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 Sending the Stick into Logic 
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Post Sending the Stick into Logic
Hi everyone

I was wondering whether some of you might offer some advice and thoughts regarding sending the Stick through Logic, and what sounds you use for Melody and Bass sides please.

With a 4 year old and another arriving soon, my playing is limited to after their bedtime and in headphones. The amp I use isn't particularly inspiring so I have started going through Logic, each side having its own input and therefore all the available guitar sounds seems like a treasure chest of options but despite this I am struggling to find a nice balance of sound between melody and bass, plus I would like to try and lose the out and out guitar sound and find something a little more unique.

Anyway, if any of you use Logic to record or practice and have some tips to offer I'd be very grateful

Thanks

Paul


Thu Apr 20, 2017 9:19 pm
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Post Re: Sending the Stick into Logic
Hi Paul
I saw your question in my last post.
I spend half my life playing with headphones when I am at work.
My Logic rig is as follows.
Stick direct into Apogee Duet Interface then usb to Logic Pro X on a macbook Air. All the sounds and processing you hear on my recent posts use this setup.

Apogee make great interfaces, always have for AD conversion and vice versa so I decided to get the DUET for travelling and never feel like I'd need to replace it. Its not the cheapest but its a good device.

In logic most of what you hear from me is not particularly complex or tricky in terms of the mix and processing, I've always tended towards minimal tweaking and feeding in a good signal to start with back in studio days. Good gain structure etc.
The bass side only sees the mono chorus plugin set lightly, a old opto compressor emulation just tickiling the peaks and some parametric EQ where I just roll off the top end a little and sometimes de-mud it a little around 200 to 500 but it varies. All are pretty subtle changes.
Melody side you heard yesterday is stereo delay one side timed to quarter notes , the other to eights. At the end I automated the feedback & mix percentage to swell up the level to make the delay " swell out to infinity". Same parametric EQ plugin, cut around 1k & 200Hz to clean up a bit and a high shelf at 10 k for "air". Bottom end is filtered heavily below 100 since there's nothing on the melody side other than rumble most likely. Last is the Logic platinum verb, Rv time at around 1.3 sec short predelay around 10ms and mix to taste as cooks like to say.
On the stereo out I put a mix- bus compressor, to pull it together, Logic has some good presets to try out which should get you going in the right direction. Thats about it, rest I guess is pickup settings on the Stick and just playing technique generally. I've spent a little time the Logic Guitar pedal board but yet to find overdrive sounds that really get me going but I gave up too easily probably. Scott Kerr who is on here lots did a great post where he knocked up a whole track in logic in half an hour or something like that, worth a look also. He's all over Logic I think. Not sure if thats useful , but thats the way I hit it at present , pretty much my practice template as have limited time at work for tweaking. Cheers . B
PS I also do the old trick of listening on various things before " committing it", whilst at work that's two different headphones and the hideous MAcbook Air speakers for any fine tuning of mix balance. Leaving the headphones off and cranking them also works as another reference.

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Fri Apr 21, 2017 12:21 am
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Post Re: Sending the Stick into Logic
Thanks Bruce

I really appreciate your time to reply. As I mentioned I am very new to Logic and all things music production, as a trombone player I essentially stood in front of a microphone and blew into it....someone else took care of the rest! Haha. So I am going to sit down with your reply, Google, YouTube and decipher it all. I'm such a newbie! To Stick and all 'electric' music!
I do have good ears though so I shall enjoy listening to your recordings and trying to get there!

Thanks again

Paul


Fri Apr 21, 2017 8:48 pm
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Post Re: Sending the Stick into Logic
I'm a big fan of speaker/cabinet emulators. In a recording it sounds more realistic... like I'm standing in front of an amp. Logic's Amp Designer plugin is really good. With amp, cab, and mic selection you are sure to find a sound that you will like.

I go for a more realistic sound in my recordings so I use the cabinet simulator to give the sense of air between the sound source and the listener.
There are successful direct recordings of Stick and not using cab sims but cab sims are an easy way to achieving a good sound. Direct sound of the stick has become part of "the sound" of the Stick though... so if that's what you are going for then go for it. For me the sound coming through a cabinet is more pleasing to my ears...

I think it also depends on the context of the song.
If playing with other instruments the full range of the Stick can be competing in some frequencies. The clean sound of a stick recorded direct (or electric guitar) can have a frequency in the upper midrange that can be very piercing. A cabinet sim can tame this very naturally compared to using EQ.

Just my thoughts...
Logic has amazing effects. Mainstage is great also... it's like a stripped down version of logic with better interface for using live.

Looking forward to the sounds you come up with!

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Sat Apr 22, 2017 8:20 am
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Post Re: Sending the Stick into Logic
How you get into the DAW best depends a lot on which pickup you have, due to impedance matching, phantom power, etc...

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Sat Apr 22, 2017 10:13 am
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Post Re: Sending the Stick into Logic
pwrightyp wrote:
Hi everyone

I was wondering whether some of you might offer some advice and thoughts regarding sending the Stick through Logic, and what sounds you use for Melody and Bass sides please.

With a 4 year old and another arriving soon, my playing is limited to after their bedtime and in headphones. The amp I use isn't particularly inspiring so I have started going through Logic, each side having its own input and therefore all the available guitar sounds seems like a treasure chest of options but despite this I am struggling to find a nice balance of sound between melody and bass, plus I would like to try and lose the out and out guitar sound and find something a little more unique.

Anyway, if any of you use Logic to record or practice and have some tips to offer I'd be very grateful

Thanks

Paul


I have used Logic with Apogee Duet, as well, and it is somewhat economical in terms of setup time. If I attempt some serious recording (for me), that is the setup I use. In recent times, I am finding an iPad plus Duet setup to work much more reliably and easily, with not nearly the same versatility, but good tone is possible.


Tue Apr 25, 2017 8:14 pm
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Post Re: Sending the Stick into Logic
Thank you everyone, much to review and reflect on here.
I guess i'm ticking along in my newbie way, happy with the various set ups I use just to enable sound so I can practice - I use a stereo-mono cable into the iRig 2 into my ipad and Amplitude app, or if it's not too late I go straight into a small 2 channel (guitar) amp and play out. More recently I have been going into 2 channels on my Focusrite Scarlett interface into Logic Pro x, quickly picking guitar and bass sounds.
Now, with a little more chops, thanks in huge part to Steve A. via skype lessons I am feeling like 'any-old-sound-will-do-because-im-not-very-good' approach is not doing me justice and I would like to (try) and start producing recordings like so many good players on here do.

Problem is I am still very new to Logic so a lot of the terms and expressions used in this thread still sound like Latin to me! haha. I'll get there though :-)

Thanks

Pau


Tue Apr 25, 2017 8:24 pm
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