Having fun with “play”
They don’t call it “playing” music for nothing! You gotta hit PLAY to do it!
One of the most common things I hear people get frustrated about when they first start using a new DAW is learning the transport settings (that thing you use to start/stop/record/etc.). Sometimes they are intuitive and other times not so much.
Most all DAWs use the spacebar for starting and stopping the playback. But… when you start, then stop, then hit play again, where does the playhead start from? Does the playhead jump back to the point in the song where you initially first hit “play” from or does it start from where you last hit “stop?” That’s where the frustration comes from, when it does something unexpected for you.
With LogicPro, and all other DAWs actually, I find the most efficient setting for me to keep my producing momentum up is to have the playhead start from “Last Locate Position.” aka, from wherever I most recently moved the playhead position to. This allows you to easily repeat a section by quickly going back to where you first hit play by just hitting the spacebar twice. Some folks like to hit stop at a position and then have the playhead start from that exact position you hit stop on… but I find that to cause a lot of clicking around which can add up time and slow down momentum. And like I’ve said before, when making a song or co-writing in the moment with an artist or co-writer, momentum is EVERYTHING.
So how do you change the setting. Easy! Hold down “Ctr” and click the Play button in the transport navigation menu. If you like it how I do, just make sure the “Play From Last Locate Position” option is checked. And boom there you go! Next time you want to start/stop and replay a section of your track, you’ll probably just need to hit that space bar!
Hold “control” on your keyboard and click the “play” button in the transport menu (the triangle that you’d see in an old fashioned cd player). That will open up a menu of options to give you a little more control over your playback settings.