Logic Pro: Creative Delay Effects

Combine Tape Delay with Space Designer and some unconventional impulse responses for some intriguing Objeq Delay‑style sounds.

We explore some creative delay treatments using only Logic’s bundled plug‑ins.

When looking for effects that are a bit outside the mainstream, it is tempting to search out third‑party plug‑ins. While many of those produce excellent results, with a little creative thought it is possible to conjure up some inspiring and unusual effects using just Logic’s own plug‑ins. This month I’m going to take a look at delay effects.

As a quick example of what is possible, you can get a really good retro, lo‑fi sound from Logic’s Tape Delay (set up in a bus as a send effect), simply by setting the frequency sliders to 130Hz/1200Hz and then adding around 45 percent of LFO modulation, at 0.7 seconds or thereabouts to add a bit of wobble. If you’d like the fi to be even lower, put the delay through Logic’s Overdrive plug‑in, set to a modest amount of drive and with its filter knob set just to take the edge off the sound. Alternatively, put the Rotor Cabinet plug‑in set to Fast after the delay, and your piano or electric piano repeats become sonar pings! You might also want to add some basic reverb to the source track so that the dry part of the sound doesn’t sound too dry.

Objeq Permanence

Those are some very basic examples, but there are more adventurous combinations of Delay and other Logic Pro plug‑ins to try. My inspiration for this next idea was Objeq Delay from Applied Acoustic Systems, which is one of my favourite delay plug‑ins for ambient music creation, especially for adding interest to rhythmic parts. While it isn’t possible to exactly recreate what Objeq Delay does using Logic’s plug‑ins, you can conjure up effects with a similar character.

Objeq Delay treats the repeats with convolution, using impulse responses (IRs) based on drum heads, metal sheets and so on, the outcome of which is that the delays take on the character of the IR rather than being straight repeats. It lets you modulate the pitch and formants of the filtering, but it’s the use of impulse responses that got me experimenting.

Logic Pro’s Space Designer reverb comes with a host of useful non‑reverb IRs in its Warped Effects / Drum Transformers section. You can also drag in any short WAV file, such as a recording of...