Logic Pro X - Space Designer - Create Custom Reverbs! Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

hey guys this is music tech help guy and
today I have another quick sound design
and synthesis video for you I want to
show you a cool trick that you can use
to create your own reverbs in space
designer in Logic Pro 10 a lot of people
don't know this but you can actually
drag and drop any short WAV file
directly into space designer and it'll
use that audio file as an impulse
response or IR sample just a side note
before we get started there's actually a
way to create your own impulse responses
by putting one or more microphones in
any room and then playing a sine wave
sweep over a speaker recording that sine
wave sweep and then D convolving that
recording down into an impulse response
file that is not what we're doing here
we're going to use an audio file that
really wasn't intended to be an impulse
response it doesn't sound like an
impulse response at least as an actual
impulse response to create our own cool
reverb effect so basically just to start
here I've got two instruments I've just
got piano with space design on it
nothing special and then I have this
sculpture since up here that's just like
an e-flat minor 7 chord using just like
the stock sound in sculpture and then
I've got Valhalla shimmer on it as well
just to give it a reverb tail I'm just
trying to do something to this core to
give it some ambience you could use
space designer a stock setting in space
design or any other reverb plug-in delay
whatever you want the goal here is I
just want to create an ambient tone and
then apply that tone as a new reverb
setting for another instrument so this
is essentially going to be a source
sound or a source file for our impulse
response in space designer so let's give
this a listen
and that's it it's just a long sort of
cord with a long reverb tail on it so
what I'm going to do is I'm going to
convert this to a WAV file so I'm going
to right click on it mm-uh say export as
new audio files or as audio files and if
you don't see it at the top here you can
go down to export and then you can say
export as audio files I'm going to click
on that I'm just going to give this a
name and put it right on my desktop and
i'll just call it to be flat 7 chord
it's actually flat minor 7 chord put a
little m in there doesn't really matter
save it as a WAV file 24-bit I'm not
going to bypass effects plugins because
I want all those on there I do want to
include the audio tail because it does
tail off for a while you have any volume
changes or pan changes you want to
include those and I'm going to turn
normalisation off because it's not
clipping or anything and then just hit
export so it's just going to save that
recording as a WAV file so here it is
out on my desktop here but hit spacebar
will hear that same thing we heard
earlier there we go
nothing special okay so I'm just going
to for now mute the sculpture since
because we're not going to use it
anymore we created our source for our
reverb effector right here so on my
piano track and it doesn't have to be
piano it can be really any instrument
you want it could be an audio an audio
instrument it could be anything I'm
going to open up space designer it's
under reverbs and I'm just going to drag
and drop this way file right into this
middle section of space designer and
watch what happens what it does is it
converts that WAV file into a working
impulse response for space designer so
it literally creates a reverb out of
that file so let me play a few notes on
the piano here and see what we've come
up with
[Music]
it's a little faint sounding so let's
pull the reverb level up I'll pull the
drive signal down just to touch so
that's really cool all that came out of
just that audio file that we dropped in
now what you have to realize is that the
reverb that we created has some tonality
to it it's not just noise that doesn't
you know conform to a particular key the
chord that I played on the sculpture
synth was an e-flat minor 7th chord so
you'll find that notes within that chord
are going to react more with it and
notes outside of it may not sound so
good like for instance if I play
something in C minor
they sound a little bit more dissonant
but so if we kind of stick within the
key of the chord that we originally
played we can make something really cool
with this so I am going to do a couple
things with this it's a bit much and if
I keep playing too loud it's actually
going to clip the track so to pull the
dry signal all the way up pull the
reverb down just below half I'm going to
do a few things to it first the length
of the impulse response is 11 seconds
I don't want nearly that long so I'm
going to double-click on that and I'm
going to change that to 4 seconds that's
something a little bit more reasonable
I'm also going to grab these two points
up here the decay time right here so you
can pull for the decay time or pull it
back I'm going to pull this down like
that so decay time end level and then
you can adjust the envelope with these
two points right here so I don't want
this to I want us to decay I want the
reverb to decay over time so I can play
with these two sliders here and actually
give it a natural envelope and decay so
let's try playing something just like
that yeah we're getting pretty close to
clipping I'll pull the reverb down a bit
there's a lot of bass frequencies in
there so one thing I'm going to do is
I'm going to click on the filter
envelope here turn that on this is just
an envelope a filter that kicks in over
time and it you'll note that it turns on
the filter down here I'm going to switch
this to a high-pass filter because I
want to cut out some of the low-end
so we're not getting nearly as much of
the low frequencies in there you can
also try playing around with the the EQ
maybe I want to scoop out some more of
the low-end on the low shelf maybe add
some more high end and give it a little
bit more shimmer and again all the notes
I'm playing to make this sort of sound
okay are in the key of E flat minor so
let me try playing a short musical
example and let's let's see what it
sounds like
you
[Music]
so that's really cool because this is
really haunting sound that almost makes
the piano sound like a pad and a piano
at the same time and all it is is just
an impulse response created from an
audio file that we dragged and dropped
into space designer alright so here's a
couple other examples using the exact
same impulse response we created earlier
I just kind of tweak the settings a
little bit here's some vocals let's fill
me that I'm lost they'd sell me that
long so that's the dry signal this time
I put it on a on a send over on an ox
tracks of the the whole effect is over
on an ox track with the the reverb level
up and the drive signal all the way down
so here's with with the impulse response
on it this tell me that uh they sell you
that I'm wrong
[Music]
so from my other example I just have a
really basic drumbeat over here dry it
sounds like this really simple let me
turn on the reverb bus again the same
impulse response this time and on the
previous the previous example with the
vocals I scooped out a lot more of the
low-end because I was getting a lot of
low-frequency build-up let's give this a
listen with the drums now so it's like
for each drum hit you're hearing that
chord that we played before let's
actually try taking out the low
frequency cut we'll take out the filter
and the low shelf to get more of the
low-end when the kick drum hits a little
too much low-end build up let's try
kicking the filter back in but keeping
the shelf out
[Music]
yeah this is a really really useful
sound design technique again just using
space designer one of the stock plugins
and logic along with pretty much any wav
file you can possibly think of or create
yourself so again very cool sound sound
design technique with space designer I
hope you guys enjoyed this video and
thanks for watching