Hey everyone! So today I want to show you guys how to start using outboard gear within Logic
Pro. So in today's example we're going to send a snare out to an SPX 900 for some reverb. But
you could replace this with a compressor, an equalizer, or whatever you want to use.
Setup's all the same. Now there's two sides to this coin so we're going to cover both of them.
The first side of the coin is how to get a track out of Logic, into your outboard gear, and then back
into Logic using Logic's I/O plug-in. The second side of the coin is then being able to print
those effects returns just in case you need to free up that unit to run other tracks through it.
And with that said, let's dive into Logic and i'll show you guys how to do this.
All right, so here inside of Logic, we got our drums. So i'll just play that just for a second.
Drums Playing
So what we want to do is we want to send our snare out to an external reverb unit. So for that we're
going to need Logic's I/O plug-in. So we go here, we come down to utility. And we go into I/O. And if
you're going out to a mono source you're going to pick mono. Or if you're going out to a mono
source with a stereo return, you would pick the monitor stereo. And again, if this was a stereo
track, then would you'd have the stereo option. So in this example we're going out to an SPX
900, which has stereo returns, so we're going to go for the mono to stereo. And here's the
I/O plug-in. So with the output volume we can adjust the output volume going to the hardware
unit. And we'll send our output, now this is the output going out of Logic INTO the hardware unit.
So in my case we're going through output 5 which is the input on the SPX. So we'll select that, and
we'll do the same thing with the input. This is the input coming BACK IN from the SPX, which is
here on seven and eight in my case. And again, if we need to we can adjust the input volume coming back
FROM the unit. Now when you're sending audio in and out of Logic, there's going to be a
bit of latency delay. So this is what the Ping button is for. So i'll show you what that does.
It basically just sends a quick signal to the unit to detect the delay offset, so i can adjust it.
Now in my case this is currently way off because i'm trying to record the
screen and everything else. So I'm just going to manually put this in.
There we go. And then we have our dry/wet return. So again, if you're running to, say a reverb unit like
we're about to do, you could adjust the slider. Or even if you were running to a compressor you can
do parallel compression right here. And now we'll just play back and you'll hear the snare reverb.
Drums Playing
And now this is all that you need the unit for, then at this point you're basically done.
But if you happen to need to use this unit for different tracks then we're going to need
to be able to print this so we can free the unit back up to run other tracks through it.
Now because we're using external hardware we can't just do a simple bounce in-place
or anything like that. Whenever you're bouncing and it's involving external hardware you HAVE
TO bounce in real time. So basically what we're going to do is we're going to print
this reverb. I'll show you how to do that real quick. So we're going to close this up first.
And we're going to take our snare track and we're going to duplicate it.
All right, and we don't need any of this, so i'm just going to remove all of this.
This is where our reverb is going to be printed too. Now again, our original snare is
mono, but because we've got... got a stereo return coming in, we need to switch this track to stereo.
And we're going to rename it quick... we'll just call it "snare verb". So what we're going to do is we're
going to send the output from our actual snare into a bus. We're going to use... let's just do bus 50.
And we're going to set this input on this audio track to bus 50. Come down, do that, see... there's our
snare. So now this track is feeding directly into the input on this track. And because we're printing
the reverb return, we're going to open the I/O back up and we're going to set this all the way to wet.
And then we can blend this after the fact. So now we're going to close this. We're going to
arm the track, and turn the cycle region off. And what we'll do now is record our reverb.
Drums Playing
Alright and with that done we can unarm the track. Now on our original snare we want
to set our output back to what it was. In this case it was going up to the drum buss.
So now... i'm going to turn this all the way down, and we're going to play our track back... and we'll
bring the snare in. Actually, we can uh, get rid of the I/O plugin as well we no longer need that.
So, here we go.
Drums Playing
There we go!! And if we solo this we can hear just the... just the reverb.
Drums Playing
So that's how you incorporate outboard gear into Logic, and how to print the returns from
that outboard gear if you need too.
So there you go! So if you have any further questions
about using outboard gear with Logic Pro, just feel free to leave a question in the comments.
Other than that I hope you guys found this video helpful. Just want to thank you again
for watching and i've been Mr Jeff and i'll see you guys in the next one so, take it easy.