How-to: Riding the Fader in Logic Pro
Riding the fader is a term that refers to make some kind of "manual compression", used commonly to do vocals compression.
As you might know there's downward and upward compressors, usually we have downward by default in our DAW, which are the ones that lower the volume after it pass some given threshold, and upward compressors which rises the volume when it lowers below the threshold.
Sometimes we just want to "middle" the volume by getting the high volumes down and rising the low volumes up so this is were riding the fader might get useful.
The idea is to draw some volume automation with the pencil tool by following the trace of the lower part of your oscilloscope signal:
If you see that image well, the yellow line over the lower part of the oscilloscope kind of "follow" the amplitude of the signal, but just the lower part (below the signal).
To access the pencil tool in Logic 9:
Press ESC key > Press 2 or choose the pencil from the menu
This way when the volume is low, it gets higher, when its high it gets lower, simple right?
I won't cover automation as that's from a past class and we all are supossed to handle that information already, but i'll just refresh your mind and show you where the automation button is in Logic Pro 9:
This technique is useful and easy, but have some minor bad points:
What if you want to change the gain of the whole track?
Its time consuming (a lot)
You might be forced to bounce your track to be able to change some things.
You might be forced to use inserts in your channel strip to make some things.