How to get a song into a Reference Track? HELP, please!

Recording, Mixing and Producing
#1

Hi All,
I need a how-to on how to use a commercial song as a reference track in Logic Pro.
Please help this old-timer accomplish this legally (no piracy, please).
I don’t mind if I have to pay for a song from iTunes to use it.
Fair enough. Musicians need to earn a living, too.

I’m using Logic Pro (on a Mac, of course).

  1. I presume I have to pay for a license for each song that I want to use as a Reference track. If that’s correct, then I also presume that I do that in iTunes. How am I doing so far?

  2. How do I get the audio from a commercial song in iTunes or Apple Music out as a wav file, or some form, I can drop into a track? No, I don’t use Spotify or any other music streaming services. Well, I use SoundCloud, but it won’t have the songs I want to use as Reference tracks.

If you help me learn how to get the audio (.wav file), then I should be able to drag and drop it into Logic or I’ll read up on how to Import it.

Of all the times I’ve read or seen videos telling me to use Reference tracks, I’m surprised that not a one of them tells you how to get those songs legit into your DAW. I guess they assume that we all know how to do that, already. I need the Reference Tracks for Dummies version. Lol

And, FYI, when we get older, we don’t get senile. That’s all wrong. We get Memory Full !! :joy:

If you’re going to laugh at my ignorance, at least I’ll help you with some humor. :wink:

Thanks in advance for any help!

John

#2

How would you normally buy your music? Download, CD? Just buy it via your normal means and import it.

You don’t need a licence of any kind.

#3

Some music you can purchase from iTunes and download, but will need to convert it to a usable format. Some ITunes music require you to have a subscription, as in you can download music to your computer, but can only play it if you have a subscription. As in, if your music file still sits in your DAW and your subscription has expired, you are technically not allowed to play it anymore. Circumventing this will be a breach of the license agreement between you and itunes. I am no legal expert but you may not be able to put an itunes track in your DAW without a soft breach of the contract between you and iTunes, depending on how you acquired it.

More info on it here >> Add and download music in iTunes on PC - Apple Support

If you have another way to buy the album in digital format which allows you to keep the mp3 files might be a better option

#4

Thank you, AJ and FluteCafe, for your responses,

Hi AJ and FluteCafe,
I used to buy CDs, but now I just listen on Apple Music. For the last couple of years I’ve had an Apple One Premier subscription, which gives me access to all of their services (Apple Music included) + 2 TB of iCloud space, which I share with my adult children.

I haven’t used any software in years to rip a CD, but is that the method you recommend?

Thanks again.

John

#5

Of course you could just make a live recording using your phone or whatever and import that. Not strictly legal but these people are choking the life out of a few million song writers including . . . well anyway.

More importantly you might not easily get enough fidelity on your live track to be useful as a reference track; but you can compensate for that by referring to the original reference track and remixing it which is good practice too. Just saying.

#6

Thanks, Ingolee.
I may have to study up on the old shell commands I used to use back in my Linux days. When my last Mac broke I replaced it with an iPad. That worked good for 5 years, but now it’s cheaper to replace the old iPad with a Mac, than a newer iPad, due to the cost of accessories that you really need with an iPad. So, I’m on a brand new Mac Mini and it’s good to be able to use all the hundreds of dollars of apps I purchased back then, plus the ones that came with my new SSL audio interface.

A side note from the topic. I watched a video today which claimed issues with FabFilter plugins in Logic Pro. Yet, on the iPad I had all the professional FabFilter plugins and they were amazing with their resource management. My old iPad Air with only 3Gb of RAM was struggling until I replaced all the plugins in my tracks with the FabFilter equivalents and everything ran smooth. After that, I knew it was time get back in the game with a new Mac.

Thanks for everyone’s responses.

John

#7

I have one of those and I like it. Here’s what Apple says about downloading from Apple music.

#8

Thanks for the link. I’ll download some Apple Music songs and see if I can get access to the song files with the Finder or the Terminal.

#9

If you’ve got it on CD, why not? It’s 44.1kHz 16 bit, more fidelity than you can shake a stick at. I use Fairstars CD ripper, very easy to use.

#10

Thank you, AJ!

#11

To All that replied and every other user on this site,

I got a simple solution to my question.
Someone made a demo video for me, showing exactly how to do it:

  1. Open Apple Music and search on a song or artist.
  2. From the list of songs returned by Search, drag a song from Apple Music into a track in Logic Pro.

Just that simple!

John

1 Like
#12

Thanks for the update! And that’s crazy how simple it turned out to be. Makes sense given they are both apple apps. Glad to hear you’re making forward progress :slight_smile:
I’d love to hear what you’re up to as you’re recording, etc!

#13

as long as you maintain your premier subscription, this would not break any Apple rules lol.

#14

Well, I have my adult children on my premier subscription, so I’ll maintain it as long as I can… unless my final curtain falls. As Brian Wilson’s song stated, “God only knows”. lol

#15

The simple drag and drop didn’t work as I said, because I needed to purchase the song first. I have to purchase the song in iTunes ($1.29 for most songs) and then I can drag and drop it from Apple Music into Logic Pro. Can I drag it from iTunes directly? I don’t know yet. Once I’ve finished exploring all the avenues, I’ll return with a more complete update for everyone here.

But once I have the track in one song, I will have a legit copy of the file, so even if I were to let my subscription go, I’d only lose out on using new songs, provided, I can’t get them directly out of iTunes.

I’m on a brand new Mac with a lot to do to get everything sorted out as I cram to learn Logic Pro 11.2 ASAP. I’ll report back in a day or two.

Ciao for now,

John

#16

Hi John, nice to have you here! I hope I can answer your question satisfactorily…

I am on Mac OS, so hopefully I can answer this… iTunes is just an interface/app to collect/collate all the music on your computer. To drag the song you have purchased into Logic, you’ll first need to navigate to where the song is stored, and find the actual source file.

This link explains how to find the path to where the song is stored:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251113425?sortBy=rank

What it doesn’t explain is that, once you have found the path to the file, copy and paste that path into Finder, and it should take you to where the file is stored.