Logic Pro – Real Bass Recording workflow

[Michael]

I’d like to record a concept/demo/jam bassline, using a real electric bass guitar, to a click track, in Logic Pro X. This would be done in parts (intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, etc), so there’d be multiple regions in the real bass track in Logic. I’d then like to have this track (again, multiple regions) be converted into MIDI in/by EZBass, so I could experiment with tempo changes in the song, without having to worry about Logic’s Flex Time misinterpreting things with an actual audio file. After finalizing the structure and tempo changes of the song, I’d re-record the real bass at the final tempo. I basically want my real bass to act as a MIDI controller for EZBass, respecting the different regions (intro, verse, chorus, etc). Can I do this easily with EZBass? The ideal workflow I see is I drag each audio region, one at a time, into EZBass, it converts it to MIDI, then I drag the MIDI region back into a EZBass track in Logic. Repeat for each region. I now have X number of MIDI regions of EZBass, which follow the changing tempos perfectly. Is this possible? Is there an even easier way?

Topic

[Henrik]

Michael wrote:

I basically want my real bass to act as a MIDI controller for EZBass, respecting the different regions (intro, verse, chorus, etc). Can I do this easily with EZBass?

You can record different audio regions for different parts of your song, and then use Toontrack Audio Sender to get the audio to EZbass Audio Tracker.

• Logic doesn’t support drag and drop out of Logic, that’s why the Audio Sender plug-in (which is included when you buy EZbass) is used.

If you have variations in your tempo when you record, you can both import a Tempo Map into EZbass, or you can record each part separately – if each part has a static tempo, but they differ between them.

Does this clear things up for you? 🙂

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[Michael]

Most of the tempo changes I’d make manually after recording and converting to MIDI, which is one of my main purposes of wanting to convert it to MIDI, to more easily experiment with that than audio permits. However, I might already have some general immediate changes (no ramp) where I know I’ll want a section to be slower.

Why would you need a tempo map in EZbass if EZbass is following the tempo of Logic? Wouldn’t EZbass determine that there was a note hit at, let’s say, the exact start of bar 3, and place a MIDI note at the start of bar 3, then no matter what I changed the tempo to after that, there’s still a note triggered at the start of bar 3? What am I missing?

Is there a more in-depth video about how Audio Tracker works with an actual bass and Audio Sender? I watched the video for it on the EZbass page, and while it was a good overview, it didn’t explain much about how my specific questions would work.

Thanks Henrik

[Author]

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