Most people quickly learn that you can copy plugin settings and then load a copy of that plugin in the new track and apply those settings to it - but even this takes quite a bit of time. Rebuilding it from scratch is incredibly time consuming. And now you realize you’ll need the same exact plugin and settings for it on another track in the mix. Perhaps you just got the perfect EQ or compression settings applied to a plugin on one track. And much in the same fashion as a keyboard shortcut can save time for muting tracks, it can also save time for soloing tracks. SoloĮvery person doing mixing work knows you’ll be using the solo button to hear a single track by itself, and how important that is. Start using this very quick and easy keyboard shortcut to mute the current track and you’ll soon notice how much it eases up your workload. Clicking the mute button on a track may not seem like anything to be concerned about but if you have to do it repeatedly over and over again, that added time of zeroing in on a particular button can become burdensome. You’re always going to need to mute one or more tracks in a mix in order to hear the rest of the sounds without them present, or to help locate an offending aspect of a mix that needs to be addressed. A few quick clicks of the keyboard can get your track into the perfect alignment, without wasting time trying to keep your hand steady enough to place it right where you want or going through multiple clicks in a menu. Rather than trying to manually drag the clip to the desired location, or setting the playhead to a point and then using a menu item to shift the clip to that point, you may find that it’s quicker and easier to nudge the track into position. Even if you’re working exclusively with pre-recorded loops or quantized MIDI tracks you may need or want to quickly shift a clip back or forth by a beat or some portion of a beat to get the blend of tracks sounding just right. You’ll likely spend a good portion of your mixing time aligning recorded clips to each other. + Read more on Flypaper: “What Makes a Great Songwriting Workflow?” 3. Plus, this has the added benefit of allowing you to keep your pointer aimed at the location where you want to make a cut, rather than having to move it to select a tool from a menu. By using the keyboard with one hand and mouse or trackpad with the other you can easily cut this time in half. Selecting the scissors tool from the dropdown menu, then making the cut, and then returning to the standard pointer (cursor) certainly doesn’t take long… But when you need to do this action frequently, that little bit of time begins to add up.Ī stack of six vocal tracks all needing to be time aligned with each other could require dozens of cuts. It’s quite often necessary to separate a recorded clip in your mix for easier editing, rearranging, copying, time aligning, or fading in or out. Keeping this in mind will set you up for utilizing other keyboard keys to accomplish common tasks quicker. This saved you having to move the pointer to the transport bar and click on the correct button. Think of it as your entry into the world of keyboard shortcuts every time you tap the spacebar to start or stop the playback. But, it can’t be overstated how important it is to recognize this as a keyboard shortcut that helps you more efficiently work on your mix. Stop/Start PlaybackĮven many novices are aware that the space bar can be used to stop and start playback in your mix.

Here we’ll go over those 12 shortcuts in Logic Pro X, which is one of our favorite mixing platforms ( *we made a course about it). While there are literally hundreds of keyboard shortcuts available for the countless different DAWs, there are 12 main keyboard shortcuts that every person who does mixing work will always find useful. These save time by limiting the number of steps required to achieve a goal, and gives you the tactile satisfaction of using both hands in the creative process, rather than just your dominant mouse-clicking or trackpad-tapping hand. The same is true for mixing, and one of the easiest ways to improve your efficiency and proficiency in working with audio is to incorporate common keyboard shortcuts in your work.

But, as you get better at anything you also learn how to do that thing more efficiently. Mixing audio is a time-consuming process, and there is always a learning curve for any DAW.

+ Learn to record and mix your music in Logic Pro with Soundfly’s online course, Intro to Making Music in Logic Pro X.

Logic pro piano roll shortcuts