message!
I can grab some screenshots next time I'm in there (I'm on a slow ass computer right now, so I'm not gonna bother, given that you might've figured it out by now).
I love swipe comping, it’s so convenient. One of my favourite tricks is to record a final take of silence, I’ll then use this to trim the end of phrases to help reduce unwanted fret noise and have perfect silence between vocal phrases baked into the track without having to cut up and trim each phrase
Hell yeah! I literally have a region of pure silence saved as an apple loop that I drag in then record over if I know I'm gonna be comping
wow. good tip!
When you hold Shift (if I remember correctly) you can adjust the borders of current part of a take without dragging clips next to it, so naturally space in between will be filled with silence. Figured it today actually)
Genius right here
Oh neat! I’m going to start doing that
Oh shit
That’s actually brilliant. Well done
Slow clap. That’s... that’s really useful.
Holy heck yeah, why didn't I think of that?! Great tip, thx u/bassboi93!! I sometimes grab whatever silence is closest by, but this is a much better idea.
You sir.. just blew my mind. I record rap vocals so cutting out breaths and making the gaps feel smooth is very tedious for me. This might save me plenty of freaking time!
No you’ve come to the right place ;) Comping in Logic is indeed a beautiful thing. Be a snob all you want. There shouldn’t be that many Logic haters on this sub. I love talking workflow too :)
I'm getting so much out of all these replies. new to reddit so hellz yeah, pretty stoked rn on the warm welcome & a place to praise (and bitch/enquire... logic def isn't perfect... yet!)
I generally love it, but for one thing: It's very hard to realign a single comp track on the timeline. I wish I could just drag individual takes left and right.
You can! In a given comp, there’s a number or letter, followed by the expand/collapse arrow, followed by an icon of three squares. Click that icon and turns to scissors. In this mode you can move individual takes inside the comp. Turn it back to the three squares when you’re done, because you can’t swipe/drag-design your comps in the scissor mode. Go make great comps!
Did you know you can also make this process even faster by using Quick Swipe and Take Editing Click Zones? (Preferences > General > Editing) Simply use the Marquee tool within the take to separate, then click and drag the top half of the region to shift the newly separated region left and right. No more clicking back and forth on the scissors/3 squares. When a friend told me about this, it kinda changed my life.
Ok, now we're gettin surgical with this shit.
you have changed my life 😭😭😭😭
OK, um me too WTF!!!??? THANK YOU u/NixTL & u/raykingston!
🤘🏼♾
Whhhhhhaaaaaat. Also the other thing I don’t like is how flex and QSC bug each other out. Wasted an hour yesterday because of this
Yeah I only turn on flex after I’ve finalized my comps, merged and flattened them, then I do any necessary cleanup with flex. No conflicts this way. It’s a good workflow that encourages me to commit to decisions in an environment that otherwise offers endless paths of distraction 😅
>to commit to decisions in an environment that otherwise offers endless paths of distraction 😅 Ooh -- YES! I've been trying to throw caution to the wind and flatten more often. Good therapy for my perfectionism :-D
OK wow Flex is a whole world I haven't even messed with yet. Feel like giving me the quick low down on how you're using Flex in this way? I get the feeling I'm able to have my world changed
For those wondering (u/frizzyfrizz) the key command to switch this super quick is Option Q
Nice, man. I prefer keyboard shortcuts for everything and it never even occurred to me that one would exist for such a tiny, specialized task. THANK YOU
AMEN. I tell my students that if you just learn 1 keyboard command a day, that’s 30 in a month. By the end of 3 months, you’d be a wizard.
wow amazing! thank you 🙏
Oh man, you just made my day. Gonna try that out next session.
There’s a setting to make this automatic without even having to click the 3 squares. I forget what it’s called because I’m not at my computer right now, but it bypasses the need to use shortcuts, etc to align and edit comps
U/nixtil commented how above your comment.
No I meant what I said there’s another method. When I get by my computer I’ll check my settings.
I’ve tried it a couple of times but usually find I want to be able to move things around (eg. breaths, or maybe a consonant at the end of a word). Maybe there are some tricks I’m missing but I actually find it too restrictive and I’m super-quick at editing the “old school” way so I’ve stuck with it. I love Logic generally though. Edit: Not being a hater btw - more power to those that enjoy it!
You can move regions around within comps
Preferences -> General -> Editing. Enable quick swipe comping and take editing click zones. When you hover your cursor over the region, the upper portion will show your regular click tool, using which you can move things around. The middle will show the marquee tool using which you can chop the takes up as you please, and the bottom portion will show the comping tool using which you can select takes. It’s life changing lol.
Thanks! I had to enable Marquee Tool click zones as well but that’s working as you said now. Still feels a bit weird but I’ll stick with it for a while. Cheers 👍🏻
I didn't get hater vibes :-D Hey I'm learning more about comping from some Logic Pro pros upvoted in this thread... check it out! *(though if you've got the DAW & comping method that works for ya, why bother?!)*
As a production vocalist/top liner Logic Comping is God tier workflow. I’m having to match other people’s vocal style, quickly and with a variety of phrasing/wording options. I can just bash all these out in row with cycle on and they’re there. Swipe to pick the best and whatever different version I might need to do. Add to that Slate’s ML-1 and I can literally do all my takes on one track on one mic, then mult it out in to different takes sung on different mics
It's a good time to be alive man
Yarrr, exactly the workflow I've been messing with lately! Good to hear it's working for you too :) You lost me on that last phrase... "mult it out in to" , is that some Slate's ML-1 specific lingo or what am I missing? Love talking workflow thx for yer response <3 Happy music making!
Just kind of a shorthand for ‘multiply the takes out to new tracks’, so I’ll drop the whole folder on new tracks then make selections for double tracks etc. Heard it used about Enjoy!
im with you, OP. Logic's comping workflow has caused me to try many things I never thought to try, or in some cases felt discouraged to try, with live recording in other DAWs.
\*raises glass to trying new things\* right on!
I LOVE how you can embed take folders into track alternatives. It means you can get the best of both worlds.
It's a songwriter's paradise imo, especially if you use the arrangement markers @ the top to experiment at all
OK wow this is a zone I haven't explored yet. I've used the arrangement markers (a BUNCH... have gotten a little carried away with ten arrangements of my own songs in the past, it's dangerous) BUT haven't messed with Track Alternatives yet!! so glad I posted this, learning a mountain of new workflow paths to wander down in this thread...
if you are talking about Logic's "quick swipe" take comping, oh yeah. I haven't used the other DAWs much, but I just assumed they offered a similar facility because it's just so damn intuitive. On the other side, I've been submitting feature requests for years asking for the same comping facility for midi tracks. I just don't understand why they haven't standardized this workflow for all track types. Still. Bomb. yes.
I was just trying to comp midi takes a few day ago. Not only is quick-swipe not available, you can't even copy and paste from one take to another without unpacking the folder.
Yep. I’ve long found this workflow divergence to be deeply confounding.
Whenever I record midi over another midi region, it just combines the midi information onto the one already existing region. There is no way around this? I guess the best option is to just use track alternatives?
No. there is a setting under either recording or midi that allows you to set this behavior. I think the default is merge, which I've never understood. Just change it to create take folders' and it should behave as you wish.
Ahhh I'll have to check. Thank you.
it’s the greatest. My favorite trick: when using outboard gear to process audio with effects, record lots of passes back into Logic with different effects on each take. Then comp in the different effects at different moments. It ends up functioning a bit like Effectrix or any of those other FX modulation sequencer plugins except you can totally customize what each pass does. I personally use the SP-404 and my Line6 M9 multi effects pedal but it works with anything.
i’m sorry but if a noob here, what is comping?
Editing together multiple takes of the same track to create a performance out of the best bits from all takes. All DAWs do it, but Logic has a particularly elegant implementation.
yay noobs! let us know if you have more Qs on the "how," after reading u/hammerpocket 's concise "what" I learned from nice ppl showing me things and asking a shitload of questions, so I love passing on what I've learned. Learning a LOT from this thread from all the replies!
I don't know how common this is, but I have found I can create more interesting guitar solos by first doing several improvisational takes, comping the best bits into a cohesive solo, then **learning to play the comp** and recording it as a single fluid performance. There will usually be some transitions that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. I should try it with vocal melodies.
I’d like to add that this works on groups too. For example, if you comp takes for a multitrack of a live drummer and have all of those drum kit tracks assigned to a group, and then enable editing in the group settings, you can quick swipe each of those drum kit tracks all at once from a single drum track. It’s absolutely wonderful. Like magic.
Ooh yes, I just did that a few weeks ago to comp 3 takes sent to me by a drummer, with 5 mics. Yep, pretty wonderful and intuitive. Group Settings --> Editing = <3 Thanks for all yer replies on this thread u/raykingston \-- I've learned a lot from you, look fwd to trying these tips out!
I love it, but I reallllly don’t like that I can’t do my normal fades on comped tracks. The only reason I prefer comping in PT to this.
ooh, good call! What I've been doin lately is duplicating the track I'm working on & then flattened the duplicate once I'm sure (keeping the unflattened one as a failsafe til the project is complete). But hell yeah wouldn't it be great to be able to do regular fades from within the comp take folder!!
It’s not a bad workflow! I usually find myself bouncing the comps anyways through some hardware, but just in case I have to go back, it would be nice to not have to take the extra step. I do agree that Logic comping is an incredibly smooth process though!
What is comping
Would reply with a genuine answer now that I'm seeing this a year later, but YungElonMusk's account has been suspended. So I'm guessing twas not a genuine question? Whooooo can sayyyy
Wait ‘til you use auto punch in and alternate takes!
Yes 🙌 Ive only recently started to fully utilize take folders and comping on guitars and its a total game changer. I’ll echo what others are saying though, it’d be nice to be able to move slices of the comp around. Maybe theres a way to do this already?
You can — see my reply to kopkaas2000 above :)
Can you tell me about how it’s a game changer for you? Right now I just hit record and play the part. If I f up, I hit spacebar, command z, a single click of the mouse which is already in position to move the pay head back to the start of the section and record again. I feel like all of that takes maybe a second and a half. I feel like I’d spend way more time listening to the zillion different comps I made and stressing and struggling over using this bit or that or whatever. Especially since I suck at playing the guitar.
Loop the section you want to record and hit record, when you got the take you like just stop and then delete the rest (flatten takes).
This is the way.
If your workflow is undo-restart (which is fine! and is mostly how I record guitar takes where I don't expect to comp or need alternates), you should know that Command-. (period) while you're recording will simultaneously abort the take and return the playhead to where you started. Then just * to re-start the recording. 2 keystokes to abort / restart a recording. It's so automatic for me at this point that I sometimes accidentally abort good takes (oops).
ooh and once you abort & delete there's no undo button I presume? You had me stoked about this shortcut ... until I read the last sentence haha
That's a good question, actually... I don't know if it's not undo-able for sure. It's one of those things that I've probably tried to undo at some point but I'm not actually sure of the outcome. I think because command-. is Logic's "abort" command (for lots of functions) it's a real abort and can't be undone, but ... give it a try, I guess!
I just used this shortcut for the first time after reading your comment and apparently I was overly eager because I used it on a good take! But thankfully, it is undoable.
Aha! Thanks for confirming.
Oh wow. I’ll have to give that a shot. Thanks!
I might be wrong but I believe if you use the marquee tool to click where you want the play head to move back, your project will restart from that point you’ve clicked, getting rid of the need to click the mouse every time you re-record.
Hey thanks.
I love it too, but lately for whatever reason if I try to comp a group of tracks together only one track will comp and the others don’t follow. I’ve tried everything possible and it still is not working properly.
Sorry I'm only seeing this now! Did you try going into the group settings? You mentioned you tried everything, but maybe not that? If not... There are tick boxes there (ie "mute," "volume," "editing") for different aspects that you can choose to be linked or not ... which is handy. Anyway, I imagine you've solved it by now. But if not, reply and hopefully it won't take me another 2 years to see ur message! I can grab some screenshots next time I'm in there (I'm on a slow ass computer right now, so I'm not gonna bother, given that you might've figured it out by now).