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Stephen Pickering

Category: Logic

  • Michigan

    I recently made two different covers of the Josh Rouse song, “Michigan.” The first I made on the iPad with Garageband. I played the Spanish guitar and sang into the the little pinhole microphone. Then I added some “smart” instruments, bass, drums. So this one is done basically in “click” time, but I still think it came out sounding pretty good, considering the circumstances.

    The second was done with more Professional mics and into Logic Pro on an iMac. I basically just played a steel acoustic and sang at the same time, no overdubs or click track. So it’s live and more natural.

    So, two different sounds with the same song, but I kind of like them both for different reasons.

    Now, if I could only do some of my own songs!

  • 3 Song Mini Concert on My Patio

    Did this today out on my back patio featuring three songs: “Your Love Chases After Me,” by Mindy Smith, “Another Bad Night’s Sleep” by The Silver Seas, and “Kuzbass” by Josh Rouse. I used the new iPad video Camera and I used the FiRe field recording app on my iPhone for vocals and on my iPad 1 for the guitar. Then I brought those wave files into Logic for some mixing and used iMovie on the iMac to edit and add titles as well as the Logic mixed audio track. I think it sounds and looks good!

  • New Song Demo: “South By West”

    This is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. Actually it just came to me in a flash as I was struggling with a Christmas Song cover (“God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen”) It almost came kind of as a subconscious relief to my conscious suffering with the other song. So maybe that’s one secret to creativity: You work on something that may be a little difficult, a little structured, and as you’re going along, in a flash the “lyrical” part of your mind comes to the rescue with something original and fun. Kind of as a relief or a reflex.

  • Why Did My Cycle Region Turn From Solid Green to Candy Stripped Green in Logic Pro?

    The normal Cycle Region in Logic is Solid Green

    I’ve been working in Logic Pro the last few days. Every once in a while, I’ll hit something or type something and all of the sudden my solid green “Cycle Region” turns into a Candy Striped Green “Skip” Region. And I don’t know how to get it back!

    When it turns into a Skip Region it looks Candy Stripped Green

    Well, Googling I found the answer. Just hit the “J” key on your keyboard. It turns it back and forth from a solid green cycle region into a candy stripped “Skip” region. So all along I must have been accidentally hitting the “J” key.

    Pretty simple, huh? But, dang, I had to dig pretty deep to find the answer. You’d think it would be more straightforward in Apple’s help menu.

    If for whatever reason that doesn’t work for you, you can also click in the top half of the ruler bar, anywhere outside of the existing candy stripped cycle, drag from left to right with your mouse clicker still held down, and that will create a new solid green Cycle Region and automatically the other stripped green Skip Region will disappear.

    *One other neat thing I realized is that you can create a cycle region wherever you are at in the song by simply clicking the top half of the ruler and dragging from left to right. The saves a lot of frustration because before I realized this I would always think I’d have to search for the already pre-existing one and drag it to the place where I was now working.