LOGIC PRO X - Vocal Harmony Creation

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LOGIC PRO X - Vocal Harmony Creation

Рет қаралды 5,261

Күн бұрын

Whether we're working with vocals we've recorded with a singer or sampled vocal phrases, building an arrangement up with vocal harmonies can add a real richness to your mixes.
This week, I'm going to show you how you can use Flex Pitch to create harmonies; an approach which has two obvious potential uses. Firstly, if you're working with samples, 'artificial' creation of harmonies might be the only way to make backing vocals. Secondly, even if you're working with a singer, creating harmonies using Flex Pitch can take the pressure off a vocalist to improvise harmonies 'on the spot', giving you a chance to work out the notes you want to record, before replacing your created harmonies with the real thing.
Whilst you can make harmony parts simply by trial and error, by dragging notes up and down until they feel right, I'm putting the harmony of my track under a Music Theory microscope, to help steer the direction of the harmony line I want to make.
00:00 Intro
00:54 Analysis of track and playback
02:08 Introducing Clyde
02:31 Breaking down the melody/harmony
06:03 Setting up a Harmony track for Flex Pitch
07:44 Thirds are your friend
09:16 Harmonising a 7th note
10:53 Splitting notes to harmonise individual notes
12:38 Moving onto a B flat major chord
14:48 Using extended Flex Tools
17:15 Backing vocal mix treatment
20:07 Analysing each part individually
21:15 Summary and final thoughts

Пікірлер: 41

@alxissac254 8 ай бұрын

Hello, I need a little help. Do you know how to transfer Logic Projects from a Time Machine Backups to a new Mac? Do you have step by step instructions and has it worked for you?

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

Hello! Thanks for your question. I'm going to pin this comment so that other people can share their experiences too. I have a spinning drive working as a Time Machine backup from my SSDs. My experience has been that plugging this in to new Macs and choosing to engage that content when prompted during the setup process has worked smoothly. Anyone else? Share here please!

@redguitar6062 8 ай бұрын

On the boot up of your new mac it should ask you whether you want to import your old mac contents from a Time Machine back up. This can be either the OS only or the OS and the files

@peoplelikefrank 7 ай бұрын

Just search for: Mac How to restore files using Time Machine

@jimmygarden_studio 8 ай бұрын

Okay, that's amazing! It was startling to hear how good the harmony sounded in the mix after hearing it solo. And it's a good reminder for me not to get too fixated on perfectionism when listening to harmonies in isolation. Once again, this is a tutorial that makes my music better. Thanks Jono. It's good to be part of your community.

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

And you're an extremely valuable member of that community - thanks so much, as always, Jimmy. Yes, I agree that context is everything with vocals/harmonies. I've lost count of the times that I've gone after 'perfect tuning' only to discover that a few cents sharp or flat introduces a different - and better - mood. In truth, it's different every time, which is a wonderful reminder of the power of the human voice (even when we re-tune and de-humanise it)!

@remedypath5941 8 ай бұрын

🤩 I always wanted to know about these tools more in depth. Another great video and tutorial - thank you Jono!

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

You're most welcome.

@pulse-160 7 ай бұрын

Hi Jono, I just wanted to thank you for the great work you do in these videos. I have been dropping in from time to time since I first saw your presentation master class on Logic with the Guild hall. It has helped me along the the music production path in many ways so I really appreciate what you do. You have made this snippet sound class by the way.

@jonobuchananmusic 7 ай бұрын

Thank you so much for your continued support and the kind words. I’m delighted to hear the videos are providing some useful help.

@ericr61 6 ай бұрын

Jono, very sweet mix and lick for that matter! Really helpful video all around, thankyou!

@jonobuchananmusic 6 ай бұрын

You're welcome, Eric. Thanks!

@GarryKnight 8 ай бұрын

While you were working on the second bar, I could hear that the first note in the melisma on the word 'home' sounded maybe 1/2 a semitone too high where you'd dragged it to. But then when you played the mix, I noticed that this added something emotional to that word, which seemed to be just what was needed. So you've perhaps inadvertently taught me (and others?) something you hadn't set out to do. I just found your channel yesterday and this popped up on my Home feed, so it's an instant subscribe from me. Thanks for what you're doing.

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

Thanks Garry. And welcome! As I mentioned in my reply to Jimmy too, context is so important with re-tuning voices and a delicate balance of being informed partly by music theory knowledge but just as much (if not more) by how things sound when you press play. It's amazing how often something which 'shouldn't really work' - in large part down to the inflection of a note, or even the sound of the word being sung - provides the most musically interesting result. There are new videos on this channel every Wednesday, Shorts on Saturdays and plenty more exciting announcements coming in the new year. It's great to have you with us.

@GarryKnight 8 ай бұрын

@@jonobuchananmusic Thanks! 🙂

@peterwaringofficial 8 ай бұрын

Flex Pitch to this point has been a bit of an unexplored dark art, but this has clarified many things. Thank you 👍

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

Great to hear that this episode helped. Thanks Peter.

@BarthF 8 ай бұрын

Thank you very much, Jono! A very helpful video!

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

You're welcome as always BF! Thank you.

@gilles31 8 ай бұрын

Superbe démo. Merci Jono !! 😉

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

De rien! Merci à vous.

@jenniferlaynemusic 8 ай бұрын

I loooove writing harmonies and was contemplating recording some today, so thanks for being on my wave in the universe giving the sign to GET IT DONE. With my jazz/classical background and current style in R&B and New Orleans-style gospel, I find I love using the complex elements of my chord structures in the harmonies. I'll use the 7ths or the 9ths, etc., depending on the phrase and desired emotional effect and what it leads into - but I generally use more than one harmony to give the complexities an additional grounding element other than the lead. I write my harmonies on piano initially, but sometimes what works on piano isn't as effective or doesn't translate well to voice, so if there's one I'm iffy about, (I work with Celemony), I'll nudge the duplicate to test it. It's great for us vocal health sticklers who don't want to spend 30 mins in warmups just to test harmonies. While I LOVE Celemony and its advanced features and output, it doesnt sound good at all when trying to use it as the actual BG vox track. Or maybe it's just not to my taste. In watching your video, the flex pitch sounded better to me as a backing track. Have you found this as well? Sorry to be long winded.😢🙏

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

Hi Jennifer. Many thanks for sharing your insight. There's no doubt that working harmonies out in advance - whether at the piano or using Flex Pitch or Melodyne - offers two potentially creative pathways. Either it's just a great way to road-test harmonies or it has the potential to offer parts which actually make it all the way into productions. There's an interesting chapter about this in Mark Ronson's Production Series (for Apple TV, I think?) where he uses Harmony generating plug-ins. There's no doubt they don't sound like real people recording vocal harmonies but they work extremely effectively for a certain production sound (Hide And Seek by Imogen Heap, as one example).

@jenniferlaynemusic 8 ай бұрын

@@jonobuchananmusic Thank you for being so gracious and for the great recommendations. I will check them out today!

@robertailman5092 5 ай бұрын

I have studied first year "Common Practice period" harmony at the college level - the Walter Piston approach, ancient history to some I'm sure. It is absolutely fascinating to me how DAW's like Logic Pro have provided an environment for enhanced music education - in essence putting a Music Phd at your elbow...,nudge, nudge...,listen to this (in a Python kind of way)...,this video lesson clearly shows that playing by ear and playing with theory have a synchronicity.

@jonobuchananmusic 5 ай бұрын

Thanks Robert. Absolutely; there's a practical foundation to harmony/theory teaching in DAWs which didn't exist when I was learning with pencils and manuscript paper, which definitely encourages listening and not worrying so much about the 'rules'. That said, I do think knowing those rules helps sometimes too, though perhaps that's lingering stockholm syndrome from having to study figured bass?! Perhaps a combination of both is the dream combination (the stockholm part notwithstanding...)?!

@JohnLynagh 8 ай бұрын

I was hoping you were going to bust out some of your own vocal stylings Jono :) , but you spared us, and gave us Clyde. But seriously, love the theory stuff, really useful reminder. Thanks.

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

I did think about it but decided that no one needed their day ruined! Thanks John.

@Ak.studio58 7 ай бұрын

Thx for info good video

@jonobuchananmusic 7 ай бұрын

Thanks. You're welcome.

@flanorunseyirdefteri 8 ай бұрын

Thanks a lot for this amazingly helpful video, Jono. It's great. I was wondering (a request is about to be born) if it is possible for you to make a video about how to make a film score for a very short film/video. Of course it wouldn't be something comprehensive and time taking like the one you did for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, namely "Film Scoring Masterclass with Logic Pro X". But it may be really helpful for understanding how to prepare a film score document in Logic Pro X, how to make the necessary adjustments in document preferences, and even how to look for the critical points of the film, even the sound search and selection, adjusting the SMPTE, etc. I am very much interested in film scoring, so that's what I would like to find in your channel as well. Thank you in advance for your help in this matter. :)

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

Thank you so much. Absolutely, more film scoring/music to picture content is planned for next year, both in the schedule of regular Wednesday videos and in a more course-based form. Leave it with me!

@flanorunseyirdefteri 8 ай бұрын

@@jonobuchananmusic Perfect news. I am looking forward to it. Thanks again.

@chrisrodenmusic 8 ай бұрын

This is great! Cheers Jono. Music theory, again, tapping me on the shoulder. Any dates on the courses, yet?

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

Thanks Chris. The EQ course definitely won't be until January but there'll be an update as soon as I know more, I promise.

@estebanlopezlimon1346 8 ай бұрын

I really really appreciate the music theory context in the explanations. Is there any particula music theory book that you would recommend, Jono? Specially about harmony. I want to go deeper into the rabbit hole.

@jonobuchananmusic 8 ай бұрын

Hi Esteban. Thanks. There may well be newer, equally excellent books but 'Harmony' by Walter Piston is/was always considered a pretty definitive work on the topic. Hope that helps.

@MyOwnWayMusic 7 ай бұрын

Hi Jono is there a way to play a midi keyboard that will change pitch of the harmony vocal in real time. I can do this in Cubase Pro but can Logic Pro also do this. I've used it for great effect in Cubase but I'm doing more and more work in Logic nowadays.

@jonobuchananmusic 7 ай бұрын

Good question. I'm afraid to say that to the best of my knowledge, this isn't possible with Flex Time. However, you can do it using the EVOC 20, setting the Lead Vocal audio track as the side-chain source and then playing the harmony notes you want on the EVOC20 track. I hope that helps.