Tutorial | My workflow: from Logic Pro to StageTraxx

TeabagTim

What is this?

I’ve seen several occurrences in the forum where people asked about specific workflows. With this post, I want to show you my workflow. I think this will also show features where people struggle. E.g. region import from Logic Pro and make things clearer.
I hope to be the starting point of others showing their workflows and I can pick something up from them and get inspired 🙂

Logic Pro Project

For example, that’s one of my complete Logic Pro clicktrack projects.

At the top you can see the song segment markers.
There’s one „01 Click“ track that consists of a MIDI click and MIDI count-in Cues.
Then there are lyric cues for our singer, followed by the other music tracks.
At the bottom are MIDi tracks for light events and guitar amp controls.

Here’s a great guide from Scott Uhl where I got lots of inspiration for my clicktrack setup:
„BACKING TRACKS for LIVE PERFORMANCES - COMPLETE Step by Step Guide“
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw8wZfFSQ2w

Import audio tracks

During our band rehearsals we do a multitrack recording to a click. I set the same tempo in Logic Pro (tempo changes via tempo map). Afterwards, I import the audio tracks into Logic Pro, cut them and move them to the grid.

Region marker

Setting the region markers. These can be imported to StageTraxx. More info about how to do this in the sections below.

MIDI Click

Add the MIDI click. I make sure that the click starts 2 bars before the actual songs starts so we have a nice count-in.

MIDI Count-In Cues

Adding MIDI count-in Cues. I use the „Ultrabeat“ plugin to trigger custom recorded snippets like „All, In, Ready, Go“, „Bass, Go“, „Solo“, „One more time“, etc.

Exporting and converting the tracks

Adjust the cycle region as desired
Select all tracks to export
„Command + e“:

My export settings:

Import markers as audio regions

Logic Pro can export markers in WAV, AIF or CAF files. Stage Traxx can convert these into audio regions. Let’s do that.

Add one WAV track to your song:

Now this import button appears:

Click that and enjoy your automatically created audio regions:

I colorcode them afterwards:

The big WAV file is not needed anymore and can be deleted to save some space. The audio regions are still there afterwards.

Converting WAV files to M4A

I created a quick action to quickly convert all selected WAV files into 64kbit M4A files.

This can be accomplished via the app „Automator“ (already part of MacOS).

Open Automator.app
„New“ —> Type of document: Quickaction
Drag the shell script element into the workflow and apply these settings:

Script:

#!/bin/bash

for f in "$@"; do
    (
        /usr/bin/afconvert "$f" \
            -o "${f%.*}.m4a" \
            -f m4af \
            -d aac@48000 \
            -b 64000 \
            -q 127
    ) &
done

wait
afplay /System/Library/Sounds/Glass.aiff
echo "All files have been processed."

Save the workflow. The quick action should be available now in the quick action menu of the Finder.

After conversion, I add the M4A files to the song and assign the corresponding buses to them:

Guitar amp controls

The goal of this segment is to convert the guitar MIDI commands into StageTraxx MIDI commands.
Desired output:

[midi@00:00.000: CC43.4@4] ;Clean
[midi@01:01.017: CC43.6@4] ;Distortion

Precondition for this segment is that Logic Pro time settings must be „Hours : Minutes : Seconds : Milliseconds“:

I’m switching the scenes on my Quad Cortex guitar modeler using the „CME WIDI Jack DIN-5 MIDI Bundle“.
Note: Logic Pro is not used to send MIDI to the guitar modeler here. The MIDI amp track data is only used for being exported to StageTraxx.
I set up custom note names in the piano roll corresponding to my guitar modeler scenes (it’s not necessarily needed, but it’s a bit nicer to work with).

„How to Customize Note Names in Piano Roll - Logic Pro X Tutorial“
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQiBOduhyMY

Activate this option:

Now, select the midi file/track and go the event viewer and click on one event. Hit „Command + a“ to select all events and copy them with „Command + c“.

Now the „magic“ happens ✨
For the longest time I converted this via an Excel script, but I figured it would be easier for most folks to just use an AI and adapt the promt to their needs. So I converted my Excel script into a promt. Tested with Gemini 3 Pro and it worked great:

You are a MIDI amp control converter. Convert guitar amp status changes into MIDI CC43 commands.

INPUT FORMAT:
Tab-separated values: Position | Status | (other columns ignored)
- Position format: HH:MM:SS,mmm (e.g., 01:00:00,000)
- Status contains: ♩ Clean, ♩ Crunch, ♩ Distortion, or ♩ Lead

OUTPUT FORMAT:
[midi@MM:SS.mmm: CC43.{value}@4] ;{Status}

MAPPING RULES:
- Clean → CC43.4@4
- Crunch → CC43.5@4
- Distortion → CC43.6@4
- Lead → CC43.7@4

POSITION CONVERSION:
1. Remove first 3 characters (removes "01:")
2. Replace 6th character with "."
3. Remove 4 characters starting at position 10

EXAMPLE INPUT:
01:00:00,000	♩ Clean	1	C4 = Clean	96	01:00:00,188
01:00:57,000	♩ Distortion	1	D4 = Distortion	96	01:00:57,188
01:01:16,773	♩ Clean	1	C4 = Clean	96	01:01:16,940
01:02:15,440	♩ Lead	1	D♯4 = Lead	96	01:02:15,606

EXAMPLE OUTPUT:
[midi@00:00.000: CC43.4@4] ;Clean
[midi@00:57.000: CC43.6@4] ;Distortion
[midi@01:16.773: CC43.4@4] ;Clean
[midi@02:15.440: CC43.7@4] ;Lead

Now convert this data:
[PASTE YOUR DATA HERE]

Et voila, you have your MIDI data converted into Stage Traxx MIDI commands 🥳

I use the same approach for the MIDI light events.

Region timestamps

As reference points, I want to convert the region markers into example MIDI commands. This can be useful for timestamping the lyrics.

Example of desired output:

; Regions
; [midi@00:00.000: CCxx.x@x] Count-In
; [midi@00:04.174: CCxx.x@x] Intro
; [midi@00:20.870: CCxx.x@x] Verse
; [midi@01:44.348: CCxx.x@x] Chorus
; [midi@02:01.043: CCxx.x@x] Break
; [midi@02:17.739: CCxx.x@x] Solo
; [midi@03:07.826: CCxx.x@x] Outro

How-to
Go to the marker page and enable this option:

Now, click on one marker entry. Hit „Command + a“ to select all markers and copy them with „Command + c“.

AI promt for conversion:

You are a MIDI marker data converter. Convert the input data into MIDI marker format.

INPUT FORMAT:
Tab-separated values with columns: Position | Marker-Name | (other columns ignored)
- Position format: HH:MM:SS,mmm (e.g., 01:00:00,000)
- Marker names can be any text

OUTPUT FORMAT:
; [midi@MM:SS.mmm: CCxx.x@x] Marker-Name

CONVERSION RULES:
1. Remove first 3 characters from position (removes "01:")
2. Replace 6th character with "." (changes "00:00,000" to "00:00.000")
3. Remove 4 characters starting at position 10 (removes ",000")
4. Format as: ; [midi@{converted_position}: CCxx.x@x] {marker_name}

EXAMPLE INPUT:
01:00:00,000	C	01:00:00,001
01:00:04,174	Intro	01:00:04,174
01:00:12,522	Chorus	01:00:12,522
01:00:37,565	Verse	01:00:37,566
01:00:54,261	Pre-Chorus	01:00:54,261

EXAMPLE OUTPUT:
; [midi@00:00.000: CCxx.x@x] C
; [midi@00:04.174: CCxx.x@x] Intro
; [midi@00:12.522: CCxx.x@x] Chorus
; [midi@00:37.565: CCxx.x@x] Verse
; [midi@00:54.261: CCxx.x@x] Pre-Chorus

Now convert this data:
[PASTE YOUR DATA HERE]

Result

All combined, the lyrics view looks something like this then:

@peter , could you please pin this tutorial? I guess this would help/inspire lots of people 🙂

RichyRich081

TeabagTim I have another question: Why did you disable "normalize" when exporting the WAV files? Doesn't that ensure all the files have the same volume level?

RichyRich081

TeabagTim I'm more interested in the cues you added to the Ultrabeat. Since I don't have any experience with this sequencer tool, it would be nice to get some more information how to configure it with my own samples/snippets. Is there any tutorial out there? 🙂

(I know this is a StageTraxx support board, but I'm using ST for my backing tracks... for sure.I want to improve so I can create better tracks for this amazing app. Therefore, thank you for this opportunity.

peter

Very nice, thank you. I have created a new section in the forum called "Tutorials" and will move postings like these to that section.

RichyRich081

Hi Tim,

Such a nice Tutorial, thanks so much. I’m very interesting in the light commands in Logic nd how you import that into StageTraxx. As I’m new into light experiences I’m wondering what lighting setup are you using. Would be great if you can gimme some ideas 🙂

TeabagTim

RichyRich081 I’m wondering what lighting setup are you using

Setup:
iPad (StageTraxx) is connected via bluetooth to a CME WIDI Bud Pro that is put into a laptop. On the laptop there is the lighting software configured that listens to the MIDI commands from StageTraxx. That lighting software sends the light command via DasLight DVC3 (USB connected to laptop).

TeabagTim

RichyRich081 I’m very interesting in the light commands in Logic nd how you import that into StageTraxx

When you know which MIDI commands the lighting software uses, you can put these commands in Logic Pro and export it in a similar way as the guitar MIDI track.

ODEKK

Hey just curious, why do you convert to M4A? I only just now upgraded to ST4, but I’m sure I ran wav files in ST3 just fine. Is it a space concern, or playability? .

TeabagTim

ODEKK why do you convert to M4A?

Much smaller than WAV or other uncompressed formats. I tried also MP3 but noticed (also like Peter) that M4A files have a better audio quality than MP3 at the same file size. I especially noticed that on Drum Cymbals.

peter

I myself also run purely with m4a files because they sound better at lower bitrates than mp3 files. So you can save some space while having the same audio quality compared to mp3.

RichyRich081

I am testing with DMXDesktop right now (https://www.dmxdesktop.com/) which listens to MIDI commands as well. I will try to write the commands in a Logic MIDI track now, as described by you. I come back later with some more experience, I hope 🙂

TeabagTim

RichyRich081 Why did you disable "normalize" when exporting the WAV files? Doesn't that ensure all the files have the same volume level?

I thought so too, and had this enabled at first.
But I had the problem that specific tracks, e.g. guitar, didn't have a consistent volume over multiple songs. Means, for some songs, the guitar was too loud in the mix, for some, too quiet. So this broke the volume setting in the tracks and the dynamic.
Disabling this setting did the trick for me.

RichyRich081

TeabagTim And are you sure the quality of the M4A files is sufficient? ChatGPT tells me the following about your script:

This script creates AAC M4A at 48kHz, but only 64 kbit/s.

Bitrate 64 kbit/s (!)
And this is where it gets critical: That's very low for music.
It's more like "podcast/speech quality"—for songs, it quickly sounds muddy, especially hi-hats, sibilance, and reverbs.

If your goal was to "compare to MP3 320p," then this script is the exact opposite. It makes the file size small, but the quality is significantly worse than 320p MP3.

TeabagTim

RichyRich081 Bitrate 64 kbit/s (!)
And this is where it gets critical: That's very low for music.

If you need better quality, you can adjust the script and use a higher bitrate. That's something everybody needs to decide on their own.

For me, the files must be small: my band has a big repertoire, and my bandmates have iPads with "limited storage capacity" 😄 .
None of our tracks from StageTraxx go to FOH. For gigs, only the clicktrack and cues go to our in-ears.
When a band member couldn't make it to rehearsal, we unmute his bus in StageTraxx and practice as usual. For this purpose, 64 kbit/s is fine.

TeabagTim

RichyRich081 If your goal was to "compare to MP3 320p,"

I'm comparing 64 kbit/s M4A to 64 kbit/s MP3. Clear winner for me: M4A

RichyRich081

TeabagTim Okay, that's perfectly sufficient then... By the way, this is the script if anyone wants to create M4A files with a higher bitrate (256 kbit/s) this way:

`#!/bin/bash

for f in "$@"; do
(
/usr/bin/afconvert "$f" \
-o "${f%.*}.m4a" \
-f m4af \
-d aac@48000 \
-b 256000 \
-q 127
) &
done

wait
afplay /System/Library/Sounds/Glass.aiff
echo "All files have been processed."`

JoshSkaja

TeabagTim None of our tracks from StageTraxx go to FOH

Oh interesting—this is how we’re using ST4 too.

When singers are doing sectional/choreo rehearsal they have a mix of the band they can unmute.

But onstage it’s just click, count-in, & starting pitches.

peter

64kbit m4a works surprisingly well for mono m4a files. Stereo files need 128kBit but then do sound absolutely fine on a PA. You will most likely hear a difference with good headphones or studio monitors but not really in crowded room with a typical PA system.

Btw, 64kBit mono mp3 or 128kBit stereo mp3 sound way worse. I would not use those on stage. For mp3 my personal minimum bitrate is 192kBit.

BrianL

Great informative post thanks Teabag Tim!

TeabagTim

RichyRich081 how to configure it with my own samples/snippets. Is there any tutorial out there?

Did you even search for a tutorial? There are dozens of them 😄

"Loading and Using Your Own Samples in Ultrabeat in Logic Pro X"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVPX_B0-9cQ

MarkGuitar

RichyRich081
To be honest, I wouldn’t/don’t use ultrabeat for my cues.
There are many sites out there that provide sets of commonly used cues as short audio clips that you can easily add to a track in your DAW and then export to ST4.
And if you need something unusual that you can’t find it takes seconds to create a “Text to Audio” option in MacOs that will turn anything you type into an audio file. I use it all the time to put a cue at the start of every track which has the song name. And yes, I have introduced “now we are going to play a beautiful waltz for you” and pressed to button to start playing “Born to be wild”! 🤪. Hence the song name cue at the start of every song 😁