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