How to Customize Note Names in Logic Pro X's Piano Roll
Watch it on YouTube to see timestamps of everything I cover in this video.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who owns and uses multiple drum sample libraries, like Getgood Drums’ Modern & Massive and Toontrack’s Superior Drummer 3. We all know that different drum sample libraries use different MIDI mapping, and we all feel too real the struggle of trying to find the key for a specific drum articulation—especially when you use Logic Pro X, which doesn’t allow you to edit the note names right on the piano roll! What the hell, Apple?!
BUT. Struggle no more, because I’m going to teach you how to customize the note names in Logic Pro X’s piano roll, so you know exact where your drum articulations or keyswitches are, like so:
Nice, right? It’s quite a process to set up, but you only need to (mostly) do it once, so follow my instructions carefully!
Step 1: Create a new project & two empty software instrument tracks
It’s optional to create a new project because you technically don’t need to create a new project to do what we will be doing, but it will make it easier for you to save it as template and import it to future projects later (I will teach you how to do all this, don’t worry), so I recommend doing it.
You do need to make sure you have two empty software instrument tracks, however. You can do this by right-clicking on an empty space in the Track Header Area, and select “New Software Instrument Track.” You could also use the default key command Opt + Cmd + S.
For the sake of this tutorial, let’s name them Track 1 and Track 2.
Step 2: Load your desired software instrument on Track 2
This can be Kontakt, Superior Drummer, Massive, etc.
Step 3: Open the MIDI Environment window
By default, it’s Cmd + 0 (zero). Alternatively, in the menu bar, Window > Open MIDI Environment.
This is what you see when you open the MIDI Environment window:
Ensure that “Layer:” at the top left of the MIDI Environment is set to “Mixer.”
Step 4: Creating the Mapped Instrument
Click “New” at the top of the MIDI Environment window, and select “Mapped Instrument.”
You will see a small box labelled “(Mapped Instr.)” with a drum kit icon on it appear in the MIDI Environment, and a new window with piano keys:
Note that it’s quite unpredictable where the Mapped Instr. box will appear—sometimes it will appear outside of the frame and you might have to scroll around the MIDI Environment window to find it.
Don’t worry about the window with the piano keys yet (you can just close it), since we aren’t done configuring the MIDI Environment.
Step 5: Creating the Monitor
Go to “New” again at the top of the MIDI Environment window, and select “Monitor.” You should see an empty box labelled “(Monitor)” appear in the MIDI Environment:
Step 6: Cabling in the MIDI Environment
Now that you have both the Mapped Instr. and the Monitor, click and drag the small dot at the right side of the Mapped Instr. box—you will see that your mouse cursor becomes a connector, and as you drag, a line is extended from the box (that’s the cable).
You want to plug this cable to Monitor; you just need to release the click on top of Monitor.
A warning will pop up saying, “Cable and Channel Port are set!” Just click “Don’t remove.”
Then, in the same manner, click and drag on the small dot at the right side of Monitor, and plug it into Track 2 (the track with your software instrument on it).
This is what it should look like:
Note that you can click and drag the Mapped Instr. box and the Monitor around and put them whenever you want in the MIDI Environment.
Step 7: Routing Mapped Instr. to Track 1
Click and drag the Mapped Instr. box outside of the MIDI Environment onto Track 1, which is the track that doesn’t have your software instrument on it.
After doing that, you will see that now Track 1 will bear the drum icon and you will no longer be able to put any plugins on it:
Step 8: Customizing the note names in the piano roll
Now that you connected everything properly, you can finally start customizing the note names!
Double-click the Mapped Instr icon to bring up the piano keys window again. If you scroll down, you will see Logic’s stock note names:
To reset all note names, scroll to the top and click and drag from the first piano key (NOT from the first note name) to the last piano key to select all the keys.
Then, click the “Initialize” drop-down menu at the top, and select “Name as note.” Now all the note names will be reset.
Finally, to edit a note name, left click on the name under the “Input Name” column, and you will be prompted to enter text:
After changing the note name, you will need to close the piano roll and open it again to see the changes (if you already have the piano roll open, that is).
If you click on the piano keys in the piano keys window, you will be able to trigger samples from the software instrument, which will make it easy for you to figure out what note does what and enter the proper note names.
Step 9: Putting in the MIDI region
Now you can create a MIDI region on Track 1 to start writing MIDI in the piano roll with your own custom note names!
Note that the MIDI region MUST be on Track 1, and NOT on the track with the software instrument. Otherwise, the note names won’t show up in the piano roll.
Step 10: Saving as template and importing into future projects
That was quite a process and obviously you wouldn’t want to do this every time.
To save as a template, go to File > Save as Template…
When it comes to importing the note names into future projects, there are two ways to go about it.
Method 1
The most straightforward way is to just create a new project from the template you saved by going to File > New from Template. When you create a new project from the template, all the settings will be there.
Method 2
This is a bit more complicated, but it will allow you to import the custom note names into an existing project.
In an existing project, go to View > Show Browsers.
Go to the “All Files” tab, and find the template you saved. It’s usually in Users/your name/Music/Audio Music Apps/Project Templates.
Double click the template file, and you will be able to see the tracks in the template within the Browsers window.
Check the boxes under the “I/O” column and the “Plug-ins” column for your tracks, and hit “Add” at the bottom right. Make you don’t add “Stereo Out” or “Master.”
Voilà! You have successfully imported the tracks and the note names! Go to the MIDI Environment to double check the cabling, because sometimes you will need to re-connect the cables.
How to print the MIDI to audio tracks when I have this set up?
Printing MIDI to multitracks is a very common thing to do, and unfortunately, if you try to print the MIDI with the MIDI region on Track 1, Logic won’t print anything for you. You will need to first drag the MIDI region on to the track with the software instrument before printing.
What if I want to use one MIDI region to control multiple sample libraries?
A lot of engineers combine multiple sample libraries to create one entity (e.g. using the cymbals from one drum library and the shells from another to create one full drum kit), and in this case, they would want to write in the same MIDI region so they don’t have to jump between two or even more MIDI regions.
To achieve this, go to the MIDI Environment window, click and drag the small dot at the right side of Monitor, and plug the cable into another track with the other sample library that you wish to control using the same MIDI region. Repeat this step for each of the sample library, and you can use the same MIDI region to control as many sample libraries as you want.
In this screenshot below, for example, I have connected 4 different software instrument tracks to the same MIDI region.
That was a long article but hopefully I have laid out everything you need to know regarding customizing note names in the piano roll in Logic Pro X.
Feel free to comment if you have any questions; I will regularly check the comments and answer your questions as soon as possible!
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Thank you for reading :)