Logic Pro: Analysing & Transcribing Music

With Adapt Tempo enabled, Logic will automatically conform the project’s tempo to the audio you import (see the tempo map at the top). Below, I’ve imported a track and then used Stem Splitter to isolate the different parts.

Logic Pro contains a multitude of tools to help you analyse and transcribe music.

The Channel EQ in Logic Pro is remarkably useful for analysing your audio’s frequency content. But what other noteworthy tools does Logic offer for analysing music?

Whether you’re a musician learning riffs and solos, a songwriter researching song structures, or a producer unravelling the mysteries of a mix, transcription is a powerful and often underused resource. It sharpens your ears, deepens your understanding of music, and can open up a rich seam of inspiration to fuel your creative journey. Transcribing music allows you to understand how it is constructed, and acquire the techniques used by others.

As a working musician, I’m often tasked with learning and arranging tunes. Invariably, that means picking out and internalising lines and melodies. Listening to the pros is a core part of my practice. But, not having spent three years shedding at a conservatoire, I’ve found my secret weapon in Logic Pro, which offers useful tools to support transcription and ear training, and which has made the process of learning music not only more efficient, but also more enjoyable and inspiring. So, whether you’re decoding a complex harmony or killer groove, or just trying to figure out what makes a track tick, transcription might just be the creative boost you’ve been looking for.

Getting Started

Before diving into transcription, it’s worth setting up Logic Pro for maximum clarity and efficiency. One of the first things I always recommend is to enable the Custom LCD display, because this gives you access to a wealth of useful information. To do this, open the Display Mode pop‑up menu (the small upside‑down triangle to the right of the LCD), select Custom, and then return to the menu to save this as your default view.

Before recording or importing the music you want to transcribe, start a new project and activate Adapt Tempo. You’ll find this option just below the Project Tempo in the LCD. This feature is crucial: it allows Logic to automatically map the tempo of your audio, which opens up a range of possibilities later on.

If your source is an audio file, simply drag it into the Main window, onto a new track. If you’re recording audio from, say, QuickTime or another app, you’ll need to enable loopback recording. Both my SSL 2+ and RME interfaces offer built‑in loopback functionality, but if yours doesn’t, and you don’t fancy cabling between your output and input, then third‑party software like Loopback (around £99) or BlackHole (free) can do the...