Sunday Mix for Logic Pro X Basics

This article will walk you through the basic features that make up Sunday Mix for Logic Pro. We’ll also go over some important terminology that you’ll want to know for later videos. You can check all the installation and tutorial videos over on the Sunday Mix Resource Page. 

This video will show you all the Sunday Mix Basics, or you can read about the features below this video:

Logic Pro has a variety of windows that you can use to view different tools. You can change which windows are visible by selecting them in the top left of Logic:

By default, when you load Sunday Mix, you will be able to see the Inspector window at the far left of the screen, the Smart Controls window at the bottom of the screen, and the Notepad at the far right. If you ever close out of these windows, just click their respective button in the top toolbar (shown above) to make them visible.

In the Notepad (on the right of your screen), you’ll find all the information you need to know about using Sunday Mix. Make sure you’ve selected the Track column at the top, and scroll through the different tracks to find a wealth of information on how to use each feature. There are also videos linked on each track that will bring you back to the Sunday Mix Resource Page.

The center section of your screen is the Workspace. This is where you will do most of your editing. There is also another important window that is not visible, and that is the Mixer. You can either toggle between the Smart Controls window and the Mixer window by clicking the Window buttons in the top toolbar, or using the keyboard commands “B” for Smart Controls, and “X” for Mixer. Or, what we suggest, is that you open the Mixer in a separate window. To do this, go to the Window tab, select “Open Mixer” or use the shortcut “command 2.” 

Sunday Mix is designed to help you easily mix your Sunday Worship service. We’ve included some easy-to-use features that will help you create the best version of your recorded service. In the Workspace, you’ll notice that there are several track stacks labeled in different colors. These are your Sub Mixes. If at any point in time, you would like to adjust the overall level, mute, or solo all audio stems of one kind, you can use these tracks to do so.

How to Set Up Your Session

1. To get started, you’ll want to save this session as a template. Go to File > Save As Template, and re-name the session however you’d like. Then, exit out of that file, go to File > New From Template, and select your template there. Now you can save your session with the service date, song title, or any other details you’d like.
2. Make sure the session Key, Tempo and Time Signature match the song or songs you will be mixing. This is so that you can incorporate some of the intuitive MIDI features we have added for you to use. You can change these specifications in the control bar at the top center of the screen. If you have multiple songs in your service, you can always change the tempo and time signature selections at different points in the timeline by using Global Controls. Go to Tracks > Global Tracks > Show Global Tracks, or use the keyboard shortcut “G.” Here you can place your cursor at different points on the timeline, and add changes at those points.
3. Import your recorded audio stems. You can do this a couple different ways. Highlight all the files and drag them into the workspace. If you do this, you’ll want to select “Use Existing Tracks” in the pop-up. Then drag each region to it’s proper track. Or, you can drag and drop each file into it's respective track, which takes a little bit longer but keeps it more organized.
4. As you are loading in audio stems, feel free to duplicate any tracks if you need more to fit the needs of your Worship Team. You can easily duplicate tracks by selecting the desired track, and hitting the Duplicate Track button at the top left of the workspace. You can also feel free to delete any unused tracks to minimize the amount of space used.

If you open up the Mixer, you’ll notice that all the tracks are defaulted to a level of -6dB. This is so that whether you’ve normalized your tracks before importing them, or if you haven’t, you’ll have plenty of headroom to mix your session without blowing out your speakers.

How to Record Directly into Sunday Mix

If you plan on recording your live service directly into Logic Pro, there are a few extra steps you’ll need to take.

1. Make sure that whatever device you are using to record into Logic is selected in the Audio Preferences. For some, this may be a digital mixing board or audio interface.
2. Make sure the inputs of each track in your Logic Session match the outputs that your mixer or audio interface is sending. For example, if your lead vocal is sending on output 3 of your mixer or is plugged into Input 3 on your audio interface, you’ll want to select input 3 on the Lead Vocal track in Logic. Depending on your setup, it may take some time to track down all the outputs and inputs. If you plan on recording directly into the session on a regular basis, it may be smart to save these input changes in the template version of your Sunday Mix session.
3. Record-arm all the tracks that you will be recording into. Be sure not to record arm the MIDI tracks, such as Sunday Keys patches, Tonic, Kick and Snare Sampler, Percussion Loops and Worship Drummer.
4. If you plan on listening to the session while it is recording, you’ll also want to check the input monitoring button so you can hear everything in real time.
   
   Once you’ve done all of this, you are ready to record directly into the Logic session.

Using Smart Controls
Smart Controls is the simple solution to making your mix sound fantastic. We’ve programmed some of the most common parameters for worship - style mixing in the Smart Controls window of each track. Just turn the respective knobs for each parameter you would like to change, and you never have to open the plug-ins. On the other hand, if you would like to dig in to the plug-ins, they are accessible at any time via the Inspector window on the left, or the Mixer window.

In the Workspace, you can expand the Sub Mix track stacks to view all the tracks, and scroll through each one to view the Smart Controls options on every track. Some of the tracks will have different controls available, so feel free to experiment with different combinations of effects.

How To Replace Drum Tracks
We’ve included an easy process for kick and snare sample replacement. What this process does is identify each place the kick and snare are played, and trigger a sample in addition to, or instead of, the original audio. By doubling or replacing your kick and snare recordings, you can quickly and easily add depth and body to the drums in your mix.

1. Load your kick audio stem into the “Kick Port” or “Kick In” track, and make sure the track selected.
2. Go to Track > Replace or Double Drum Track. In the pop up window, you’ll want to select “Kick” from the drop down menu. You can either choose to replace or double the original track. Choosing “Replace” will mute the original and choosing “double” will keep the original track active. This is easy to change later if you change your mind.
3. Adjust the Relative Threshold to create MIDI notes only where there are drum attacks. For kick, these attacks are usually pretty easy to spot. For snare, you may want to lower the threshold to include ghost notes, or raise the threshold to just include the louder attacks.
4. Once Logic creates the new MIDI region, you’ll want to drag the region to the Kick Sampler track, and delete the original MIDI track.
5. Now you can compare the sampled kick with the original. To replace or double the snare, you will follow all the same steps.

How To Use The Sub Kick
Another feature we’ve included is the Sub Kick. This track generates a sub-bass tone that will add low end to your kick audio stem. Simply make sure your Kick audio stem is loaded into the “Kick Port” or “Kick In” track, and un-mute the Sub Kick track. You’ll notice that every time there is a kick attack, the sub kick is activated. To record the sub kick audio to your session, you’ll want to place your cursor at the beginning of the timeline, record enable the Sub Kick track, and let the session play out in its entirety.

How To Use Sunday Keys Patches
As part of Sunday Mix, we’ve included several Sunday Keys-specific features, like some of our most popular keys patches that you can use to add additional keys parts to your session. You can record directly into these MIDI tracks by connecting your keyboard and playing along to the song.

We’ve included the Sunday Keys trademark feature “Tonic” into Sunday Mix. The Tonic Pad Player is an ambient pad generator that plays a pad in the key of your choice, and is a great way to glue together your mix underneath and between songs.

How To Use Percussion Loops
You may notice that there are several MIDI regions pre-loaded into Sunday Mix. One portion of these are our Percussion Loops. These Loops are designed for you to drag and drop to various places in your session, and can be used to add tasteful moments to your worship set. It is important to make sure that your session reflects the correct tempo and time signature of your song in order for these loops to sound correct. When you are ready to use one of the loops, simply unmute that track, and drag the region to the correct place in your timeline. You can loop the region by holding your cursor over the upper right edge of the region until the cursor turns into a circle, then drag the region to the right or left.

How To Use Worship Drummer
The Worship Drummer makes use of Logic’s “Drummer” feature. We’ve created Drummer presets for your standard High energy, Mid energy and Low energy worship songs. This feature is primarily useful if you do not have any drum audio stems or if you need to replace a bad drum set recording. Obviously these presets won’t exactly mimic every worship song, but they can get pretty close in a pinch. Plus the samples used are high quality.

Because these are MIDI tracks, it’s important to make sure your session reflects the correct tempo and time signature of the song you are mixing. Select which preset you would like to use and unmute that track. Then you can drag each region to the correct place in the song and adjust the length to match.

Importing and Renaming Backing Tracks
If your worship team uses backing tracks, we’ve included a track stack where you can import your individual backing track stems, or a single mix of all the tracks. To start, you’ll want to expand the track stack, go to your finder window and select all the files you wish to import. Drag and drop files onto the first track titled “Backing Track Stem 1.” In the pop up window, you’ll select “Use Existing Tracks”.

Now that all your audio stems are loaded, you may notice that the track titles did not change to reflect the names of the audio files. If you wish to rename the tracks, there is a quick and easy way to do this, other than manually changing each track name. This is not a necessary step, but may be beneficial to easily view which tracks hold which backing track stems.

To rename your tracks, highlight all the backing track regions. Go to the Functions menu at the top of the Workspace. Select “Name Track By Region Name.” Now all of your tracks will reflect the correct file name.

How To Use The Mastering Tools
As a final feature, we’ve included some easy-to-use mastering tools to help you add a final gloss to your session, and achieve proper levels for streaming platforms if you plan on streaming or posting your recorded service. If you click on the “Master Output” track, you’ll see the description of these tools and what they do in the Note pad.

Most streaming platforms consider the ideal loudness meter reading to be -14 LUFS. To properly use the Loudness Meter, move your cursor to the beginning of the session, open the Loudness Meter Plug-in, and play through the entire session without adjusting anything. This will give you the overall loudness reading of your entire session. You should aim for -14 LUFS. If your reading is too high or low, adjust the Adaptive Limiter parameters and play through the session again.

Remember, if you ever need to access the tutorial videos for Sunday Mix, just click the links that are included in the Notepad section of the Sunday Mix template or head over to the Sunday Mix Resource Page.