In this article I will cover how to use Logic Pro to compose music for film. I’ve been using Logic for over 2 years now and recently I was asked to help write music for a short film.  Naturally my program of choice was Logic (I’m still on version 8 but this article should apply to 9 as well).  So here I would like to share my experience and provide an intro tutorial for working with video in Logic.

First, we need to get the video into Logic. This can be done easily by navigating to Options – Movie – Open Movie.

The video I used was a .mov file (about 4 minutes long) but I’ve also imported just about every other kind of video file into Logic without any issues. After Logic does its thing and imports the video in you will have a small “Movie” window in the upper left corner like so:

When you double click the movie window it will detach from the sidebar and expand for full viewing.  If you’re lucky enough to have a second monitor you can detach and drag this window onto it for a much easier viewing experience.

The next thing I would highly recommend you do is go back to the Options – Movie menu and select Create Scene Marker – Entire Movie. This will create handy scene markers underneath the bar markers.

I found this to be extremely helpful when I wanted to line up crucial hits and cues to the movie.  The scene markers are also displayed in all editing windows such as the Piano Roll, so you can fine tune everything.

Believe it or not that’s pretty much the gist of getting a video into Logic.  It’s an easy process and once I had everything set up in this fashion I found it very intuitive working with the Logic interface on one screen and watching the results on another.

One thing I should note here *** Working with a video in Logic (especially an HD video) was very resource intensive on my February 2008 Macbook Pro with 2GB of RAM.  The final project had about 35 channels and the computer was not able to handle it without frequent playback errors.  So if you are thinking about scoring a feature film you want to make sure you have a lot of RAM and enough processing power to get the job done. ***

Ready to see the results? Here is the final version of the short film Alderwood Ch.2 which was selected as a Top 5 video in a nationwide contest by Canon and Vimeo.  It is now up to voters to select a winner.

Alderwood – Chapter 2 from Kenny Mosher on Vimeo.

If you have a moment please vote for Alderwood Ch.2 by clicking below:
http://vimeo.com/groups/beyondthestill

-PJ

In the context of a limited budget recording, you need to do as many things for free (or cheap!) as possible.  At the same time, you don’t want to sacrifice quality.

You have a lot of flexibility in the tracking stage, even on a small budgets.  Many small project studios (or even your home studio) may only have a few channels of input.  On top of that, they usually don’t have a nice big tuned room for drums.  Doing drums at these studios will often fall short.  Therefore, I would recommend allocating some budget to going to a bigger studio to track (at least) drums.  Even one full day at a studio could give you enough time to track drums for an EP (or more).  From there, you can transfer down to a cheaper project studio (or, again, your home studio) for vocals, guitars, bass, etc…  A wall of mattresses can make a nice quiet area to do these single source recordings.

So now you’ve tracked.  Next would be editing and mixing.  Definitely do ALL the editing at your home/project studio.  It doesn’t matter how many walls of preamps and microphones a studio has – an out of time drum hit sounds the same at a small studio.  Not only is editing at your house free, but its also good experience and practice to edit tunes.  Along with editing, I would do things like autotune vocals, sample replacements, (anything like that) at home.

Editing is done.  You have a perfectly grooving recording; it just needs to be mixed down.  I would at least start the mix at home.  Again, this is good practice, plus if you are going to transfer to another studio, you might as well give them a rough mix to work from.  Not only will this save them time (as the “basics” have already been done) but it will also give the mixing engineer a sense of the direction you’d like to see the song go.  Or, if you have the amibition/experience/tools, mixing your own project is obviously a completely viable solution.  Just make sure you are choosing the option that will get you the best sounding record as possible (of course, within the budget)  So what if there are no awesome, inexpensive studios around you to take the files for mixing??

Distance Collaboration!

This two word phrase is becoming the new norm for project studios.  It is very common to send session files out to studios across the country (world) to have them mixed.  There will be another article soon on Distance Collaboration (and how to find studios).  Often people working over the internet can charge less than booking time at a normal studio (since they can work at their own hours and don’t have to physically accomodate clients).

The same trends can apply to mastering (except for that I would not master your own project if you can avoid it).  Mastering is commonly thought of as being an expensive task, when in reality, this is not always true.  There are many fine mastering facilities that can finish an album for a few hundred bucks (or less!).  Again, distance collaboration can be key.  Often the studio that you are sending the files to for mixing can also master them for you (ahem, like Under the Piano Productions, ahem).

Although I’d assume this article is going to be read mostly by people doing the tracking/engineering/producing, this is a great resource for band members that do some (or all) of their own studio work.  I wouldn’t always recommend that a band member do everything (engineer/produce/mix/etc….), but being a part of the process is always a benefit.  Just don’t bite off more than you can chew (and remember, bringing in other talented people can only help the project).

C

The Studio Files

I would like to explore the idea of controlling your bass and low mid frequencies in the mix.

A big challenge I had when mixing this record down was getting rid of a muddy low end. In a record in this genre, there are a lot of instruments down there (multiple guitars playing low power chords, bass, kick drum, toms, lower vocals, elements of the scream, etc….). Everything needs to have its own space without muddying up the mix. At the same time, cutting too much out of the mix will undermine the sound’s power.

Your secret weapon in this fight is your hi-pass filter. Always try to cut things that aren’t needed. I noticed on my when mixing down the guitars, I always had a hi-pass filter engaged. Sometimes it was low (~100-150), but sometimes, it crept up even higher, towards the mid 200′s. This is ok! As long as it doesn’t kill/weaken the desired tone, this is a great way to start cleaning up your mix. This same concept applies to the vocals, toms, other instruments… Watch when putting a lot of hi-pass filters on your tracks. Too many with high ratio (like 18 or 24 db/octave) can actually introduce phase down there (which could be the subject of another article).

One of the hardest parts of the mix was getting the kick drum as bass to play nicely. Personally, I like to sit the kick drum in lower frequencies than I do my bass (for example, let’s say the bass drum is hitting hard around 60Hz, whereas the bass is up in the 80′s and 90′s Hz range. You can accomplish this by making cuts/boosts where you need them. You may look at the bass EQ below and say “what the heck is he doing using a hi-pass on the bass….? It’s the BASS?!”. But, this is not lunacy (at least I hope…). The non-aggressive hi-pass is what really separates the bass from the kick. The bass still has plenty of energy down there to sound like a bass. Just be careful not too cut too much out and make your bass player disappear.

Another good technique is to use cuts in the 175-300 area where appropriate. This is another area of the spectrum that can really start to get muddy. Guitars/vocals/drums can sometimes benefit from this. Be aware though: cutting too much of this will make everything sound weak, so proceed with caution.

To Be Continued extremely soon… need to get to work here….

C

The Studio Files

This recording project was full of a lot of “firsts” for me (first time converting a house into a recording studio, first time working with a screamer, first time having a band live with me for the recording process… etc). The short version of the story is that the band lived in my converted-recording-basement for a week because of some last minute logistical issues in going to another (real) studio. So with my trusty Digi 003 Rack (and a HEAP of borrowed gear, thanks Damon, Ben), we got to work for the long week.  Also props to Ronnie Pinnell for driving up to assist.

Given the circumstances, I thought it would be a great opportunity to share both the “do’s” and “do not’s” I learned along the way. I’ll try to cover everything from mic techniques to mixing and there and back again.

One of the more important aspects of this CD was getting the screamer’s (Tyler’s) voice to sound not only big mean and scary, but also different than others in his genre of competition. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the beloved SM7 for this task, so I was left to use an SM58. I actually started out by trying some large diaphragm condensers, but it was just way too “pretty” sounding.

Scream – raw

Sounds ok…. but definitely not where we want it. Its very muffled and bass heavy (as a result of him using a very close mic technique), hard to understand, and just not scary enough. First things first, let’s get some EQ cooking. In the picture below, you’ll see the fairly radical EQ I had to use to get rid of the bass and boost the highs. Notice the cut in the upper mids though. This was a critical part of the EQ (without it, everything was super harsh and painful).

Now I had to even out the volume a bit. Rather than just volume automating every word (which of course there was some of, later in the mix), I used a CT-4 compressor, which ALL RTAS users should own. The added bonus is that the compressor will bring out the smaller details of the scream (aka the scary parts). I used a fairly common compressor setting.

With the EQ and compression, the scream was starting to cut, but it wasn’t starting to scare yet. Solution=Distortion. I actually ended up using two techniques: one on the track itself (the tape drive from Massey) and one as a bus send (Sans Amp from the Digi Factory Bundle). You can see the settings below. The Sans Amp could be substituted with any amp simulator and the tape saturater could be replaced with the iZotope Vinyl (which is free).

Scream – processed

With those additions, I felt that the scream got to where we wanted it. Now here’s that raw scream processed and in the full mix.

Scream in the song

More to come

C

The Studio Files