Logic Pros: Syncing sessions to GarageBand for iOS with iCloud in Logic Pro X 10.3

Last week Apple released Logic Pro X 10.3 with a ton of new features for pros and a refreshed user interface. In today’s Logic Pros, we give you the rundown on the update’s new iCloud syncing feature that lets you easily send your session to GarageBand for iOS.

With the new feature, you now have a one-tap method to send a reference of what you’re working on in Logic over to Garageband, allowing you to continue working on it outside of the studio anywhere you might have an iPhone or iPad. Any tracks and edits you make automatically get synced back to Logic for when you return to the studio.

Here’s how it works:

Share to GarageBand with iCloud

The new feature allows you to send a single reference track of the entire session you are currently working on to GarageBand via iCloud (you’ll need version 2.2 or later). That means that the entire project (all of your tracks that make up your composition), get mixed down into a single audio file. As one audio file, it’s lightweight enough to easily save to iCloud (which will use your own personal iCloud storage), and quickly open up in GarageBand for iOS.

This is how you do it:

Navigate to File>Share>Project to GarageBand for iOS, name your reference track and hit save. 

*Since everything in your session gets mixed into the reference file, you can optionally mute any tracks you don’t want included. The audio file will include the entire audio session from the beginning of the timeline to the end of the last region in your song (it doesn’t matter if you have a loop on). You can also send multiple reference files from the same session to iCloud, allowing you to send, for example, one with a drum or vocal track and one without. Whatever one you last saved  in GarageBand will get synced back to the Logic session (more on that below). 

Open the saved reference file in GargeBand on iPhone or iPad

When you open GarageBand on your iPhone or iPad, you’ll see the reference you saved to iCloud appear in the projects pane and you can tap to download it locally:

Once it’s downloaded, tap to open it. It will automatically be loaded up on an audio track in a new session:

In the example above, you can see the reference audio track was automatically opened (in blue) on the first track in the session. We’ve then added a new track, loaded up the new Alchemy synth, and recorded a part underneath our reference track (in green).

When you’re done and want to go back to Logic Pro, tap the menu in the upper left corner and select ‘My Songs’ to save the track and sync it with iCloud.

Sync back to Logic Pro

Now, when you open the session you originally used to create the reference file in Logic Pro X, you’ll get an option to import anything you added in GarageBand for iOS:

If you click ‘Yes’, all of the tracks you added in Garageband (including edits, fx, instrument parameters, etc.) will get imported and be ready for you to continue working in the session. Since there’s nothing you can do in GarageBand that you can’t do in Logic Pro, you shouldn’t run into any issues with compatibility.

You can see the Alchemy track we created in GarageBand now appears in Logic (outlined in red):

If you want to send the session from Logic to GarageBand again after making edits, just repeat the steps.

It’s 2017 and Logic Pros is back! We’re continuing down the ever-expanding rabbit hole of music creation on Mac and iOS this year with product reviews, tutorials, tips/tricks for Logic users, and much more. That includes a weekly installment, and an upcoming Logic Pro X 101 guide for beginners. Check out the archives.