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How to Create a Song Sheet in Logic’s Score Editor

on Nov 25th 2009 with 24 comments
This entry is part 1 of 7 in the Creative Session: All About Music Notation Session
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Logic Pro has some very advanced tools when it comes to scoring. In this tutorial I’m going to show you the basics of getting started with the Score Editor by building a basic song sheet. Don’t worry, you don’t even need to be able to read music!

About This Tutorial

Knowing how to get your music onto paper is a really useful skill to have. The fact is that a lot of people who produce music on a computer may not actually have any knowledge of written music or musical theory. In most cases this isn’t even relevant, some of the greatest musicians and songwriters have no formal training and it never stopped them!

There might however come a time when you may want to hire a live musician for a session (and I don’t mean getting your sister’s boyfriend to come in and jam over your track on harmonica!). I mean something like a string quartet or a sax player. Players that come from strict musical backgrounds are used to reading notes from a page, and if you have specific parts you’ll have to notate them – which will save you time and money!

Whatever DAW you use, be it Logic, Cubase, Digital Performer or Pro Tools 8, it’s a good idea to at least know how to print out a prerecorded MIDI part in notation format.

If you own Logic Pro and have never done this then this tutorial should give you a start on how to format and print some ‘dots’!

It’s a bit of a monster coming in at nearly an hour of training in four parts! And it’s free! There’s also a bonus movie on the basics of guitar tab in Logic too!

Part 1 – Introduction and Basic Overview

This first part deals with a basic overview of the score editor and shows you where to find the tools you’ll need to get the job done.

Part 1 – Introduction and Basic Overview From Audiotuts Video on Blip.tv.

Part 2 – Basic Formatting

This second part deals with page formatting. Using ‘Page View’ you’ll learn about margins and the general formatting options available to make your page layout nice and readable.

Part 2 – Basic Formatting From Audiotuts Video on Blip.tv.

Part 3 – Clefs and Key/Time Signatures

This third part deals with using the right clef and key signature for your score. This topic is useful for anyone wanting to score something out as it covers some basic principles of proper staff formatting. This will apply to any DAW.

Part 3 – Clefs and Key/Time Signatures From Audiotuts Video on Blip.tv.

Part 4 – Adding Text Objects

This final part deals with adding text information to the page. It also covers how to format text using user defined styles. We’ll also add some chord markings using Global Tracks and some chord boxes using the Chord Grid Library.

Part 4 – Adding Text Objects From Audiotuts Video on Blip.tv.

Bonus – Guitar Tab in Logic!

I couldn’t resist it! Here’s a bonus video on what Logic can do with guitar tab. Pedal steel tab anyone!!!

Bonus – Guitar TAB in Logic! From Audiotuts Video on Blip.tv.

Download the Play Pack for this tutorial (458 KB)

Contents

  • Logic Source Files

 
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By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

For the past 18 years Toby has worked as a freelance session guitarist and programmer. A self confessed 'studio nerd' Toby also writes music for TV/Advertising as well as doing the odd bit of production/writing for various artists. He spends most of his time in his studio staring into a monitor or playing guitar. Recent clients include George Michael and David Arnold.  

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  • http://www.soundclick.com/L1TheProducer L1

    Love the way he says OrrrDeo tuts here, we have a Screeencast… Nice tutorial as well.

  • Norman Towler

    Brilliant Tony! Many thanks. I have hacked away at the score editor trying to figure it out. You have filled in many gaps for me. Great job.
    btw Audio to Score gives a good starting place for tabbing guitar solos. Needs work but it’s worth the few clicks to get a basic tab to use.

  • Tristan

    Haven’t read this tutorial yet, but I’ve been learning how to use the score editor for the past 3 months trying to see if it is sufficient not to have to buy finale. There are a few clunky bits but so far I’m quite pleased with the score editor’s capabilities.

    Glad to see a tutorial on it :)

    • Tristan

      Wow, great tutorial. I enjoyed watching that. You sound like you have done a lot of teaching.

  • Wayne

    Thanks for the great info. I was struggling with getting a score out of Logic. Your guidance made it much easier.

  • Shane

    Great tut! Really enjoying all the tutorials here @ AudioTuts

    Are there any good places for learning more about the Score Editor? or would you be able to do a more in depth tutorials on it? I am interested in its ability for orchestral style scores and its handling of phrasing, staccato etc., especially as to having (if possible) midi linked into the score wherever possible. In Sibelius for eg. if you add Pizzicato to the score, the instrument changes to playing pizzicato, while in Logic this needs to be done separately by opening a pizzicato sample or changing the midi channel to it, to reflect what you have done in the score. Is there any way of having this (and others) linked automatically? From what I know Sibelius uses the Kontakt player so I assume it can be done? I think there are options about midi and HyperDraw?

    I guess I am wondering whether Logics Score Editor has the ability/flexibility to do these things, as I would rather learn Logics Score Editor than have to learn Sibelius and than rewire it in. I’m relatively new to Logic (having come from Ableton) so I am still figuring it all out.

    Thanks,
    Shane

    • http://tobypitman.com Toby
      Author

      Hi Shane,

      Glad you enjoyed it! I’m sure that could by done in Logic. All you’d need to do would be to assign those notes to a different MIDI channel in the event list.

      You could basically load up all the articulations you wanted in Kontakt (or any other Multi Channel Sampler, say East West Symphonic Gold) on their own MIDI channel. Each note could then be fed to whatever articulation you wanted by setting the notes MIDI channel to that articulation.

      There are of course better ways of doing this via key switching. As far as it doing it automatically by a Score symbol (for stacatto say) isn’t possible, although you can offset the notes length to be shorter if that symbol is assigned. You’ll find that in ‘MIDI Meaning’ in the Layout menu.

      I think Sybelius has pretty tight intergration with Kontakt Player and it must have all this predefined for you. Be a great feature to add in an update though!

      Saying that the Score editor in Logic is seriously feature rich so give it a go!

      Good Luck with it!

  • Hadyn

    Thanks for the vids. I’ve been reading about Logic Studio for a while, but cannot tell if it will do one of the main things I need. Basically, I am more comfortable writing in a score format. What I would like to do, for instance, is start with a blank score using multiple staves, assign a unique sound/instrument to each staff and write the music straight into the score. Ideally, I would also be able to playback from score view and see the place in time of the music. There are other features of Studio that I already know will do the job I need, but this last piece, a ‘composing’ feature, is really make or break in terms of purchase. Any feedback would be appreciated.

    Hadyn

  • Leo

    Thanks mate! This tutorial saved my ass for a uni assignment. Sibelius can actually fuck off now. Great work squeezing an ounce of amusingness out of probably the most unglamorous aspect of DAW functionality.

  • http://tim.theenchanter.com/ Tim Harper

    Thank you Toby for recording this! You helped expose me to some new concepts with logic’s scoring abilities.

  • Tommy

    Thanks a lot for your tutorials, very very useful.
    I’m on Cubase since Atari, then Logic (Emagic era on Pc), then Cubase again, but now that I’m on OSX I’ve returned on Logic Pro 9.
    I’ve Cubase 6 also, but…let me tell that Logic is another planet!!!
    Thanks man!

    Tommy

  • Ken Gavin

    Hey, great tutorial! I have one question though; if I wrote the left and right hands for piano separately, how would I combine them into a dual-staff?

  • Lisa

    Thank you for this video, it is very informative.

    Question, how do display the pitch names in the score (as you did in the C major scale in the beginning of the clef/sig video)?

    Thanks in advance for your help.

  • Lynn

    I cannot thank you enough for this amazingly clear and helpful tutorial!!! I had just spent hours online trying to figure out how to put the song title into a lead sheet with a nice large font- and finally found the answer here in your tutorial. (There appears to be a good deal of confusion about this task with many Logic users!) I also found all sorts of other extremely helpful scoring information! You have demystified this whole process for me. Again, my sincere thanks!!!

  • http://www.2nz.net Rich Bund

    Toby,

    Thank you for the wonderful video tutorials on score editor basics… just what I needed to understand what I need to do to prepare a music part to print for a musician to play…

    You have a delightful speaking voice and great accent… by chance are you the voice of the Geiko Gekko? :-)

    Cheers and thanks mate!

    Rich Bund

  • Nima

    Toby you saved me from having to jump to finale to score some material. The tutorial was very useful and I got everything I needed out of it. Thank you very much.

  • http://fondacion.com additional061

    Thanks for your videos. I was just wondering how to have slash marks in a stave to indicate that a piano player should be playing chords, without have rests in the way. I need rests to be enabled in the other parts of the score, but in one particular part I need the slash marks. I am thinking that I should make the slash mark itself a MIDI note , but I am not sure how to make a MIDI note out of the slash mark symbol.

  • Mike Croft

    Does anyone know of a company/individual who I can hire to print a piano score from a midi file..I’m too busy to learn all this stuff!

  • Kata

    Thanks for the info. Writing a melody for a leadsheet it possible to have an extra bar or less bars on one stave when needed, even if all the other staves have only 4 bars?
    thanks

  • http://www.musicisinspiration.com/ Dylan J.K. Vogt

    Thanks so much for this, very helpful! Was thinking of purchasing another scoring program, but you’ve answered all of my questions regarding Logic’s capabilities to do so. Much appreciated!

    • http://audio.tutsplus.com/ Adrian Try

      You’re welcome, Dylan. This tut’s a few years old now, but it’s great to see it’s still helping lots of people.

  • Vipin

    Thank you so much. Lovely tutorial, a tad chilled out in terms of the of the pace :-) but a big help.
    Cheers.

  • Bharat

    Thanks for the videos!

  • SERGIO

    How can I introduce lyyrics or text under the notes without changing bars and notes spacement?