Video

Thanks!

Thanks, Ross. Greatly appreciated.

Great!

Hi Lee. I agree. Though when it happens, I’m going to be sad. Some of them feel like I’ve grown up with them!

@@jonobuchananmusic me too . Oh and the AI 🙄😯😯😯 what is going on 🤣🤣🤣

Great to have you with us! Glad this video was helpful and, absolutely, have fun catching up. 🙂

Great! Glad it was helpful.

I always say… if you’re going to do a thing, do it properly!

Thank you so much. I completely agree about Ultrabeat. It’s a much-overlooked secret weapon with some superb, unique features. High time I made another video about some of those. On it!

You’re most welcome!

Thank you so much, John. I hugely appreciate your support and I’m delighted to hear the course was useful. And absolutely, everyone needs more JE in their lives!

Thanks, as always! Absolutely, this is something I’m happy to look at. It’s definitely something I’ll be exploring through the courses too - I have done a fair amount on this in the musical examples in Orchestral Programming 1. But it’s something I’m happy to do here too. Thanks for the suggestion.

(I now see other people in the comments have made similar points to this in a lot fewer words!)

Thanks, Jim. Absolutely, all valid points. As you've probably read my thoughts on the subject in my responses elsewhere, I'll keep this brief but I certainly have no objection to these tools being used in the contexts you're finding them helpful. Like you, I just don't want to hear pieces of music which are overly reliant on resources like this in a lazy, unconsidered way.

Great to have you with us! New episodes every Wednesday, as well as a new Short every weekend. Oh and 130-odd episodes for you to catch up on at your leisure! Thanks so much.

A real favourite kit of mine too. There are a few like it. Check out the Vintage Cinema one too. Thanks!

​@@jonobuchananmusic I just gave the Vintage Cinema Kit you mentioned a try. It was a nice review of yesterday's lesson. The guitar and saxophone sounds are great! Thanks for the recommendation.

Great question. No differences at all - that works too!

Glad it was helpful! I’ve been called many things in my time… but Bruno’s a first! 🤣

@@jonobuchananmusic oh my god, It's Jono not Bruno

My bad 😄

No problem!

Delighted to hear that. Thanks so much.

Thanks so much, Spencer. The interface used for this video is a Universal Audio Volt 276. For my main composing rig, I use a UA Apollo 8p.

@@jonobuchananmusic Thank you very much for this information, Jono.

@@jonobuchananmusic Can I ask, are you using an iMac? I'm thinking of purchasing one for my home studio and was wondering what level of spec you would recommend for moderately demanding home music production? Could I consider a 2015 model running Logic? Thank you.

Absolutely, that works too! The 'Create Track' option does avoid the need to enable Automation when you might not need it/want it. And, you can can create a Track for the Aux bus without needing to open the Mixer if you want to save time. It can be done from the Inspector too. I very much approve of your user name - superb choice!

@@jonobuchananmusic Thanks for your tips Jono. Working with Logic for over 20 years still every days a learning day.

For me too! But that's what's so great - new things to learn every day.

It's a good question. Strangely, Logic has had a bug with that Reverse button for a long time. Quite frequently, projects with audio files Reversed via the Region editor will still display with the waveform showing as 'forwards' when you re-open a project again, at a later date. And the other advantage of saving a file as its own audio file is that you might want to only use a section of a reversed slice rather than all of it. Say, if you only wanted a short section of reversed snare rather than all of it, as per the example in this video. Full editability of the start and end points is often more straightforward when the audio file is saved separately and reversed. But you're absolutely right, if that option is working for you, it's quicker.

@@jonobuchananmusic that is true in your case, i did have that once where the reverse function was not available for some samples coming from a sample pack , in that case i would just bounce them in place to create a file and then the option would appear I also do bounce in place just to make it real permanent, Sorry for the snappy comment, i have been in treatment for cancer for 2 years now and the drugs make me real snappy !!

@@homestudiotutorials No apologies required at all. I'm so sorry to hear about your illness - ALL of my best wishes with your continued recovery.

@@jonobuchananmusic thanks 🙏

Great, glad it was helpful.

@@jonobuchananmusic 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Hi Tim. Sorry to hear you're having that problem. I don't know the Pro 1 well enough to be able to advise but it sounds like a couple of things might be happening. Sometimes if you have an Audio track set up in anticipation of the External Instrument track being recorded as Audio, you'll hear the monitor input from within the External Instrument as well as it being monitored through the Audio track, which means you'll hear it twice (and that will certainly sound like overload). A good way to test this is to do an audio recording of the Pro 1. If the recorded level is significantly lower than the 'monitor' version, it may well be that you're hearing it twice. Lastly, does adjusting the output level on the front of the Pro 1 to compensate fix the problem? Sorry I can't be of more direct help.

You're very welcome.

Magic, thanks so much Gustavo.

@@jonobuchananmusic Thank you for the awesome content!

Great to hear the videos are proving useful! Thanks so much.

Hi Brian. You don't need to be sorry! It's great that you're finding them helpful. Nearly everyone who has said they're enjoying those features is using them to build backing tracks and, in that context, I absolutely see their value. My concerns come when they bleed too heavily into 'finished compositions'. I'm really enjoying reading the breadth of opinions about the Session Players - huge thanks for sharing yours.

Wonderful! And yes, I broadly agree. Everything you've said about how innovative music has - throughout time - been created by those without high levels of 'traditional musical training and practice' (for want of a better phrase) is true. And it's true for all of us - when we all first started making music, we weren't dissuaded by our limitations - we used them as strengths or workarounds to take each next step. And we still do. (I do, certainly). Through this week - reading everyone's opinions - the image which keeps appearing in my head is the idea of building blocks; the pieces which go into composing/producing a piece of music. I get twitchy when I imagine each of these individual pieces being too easy to assemble or too large a part of the whole. As with all new developments in software, there are those of us (all of us watching and posting on this channel, I suspect), for whom the Session Players are new, with the memory and working practices of NOT having them available fresh in our minds and our workflows. That won't be true for anyone who downloads Logic Pro to use for the first time tomorrow - what will they do with these tools? My worry is that I do think the Session Players - if used in the most lazy way they COULD be used - offer a route to rapid compositions where each building block is, for my taste, too large. Rihanna's 'Umbrella' uses an Apple Loop as the foundation of its beat pattern and is just one example of plenty of music with an obvious central sample. But it's the not the beat and the bassline and the harmonic foundation and the melody and the lyrics of that tune. It's just one building block, whose size will feel different to each of us, depending on how we feel about working with pre-made musical pieces. Everyone has to find the point at which they're comfortable for technology to play a 'creative' role in our music making process. And that's going to be different for all of us. Right, I'm off to watch a double-bill of Ex-Machina and Her.

AKA select the “Duplicate” track

Absolutely, that's exactly the way to do it.

Thanks so much!

Thanks so much, John. Please do send over any and all feedback on the course. Very much hope you enjoy it!

@@jonobuchananmusic Really enjoying the course Jono. I'm picking so much knowledge up so I'm really grateful. I only wish I was 20 not 46 so I could compose or produce for a living and have done a music degree instead of an IT one (but it pays the mortgage) ! Maybe I should buy a couple of lottery tickets ! This is only a small thing, but it might be nice to have a facility to ask questions or post suggestions or comments on the teachable interface. It might give the course a community vibe as well. For example in chapter 15, my music theory is ok-ish, so I'm following inversions, minor/major scale choices and stuff like that. But when I come do to my own string compositions, I'll have to probably have to write the chords out and scales (using notes in logic of course) out a wee bit and see what fits (and use my ear too). That might be a sharable tip for beginners. Anyways that just a small example.

Hi John. Thanks so much for the feedback and I'm delighted to hear you're enjoying the course and that it's proving useful. Absolutely, Will and I are discussing the best ways to begin to develop 'community resources'. If that isn't possible via Teachable (we're still getting our heads around that platform!), we might look at Discord or somewhere else instead. On your specific point, part of the reason we added the Music Theory videos I made for YT last summer for free was to - I hope - facilitate harmonic possibility and understanding, so do go and grab those videos too if you think they'd help. But rest assured we're as keen as you are to bring you guys more places to share musical ideas and tips.

Thanks so much. Yes, I definitely think it's an excellent new addition to the Distortion folder of options.

Thank you!

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I agree with all of this except the last sentence! If anyone uses the Session Players as you describe, I absolutely agree that they have value to get a sense of what a composition/track could go on to become and that they can definitely kick-start one type of creative process. But a collection of tools which have the capability to offer rhythm, groove, harmony and even melody do much more than any other of Logic's instruments, which do require some skill to play, or a musical ear to wrest ideas out of; or its sound shaping tools, which rely on an input signal. My fear is that others will be less patient than you and will be readily seduced by these tools as co-composers/ghost-writers. For me, personally, compositions made that way will lose the very essence of what it is to be creative. But as rehearsal tools, absolutely, I see the value. A wide range of opinions is what will keep conversations about AI and its role in our lives vital and active, so I'm very happy to debate all takes on this topic! Thanks again.

Thanks so much. And now I know what the content needs to be for the next course! ; )

Thank you so much, Colin. I hope you'll find it extremely useful and, absolutely, I'm very much hoping that you'll be able to apply what you learn to a wide range of orchestral libraries.

You're extremely welcome, thank you so much.

That is GREAT to know. Thanks Jezz.

@@jonobuchananmusic PS. I also hate the session players! Don't tell anyone though, it'll be our little secret 😁

@@JezzBowden It's safe with me, I promise... ; )

Thanks so much for your enquiry. Here it is!: jono-buchanan-music-s-school.teachable.com

🧇🌭🤣

Infinite adjustability, for one. Loops are predefined, although still very usefull.

@@preamble466 I understand that. I don’t get why they should be demonized as anti-creative.

Hi Danny. Thanks so much for your comment. Essay incoming! I know musicians who completely avoid loops, presets and any other sound-making resources which have - to any extent - been 'pre-made'. I know plenty of other musicians (myself included), who are happy - up to a point - to start with a preset (usually editing it substantially through the creative process), or to import a loop with the intention of getting out the Scissors to mine it for 'that moment' which feels interesting and sonically rich, before trying to work out which other musical puzzle pieces to fit around it. There is certainly a sliding scale in terms of how 'comfortable' producers are in terms of working with ready-made resources. What's different about the Session Players in Logic is that they offer rhythm, groove, bass lines and chord progressions. And, if you configure the settings accordingly, even melodies. These aren't small building blocks in the process of musical creation - they ARE musical creation. Whenever a songwriter is taken to court to assess whether they have breached someone else's copyright, a song is stripped back to its essentials - melody, harmony, rhythm - and these are put up against a similar distillation of the rival song to assess whether they're 'too close'. The production is rarely included - those musical fundamentals ARE a song. If you - or any of us - really are happy to use the Session Players to get an idea up and running with the intention of then significantly intervening to adopt a similar 'mining' approach for just the tiny little moments which offer something interesting, to re-sample a tiny section of a hook, or similar, then absolutely - you're right - these could be creative tools. But my fear is that most music-makers, over time, won't be as fastidious as you. They won't be as discerning and will be happy for tools like this to suggest chord progressions, rhythmic shapes and the building blocks of what music actually is. It'll just be too easy to accept them. And, as Apple have taken the time to work with skilled musicians to generate this content, the argument of 'I couldn't do better than that' will, I fear, win. Another way of looking at it would be to look at the debates around how students are using AI writing resources to shape the essays they're writing for their courses. If a student's essay uses a spell-checker once it's written, that is an example of technology intervening, but in a way that most people would find relatively comfortable. If their essay starts with a fully-fledged, carefully worded argument entirely generated by AI and the 'creative process' of then working on that essay was to retrospectively change some of the syntax, to edit down to the required word count but fundamentally to leave the ideas in the essay as they were generated, that feels a lot less creative to me. So I do think we need to be careful. And, as I said in the live stream - for me - a huge part of this comes down to the excitement and pioneering feeling of being creative. Patiently unlocking new musical ideas or unexpectedly stumbling across something great by accident. Any resources which jump over these stages do need to be handled with care, I think. If you've got this far, huge thanks for reading!

Well if we're going to get into the "AI will never be better than humans" debate, I have to say that sadly I feel it's only a matter of time before it outshines us in all fields, probably just a couple of years. Then we will all have to become Buddhist monks and flush our egos down the toilet (metaphorically speaking) 😂😂

@@jonobuchananmusic Jono, thanks for your amazing channel. You are one of several stalwarts I come back to time and again. With respect to the session players it comes down in part to where you are in the musical journey. If like some of us you've been writing and playing music for decades (ahem!), know theory pretty well, play at least one if not several instruments well, have already "discovered" the magic of putting chords together into coherent patterns (I loved your insight into those lovely early days of finding music), created melodies around them, then I think they have some real uses. If you're working on a tune, have a chord progression that is resonating for you but want to experiment with it with different tempos or chord substitutions or even signature changes, it's quite nice to whip something up and try these things out. Then, you start and put your own instruments in, add some layers of dissonance, breath life into it in essence, and all of sudden you're discovering and creating. I completely agree that if you lean on these too heavily you will end up with a sticky, anodyne mess that will disappear as quickly as it appeared. I love the idea of the in-depth courses. I have been checking back regularly to see if any more subtractive synthesis videos have shown up. I quite enjoyed that and want to know more as a more old-school type eager for new sounds. Now I see that there is a chance that this will be a course and I will very much look forward to that one when it happens. I tried to buy the orchestral course as a gift for my brother and pay for it with Apple Pay and it seemed to get lost in a loop. Do you know if there is any problem with buying a course from here in the States? Once I make sure that it never did in fact go through, I'll try it again with a credit card directly. Eventually I will buy this one for myself as well.Where else could one hope to get a taste of a Guildhall education! Again, many thanks for all you do. Best Wishes. -Roy

Wonderful! Thanks so much.

Thank you so much - I really hope you enjoy the course. Do let me know how you get on with it. Same with the Science of Sound courses - I so enjoyed making those. Hugely appreciated!

@@jonobuchananmusic I'm trying to get more into scoring to picture and I was really looking to learn more about writing for an orchestra and orchestration/instrumentation in general. I'll reach out to you after I'll get through the course ;)

👍👍👍👍

🙏

Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks so much for being there.

Great result for Scotland! Thanks so much. Do take a look here: jono-buchanan-music-s-school.teachable.com for last night's announcement. Thanks!

@@jonobuchananmusicenrolled, this will be fun. Thanks so much for sharing!

Watched or rather listened to the first few chapters: expectations met, no disappointment!

@@Ghandralph Delighted to hear that and thank you so much.

Great to hear, thanks so much.