Creating a drum track in Logic Pro X

1. Open up Logic by clicking on the record icon, and open a new

project. (File > new if needed). The empty project should be

automatically highlighted – click on it.

2. Make sure you click on the piano software instrument track!

3. You should now see a blank space with a software instrument piano track! We want

to change this to a drum kit, so on the left hand instrument pane, click through the

drums and choose a kit you like.

4. To make it easier for ourselves, let’s slow down the tempo – click the arrows on the

display at the top until you find this:

5. Drag the 120bpm downwards to slow it down, and get used to listening to the beat by

pressing play.

6. Find a low bass drum sound – it should be somewhere around C1 (3 octaves below

middle C). Practise playing it in time with the beat.

7. Now find a snare sound – it should be somewhere around D or E1. Practise putting the

two sounds together – you could start off by playing the following simple rhythm.

Beat 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Snare x x
Bass x x x x
If you’re feeling more confident, you could practise playing this…

Beat 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Snare x x
Bass x x x x x
8. Try pressing record and recording it in – don’t worry if it goes a bit wrong, just keep

going until you’re happy with it.

If your beat is almost correct but not quite in time with the
metronome you can make all the notes line up by highlighting
them in the piano roll, and clicking Quantize > 1 / 16 note
(play around with it if it doesn’t sound right). This is called
quantizing.