Building Instruments with Logic Pro Samplers
Join Logic Pro expert Stephen O'Connell for a fun, informative video course on building your own instruments using Logic Pro's built-in samplers! You'll learn a ton and have a blast getting creative in new, inspiring ways—not to mention ending up with sounds and instruments that are uniquely your own. By the end of the course, you'll be ready to start designing your own custom instruments for your very next production with sounds that can truly set your tracks apart from the crowd. Your imagination is the limit! These videos are designed for Logic Pro users that are new to using samplers.
Videos
• Introduction & Setup (02:46) - In this course, we'll discover how to create any instrument you want using just the built-in Logic Pro samplers: Quick Sampler, Drum Machine Designer, and Sampler. In this first video, we'll provide an overview of what we'll learn and make sure you have everything you need to get started.
• Exploring Quick Sampler's Interface (04:36) - The first sampler to explore is Quick Sampler. In this video, we'll look at the different sections of the interface and become familiar with the plugin's layout.
• Loading a Sample into Quick Sampler (11:17) - Now that we're familiar with the Quick Sampler interface, let's find out how to get our first sounds into the sampler and tune the sampler to play back the sample correctly.
• Classic & One Shot Modes (07:17) - Samplers can handle different modes of playback to suit different instruments and audio samples. In this video, we'll see how Classic and One Shot modes can be used to enhance your sample playback.
• Slicing Mode (06:13) - In the last video, we saw how the mode could be changed between Classic and One Shot to better suit different sample playbacks. Now, we'll look at the Slicing mode and see how it can help you turn loops into playable instruments.
• Recording a Sample Straight to the Sampler (08:18) - You can take any audio recording from your DAW or on your computer and add it to Quick Sampler, but you don't have to have a separate recording ready to go. You can record directly into Quick Sampler with the built-in recorder.
• Recording a Sample from Within Your DAW (10:48) - Maybe you want to record a guitar with a cab simulator, a virtual instrument from another company, or something already processed with different effects. You can do all of this with Quick Sampler's Recorder.
• Pitch, Filter, Amp Settings, Envelopes, LFOs, & Mod Matrix (14:52) - Now that we've seen a number of ways to get samples into Quick Sampler, let's take a look at how we can manipulate the way the sample plays back. The Pitch, Filter, and Amp envelopes can help shape the sample to play back in whatever way you like, and the LFOs and Mod Matrix help morph the sound with more modulation and control.
• Adding FX & Plugins to the Track & Saving Your Instrument (06:37) - As with any other kind of virtual instrument or sampler in Logic Pro, you can add your own audio effects on the track itself to turn it into something even more special. In this final Quick Sampler video, we see how to add effects and then save your instrument for later use.
• Exploring the Drum Machine Designer Interface (04:17) - It's time to move on to a new sampler. Drum Machine Designer is a fantastic tool to help you sample, curate, and build your own drum machine library. In this video, we'll explore the interface for the first time.
• Dragging Audio Samples into Your Drum Pad (08:07) - Let's add our first sounds to Drum Machine Designer and see how they load into the drum pads and how Quick Sampler makes another appearance.
• Looking Under the Hood: Track Stacks & Samplers (04:28) - Drum Machine Designer doesn't simply load all of the samples into a single sampler; it's actually a collection of samplers or other virtual instruments, each with their own track in a Logic Pro Track Stack. In this video, we'll see how this can be used to our advantage to fine tune a sample or the mix of our sounds.
• How to Add a Software Instrument & Your Own Sounds to Your Drum Pad (05:01) - Adding sounds from other virtual instruments can expand your palette when creating your own kit, resulting in the perfect collection of sounds for your tracks. In this video, we'll learn how to add virtual instruments to your pads and change the input and output triggered notes.
• How to Resample a Pad (05:04) - Sometimes we have a sound that works great, but we want to grab another copy and manipulate it further - maybe reverse it or add more effects. In this video, we see how the resampling feature can work to further explore new sounds in your drum kit.
• Pad Effects, Kit Effects, & Adding Your Own Effects (04:47) - In the overview video for Drum Machine Designer, we saw how there were some quick effect controls directly on the interface. Let's see how these work and how to get them to show up.
• Exploring the Multi Sampler's Interface (07:06) - Now that we've explored Quick Sampler and Drum Machine Designer, it's time to take a look at the large-scale Sampler, a multi sampler built into Logic Pro that can handle many different samples at once to create even more realistic instruments.
• Adding Multiple Samples to Your Sampler (10:55) - We've seen how the interface of the Sampler is laid out and how it shares similarities with the Quick Sampler, but now it's time to take a look at how to add multiple samples at once and assign them to different velocities and keys.
• Dividing the Samples into Groups (06:55) - When handling many different samples at once, it can be handy to divide them into groups to better organize them and make changes to all samples at once. In this video, we'll see how groups can be used in Sampler.
• Using the Synth, Mod Matrix, & Modulator Controls & Saving Your Instrument (07:45) - In this final video, we look at the different ways we can modulate the sample playback and how they're similar to that of Quick Sampler.