Started practice sessions again as I’ve been asked to play the piano at an event. I thought I’d try something new this time, and start recording them. Sometimes, during these sessions, I come up with an idea or arrangement that sounds pretty good to me. But a few minutes go by and I forget exactly how I got it to sound that way. When I try to recreate it later, it usually comes up short. So I want to find a way to avoid that happening here.

Screenshot of Audio Hijack, showing Logic Pro and a mic input going to a recorder, and Logic Pro going to the output. Five existing recording sessions shown on the right pane.

Audio Hijack is proving to be quite useful for this. I’ve got my webcam, which I’m using as a microphone, and Logic Pro being piped into a recorder. My (music) keyboard is hooked up via MIDI and I’m using Logic Pro as a live software synth (I prefer the piano patches there). The mic is for making a running commentary of what sounded good or not. I didn’t want to monitor of my speech but I did need to hear Logic Pro, so that’s piped directly to the output and through my headphones.

This is the first session I’ve tried this and so far it worked well. Hardly stage quality — the mic is pretty ordinary, and picks up the action on the keyboard — but it’s good enough for what I need.