Exploring the Fader Area

The bottom half of each channel displays the Fader area. You've already explored some of this area's functions, such as the fader, level meter, Pan control and Record Enable button. Let's take a moment to look at a few of the others, including muting, soloing, and setting up mix groups.

Muting and Soloing Tracks

At the bottom of the Fader area is the Mute button, and next to that is the Solo button. You click the Mute button to turn off a track's sound and click the Solo button to turn off the sound of all tracks except the one being soloed.

1.	Press the spacebar to start playback.
2.	Experiment with the Track Mixer's Mute and Solo buttons, and listen to how they affect playback. You can also mute and solo tracks in the Arrange window. Interestingly, muting and soloing in the Arrange window works a bit differently from muting and soloing in the Track Mixer. Let's experiment to see how.
3.	From the Arrange window's local menus, ensure that the View > Track Mute Buttons and View > Track Solo Buttons options are checked. Take a close look at the tracks in the Arrange window. They all have their own Mute and Solo buttons.
4.	In the Arrange window, experiment with the Mute and Solo buttons to see how they affect the sound. NOTE When you solo a track in the Arrange window, the Bar Ruler turns yellow to visually indicate that Solo mode is engaged. As a quick time saver, you can even click one Solo or Mute button and then drag down across other tracks to mute/solo them! As you click the Arrange window track Mute and Solo buttons, notice that the tracks in the Track Mixer are not muted or soloed! In fact, both sets of buttons function independently of the other, and the reason is ingenious. Logic allows you to assign several different Arrange window tracks to a single channel. Because you can mute and solo these tracks independently of the channel itself, you can ensure that only one track plays through the channel at any one timevery handy when it comes time to audition, for example, multiple vocal takes through the same series of effects.
5.	Make sure that no tracks are muted or soloed in either the Arrange window or the Track Mixer.

Using Groups to Link Channels Together (Logic Pro Only)

Groups let you link multiple channels together so that you can control them all at once. For example, if multiple channels are assigned to a group, you can increase the volume of one channel, and all the other channels in the same group will also increase in volume.

This is a great technique to use when you need to preserve relationships between tracks. For example, you've probably assigned the Bass and Bongo tracks different volume levels. If you later decide that the combined sound of these tracks is too loud or too quiet, you currently have to change each track's volume individually. This makes it very easy to lose the relative relationships between these tracks' volume levels. By assigning the tracks to a group, you can change the volume of one, and the other automatically follows.

1.	On the Bass track, click and hold the Group display. The Group pop-up menu appears.
2.	From the Group pop-up menu, select Group 1. This initializes the group, and the Group Settings dialog opens. The settings in this dialog dictate which edit operations affect grouped tracks. By default, Volume and Mute are selected. NOTE The Group Settings dialog automatically opens when you first initialize a group. (If you assign a track to a group but the Group Settings dialog doesn't open, it means that the group has already been initialized.) After that, you can open the Group Settings dialog at any time by selecting Open Group Settings from the Group pop-up menu.
3.	Check the Pan box.
4.	On the Bongo track, click and hold the Group setting, and choose Group 1 from the pop-up menu. The Bass and Bongo tracks are now both assigned to Group 1.
5.	Adjust the Bass track's fader and Pan control. The Bongo track's fader and Pan control also adjust relative to the Bass track.
6.	In the Group Settings dialog, uncheck the Enable box. The Group setting in the channel strip turns from yellow to blue, indicating the group is disabled.
7.	Once again, adjust the Bass track's fader and Pan control. The Bongo track does not follow the Bass track, since you have temporarily disabled the group.
8.	Close the Group Settings dialog. NOTE The Toggle Group Clutch key command is very handy for temporarily disabling a group. Press the Toggle Group Clutch key once to have Logic disable all of your song's groups, allowing you to adjust individual faders and pan pots. Press it a second time to re-enable all groups. To set up the Toggle Group Clutch key command (it's a good idea to assign the G key), visit Logic's Key Commands window (Option-K).
9.	Close the Track Mixer.