As far as this year goes with this blog I’m planning to do loads more guitar tutorials. I have about three big topics I want to cover so they may come in a few parts each. You can expect a small tutorial pretty soon on some useful pentatonic ideas.

2008 was a bit of a strange one for me as far as guitar goes as I was doing quite a bit of web stuff but I’m going to be scaling that back and really getting back to some good old playing this year. I guess I’d just burnt out a bit on music but that seems to be over now and I’m starting to feel a lot more creative musically ( lot’s of tunes rattling round the noggin! ).

In fact the only web stuff I’m planning is the launch of a new site aimed directly at guitar players. Can’t say much at the moment but it’s going to be amazing. Most of the material is written and I’ll start building the site soon. I’m hoping it’s going to be a big hit in the world of guitar, so stay tuned!!

You can check out the Logic tutorial here.

The Transformer object

The Transformer object is tucked away inside the Enviroments ‘New’ file menu. Chances are you might never have actually used this as it looks a bit daunting if you don’t know what is is. It simply allows you to change or ‘Transform’ an incoming MIDI message into something else in real time. There is another version of this object called the Transform window which can be found in the main Window menu or inside the new ‘Piano Roll’ window under Functions. This lets you transform recorded MIDI.

For this tutorial we’ll be going for transform on input. So, open the Enviroment window by pressing Command+8. In the top left corner choose ‘Clicks & Ports’. When you’ve done this select ‘New’ from the menu and choose ‘Transformer’. Insert it between the ‘Input view’ and ‘Sequencer Input’ like so.

When you’ve done this double click it and a dialogue box should appear.

Tramsforming the MIDI

Now we need to turn our sustain pedal MIDI message into a ‘Note on’ message. Sustain pedal is transmitted as MIDI controller 64. It has a value of 0 to 127 like all MIDI messages including Note messages. 0 is ‘off’, ‘127′ is on. All we have to say is take anything equal to a Control message with a value equal to 64 and Fix it to a Note message with the note value C1 ( that’s where most MIDI Kick drums are mapped on the keyboard ). This is what it looks like set up.

Pressing the sustain pedal should now show up as C1 in the MIDI activity display in the Transport bar.

Load up a virtual instrument track and open your favorite drum sampler. You can now play the hi-hat and snare on your keyboard and use the sustain pedal as the kick drum. It takes a bit of getting used to and feels a bit lumpy at first but there’s always quantize!

Don’t forget to unwire it if your going to record say a piano afterwards as hitting the sustain pedal will produce a note instead. The Transform function in Logic is a very powerful tool but gets neglected as it looks a bit complex. Break out that manual and dig in as it can produce a lot of really cool effects and save unnessessary mouse editing. I use Fixed Note Length all the time to clean up drum parts. Humanize can also unstiffen quantized parts.

Enjoy!

Here’s a useful link if your programming any sort of Urban or R’n'B drums. At logic-cafe awaits a full set of Akai MPC groove templates. These are a really great resource for any programmer. The Akai MPC has become synonymous with the urban pop sound. This is mainly down to its unique quantize settings. Years ago I made my own set of these by painstakingly Recycling these grooves using a Urie click to get an accurate transient. You’ll notice it immediatly when you apply one of these suckers to your MIDI drum programming.

They even have a nice little tutorial on how to add these MIDI files to your quantize list if your unsure how to use them. Pro users only though as Logic Express doesn’t support the Groove template feature.

You can download them here.

They also have some rather cool Fender and Gibson guitar icons too.