Instant Half Time and Double Time (or Any Other Time)
It’s easy to make any MIDI Region play back in half time, double time, or any other time. This is a particularly great technique for remixes, where changing the playback time of a single part can radically alter a groove.
The procedure is similar to lengthening or shortening a Region — grab its lower right corner with the pointer or pencil tool and click-drag the endpoint to a new location — but for this operation, hold down the Option key while doing so. When you release the mouse, Logic Pro asks whether you wish to time compress or expand the Region. Click OK, and you’re done.
Here’s an example using a short electro-style beat. We started with a four-bar drum pattern and a four-bar percussion pattern created with Logic Pro’s Ultrabeat rhythm synthesizer:
We double-timed the percussion part by holding down the Option key while dragging the endpoint from the downbeat of bar 5 to the downbeat of bar 3, then duplicated the shortened Region so it filled out four bars:
Now let’s try stretching a part to twice its original length. After creating a new instrument track, we opened the Loop Browser from the Audio menu. We chose the MIDI pattern “80s Dance Bass Synth 05” and dragged it onto the new track.
Click on the lower right corner of the new region and Option-drag its endpoint to the downbeat of bar 9. Click OK. Now the bass line unfolds at half its previous tempo.
Remember, you don’t have to alter Regions by standard bar lengths — you can just Option-drag and release at will. Standard bar lengths work best for rhythmic content, like drums, but the random approach may yield great results on longer, sweeping sounds like strings.
