Effects Overview

EQ

An equalizer adjusts the balance of frequencies in a signal. Boost the high end and a sound gets brighter. Cut the low mids and a muddy vocal clears up. EQ is the most frequently used effect in any mix — almost every track gets one.

Logic’s Channel EQ is the one to start with. It gives you eight bands (high-pass, low-shelf, four parametric, high-shelf, low-pass), an analyzer that shows you the frequency content in real time, and enough control for most situations. Click the small EQ curve icon on any channel strip to load it directly — Logic gives Channel EQ a shortcut because you will reach for it constantly.

Linear Phase EQ does the same job without introducing phase shift, which matters on buses and in mastering. Match EQ captures the frequency profile of one recording and applies it to another — useful for getting a rough mix closer to a reference track.

First thing to try: Load Channel EQ on a vocal track. Enable the analyzer. Sweep a narrow boost across the frequency range and listen for the spot that sounds harsh or boxy. Then cut there instead of boosting. Subtractive EQ — removing what you do not want — is almost always more effective than adding what you think you do.

Compression

A compressor reduces the volume of loud parts of a signal, narrowing the gap between the quietest and loudest moments. This makes a performance more consistent and often more present in the mix. Compression is also the hardest effect to hear, because it changes dynamics rather than frequency — the difference is subtle until you learn to listen for it.

Logic’s Compressor plugin offers seven different circuit models (Platinum, Studio VCA, Studio FET, Classic VCA, Vintage VCA, Vintage FET, Vintage Opto), each with a different character. Start with Platinum — it is the most transparent and predictable. The four main controls are threshold (how loud the signal has to be before compression kicks in), ratio (how much it gets turned down), attack (how fast the compressor reacts), and release (how fast it lets go).

The Limiter is a compressor with an infinite ratio — nothing gets through above the threshold. You will use it on the master output to catch peaks. The Noise Gate is the opposite: it silences signal below a threshold, cleaning up bleed between hits on a drum mic. The DeEsser is a compressor that only targets sibilance — the harsh “s” and “t” sounds on vocals.

Compression gets covered in depth in the Mixing and Synthesis Tools — attack, release, knee, sidechain, parallel compression, and all the situations where compression makes or breaks a mix. What follows here is enough to get started.

First thing to try: Load the Compressor on a vocal. Set the ratio to 3:1 and bring the threshold down until the gain reduction meter shows 3-6 dB of compression on the loudest parts. Bypass it and listen to the difference. If the compressed version sounds louder but not better, you need to turn the output down to match levels — louder always sounds better, so you have to level-match to make a fair comparison.

Reverb

Reverb simulates the reflections of a physical space — a room, a hall, a plate, a cathedral. It places sounds in an environment, and the character of that environment changes the emotion of the performance. A dry vocal sounds intimate and close. A vocal with hall reverb sounds expansive and distant. The choice is artistic, not technical.

Space Designer is Logic’s convolution reverb. It uses recordings of real acoustic spaces (impulse responses) to model rooms, halls, chambers, and stranger environments with remarkable accuracy. Load different impulse responses and listen to how the same source transforms. It is CPU-heavy but sounds excellent.

ChromaVerb is Logic’s algorithmic reverb — lighter on CPU, more flexible for dialing in creative sounds, with a visual display that makes it intuitive to shape the reverb tail. For most situations in this course, ChromaVerb is the faster starting point.

First thing to try: Load ChromaVerb on a bus (not directly on a track — use a send, as covered in Chapter 16). Set the mix to 100% wet. Choose a room preset and adjust the decay time. Send a vocal and a drum track to the same bus at different levels. They are now in the same room.

Delay

Delay repeats a signal after a time gap. Short delays (under 30 ms) create a sense of width or thickness without sounding like a distinct echo. Longer delays (100-500 ms) produce rhythmic repeats — the classic echo effect. Very long delays create ambient washes.

Tape Delay models the sound of analog tape machines — the repeats degrade slightly with each pass, which sounds warmer and more musical than a pristine digital echo. Stereo Delay gives you independent control over left and right delay times, which is useful for creating rhythmic patterns that bounce between speakers. Sample Delay is a precision tool for nudging audio by tiny amounts — useful for aligning tracks that are slightly out of phase, not for creative echo effects.

First thing to try: Load Tape Delay on a bus (again, via a send). Sync the delay time to your project tempo — try a dotted eighth note. Send a vocal to it and adjust the send level. The repeats should sit behind the vocal, filling the space between phrases without cluttering the words.

Modulation

Modulation effects use short, cycling delays to create movement — the sound of something constantly shifting. Chorus thickens a signal by blending it with a slightly detuned copy. Flanger sweeps through a metallic, jet-engine-like effect. Phaser moves through a series of notches in the frequency spectrum, producing a swirling quality. Tremolo varies the volume at a regular rate.

Logic’s Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, and Tremolo plugins are straightforward. Modulation effects tend to be subtle in a mix — a touch of chorus on clean guitars, a slow phaser on a pad. Push them hard and they become obvious and creative. Most of the time you want them barely noticeable.

First thing to try: Load Chorus on a clean guitar or synth pad. Set the rate low and the intensity low. Bypass it — you should notice the sound feels narrower and flatter without it. That subtle widening is what chorus does in a mix.

Distortion and Saturation

Distortion adds harmonics to a signal by overdriving it — pushing the level past what the circuit (or the model of a circuit) can cleanly reproduce. At low levels this is saturation: warmth, presence, a sense of the signal being more “alive.” At high levels it is distortion in the traditional sense — aggressive, gritty, sometimes the whole point.

Overdrive models tube amplifier breakup. Clip Distortion is harsher and more digital. Bitcrusher reduces the bit depth and sample rate, producing lo-fi, crunchy artifacts — more of a creative effect than a mixing tool. Pedalboard bundles several stompbox models into a virtual guitar rig.

First thing to try: Load Overdrive on a bass track and keep the drive low. Listen for the low end getting thicker and more present without sounding distorted. Bypass it. If you can hear that the bass sits differently in the mix — fills more space, has more edge — that is saturation working. Push the drive higher and it stops being subtle.

Toggling Plugin Windows

When you have opened six or seven plugin windows and your screen is buried, use Toggle Plugin Windows to hide all of them at once. Press it again and they come back. This is your quick reset — a clean screen, one keystroke.

Remember the Link button on plugin windows — covered in Chapter 10. When Link is enabled, clicking a different track automatically updates the plugin window to show that track’s version of the same effect. This keeps your screen uncluttered when you are comparing the same plugin across multiple tracks.

What to Practice

• Load Channel EQ on a track using the shortcut EQ icon on the channel strip. Enable the analyzer. Make a big boost somewhere, listen to what it emphasizes, then cut there instead and listen to what clears up.
• Load Compressor on a vocal or drum track. Set ratio to 3:1, bring the threshold down until you see gain reduction, and bypass to compare. Remember to level-match — turn the output down so the compressed and bypassed versions are the same volume.
• Set up a reverb bus using a send (as practiced in Chapter 16). Load ChromaVerb on the aux, set it to 100% wet, and send two or three tracks to it at different levels.
• Load Tape Delay on another bus. Sync the delay to your project tempo and try different note values — quarter, dotted eighth, triplet. Listen to how each one changes the rhythmic feel.
• Open several plugin windows, then press Toggle Plugin Windows (default V) to hide them all. Press it again to bring them back.

Commands in This Chapter