Hi!

I am Anisha Lakshmanan from Pune University, India. This is the

assignment for Intoduction to Music Production at Coursera.org, Week 2
and the topic I have chosen to explain and teach is Preparing a Project in a
DAW in the form of this paper.

The DAW I have chosen is Logic Pro X version 10.0.0

Preproduction Checklist

The Checklist to be followed while preparing a new project is as follows:

1. Proper project name and Location
2. Digital Audio Preferences
3. Recording File Type
4. Hardware Settings
5. Buffer Size

In the following pages the steps to be followed have been
explained.

SAVING PROJECT - PROPER PROJECT NAME AND LOCATION

When you create your project in Logic Pro X, it is autosaved in the Logic folder
under the temporary name Untitled.logicx. (You can get to the Logic folder in
Finder by navigating to UsersUSERNAMEMusicLogic.)
To save your project manually, choose FileSave. In the Save dialog that
appears, name your project and choose a location or keep the default location,
which is the Logic folder. You can choose to organize your project as a package or
a folder. A package saves your project as a single file that includes all project
assets. A folder saves the project file and saves its assets in subfolders.

You can also choose to copy specific file types into your project. Its a good idea
to copy your audio files into the project, but you might not want to copy samples
due to their potentially large file size. The benefit to saving a project without
assets is that you conserve hard drive space. The downside is that it can be
easy to mistakenly delete assets the project depends on.
Hard drive space is inexpensive, so it makes sense to include all assets in your
project folder. By doing so, organizing, moving, and archiving projects will be
easier.
Saving projects as packages is the simplest approach. You can view the contents
of packages (all package file types, including Pages, Keynote, and Numbers files)
by Ctrl-clicking the package in Finder and choosing Show Package Contents. All
your audio files and assets will be in the Finder window that opens.
If you want to save the project with a different name or in a different location,
choose Save As on the File menu. If you want to create a copy of the project,
choose Save a Copy As on the File menu.

DIGITAL AUDIO PREFERENCES

To set the Sample Rate for the project, do one of the following (suggested
48,000 Hz)

Choose File > Project Settings > Audio (or use the Open Audio Project
Settings key command), then choose a sample rate from the Sample Rate
pop-up menu.

Click the Sample Rate display in the LCD, then choose a sample rate from
the pop-up menu.

Note: If the LCD does not show the Sample Rate display, Control-click the
LCD and choose Customize Control Bar from the shortcut menu. Select the
Sample Rate checkbox in the Customize Control Bar dialog.

To set the bit depth (suggested 24bit recording)

Choose Logic Pro X >Preferences > Audio

And select the 24 bit recording checkbox.

RECORDING FILE TYPE

Choose the type of file you want the for recorded audio.


Recording File Type pop-up menu: Determines the file type for recorded audio.
AIFF: Cannot handle audio file recordings larger than 2 GB.
WAVE (BWF): The most common audio format on Windows PC
computers. Files are stored as Broadcast Wave files, which contain
timestamp information in the file header. The WAV file format cannot
handle audio file recordings larger than 4 GB.
CAF: Choose this setting if youre going to record files larger than 4 GB.

HARDWARE SETTINGS
I do not have an Audio Interface, I can hence not show this part of the
DAW settings. But you have to go to the DAWs preferences to use your
interface for Audio in and out.

BUFFER SIZE

The next step to check off the Check list is to set the I/O Buffer size.
The I/O buffer size affects the amount of "input monitoring latency" for the
computer. Input monitoring latency is the slight delay you hear when you feed
audio into your interface or when you playback software instruments. The
smaller the I/O buffer size, the less delay you will hear. Smaller sizes produce
less monitoring latency. The setting represents the number of samples Logic uses
for the input and output buffers.

To change buffer size and sample rate settings, choose Logic Pro X >
Preferences > Audio and select the Devices tab.

The suggested Buffer Size is 128 samples per buffer and it can be brought up
later when necessary.

Reflection: I learnt so much about the basic starting steps of using the DAW. Have
been doing it wrong all this time!!! I do not have audio interface could have done
it better had I had one.

Hope its clear and simple to understand. Thanks for taking the time to evaluate
my assignment! J