How to Use Space Designer in Logic – Audio Plus

Aug 11th in General by Adrian Try

In this week's Audio Plus content, Björgvin Benediktsson teaches you how to use Space Designer in Logic.

To learn more about what you get as part of Audio Plus, read this. To take a peek inside this tutorial, hit the jump!

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Author: Adrian Try

Adrian is writer and editor for Audiotuts+ and the AudioJungle blog. He has been playing keys and acoustic guitar for three decades, and has six kids. Follow him on Twitter at @audiotuts.

"Reverb is invaluable when mixing. It can add character to the song and makes an instrument come alive. Depending on what type of song and character you are after, there are different types of reverbs that you should use. Big powerful ballads require long and lush hall reverbs, rockabilly-type tunes need short slap-back room echoes.

"In Logic Pro 8 there is a very powerful reverb engine called Space Designer, which has a lot of functions that may intimidate someone opening it for the first time. It has all the features of a typical reverb unit, but works by feeding it impulse responses that generate the room's characteristic. In the following Plus tutorial I will show you in-depth the versatility and intuitive way that Space Designer handles the reverb in your projects."

Here is an example of the type of track this tutorial will teach you to create:

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Table of Contents

  1. A Little About Impulse Responses
  2. Step 1 – Load Your Impulse Response
  3. Step 2 – Categorize Your Impulse Responses
  4. Space Designer's Features
  5. Step 1 – Warping vocals
  6. Step 2 – Putting Your Aux on Pre-fader
  7. Step 3 – Selecting a Warped Reverb
  8. Step 4 - Getting Creative
  9. Step 5 – Using the Built-in EQ
  10. Step 6 – Adding a Little Dry Sound
  11. Adding Depth to a Guitar Track
  12. Step 1 – Using the Spring on Guitar Amp
  13. Step 2 – Putting your Guitar in a Room
  14. Step 3 – Panning Your Reverb
  15. Making Big Toms with Big Cathedral Reverb
  16. Step 1 – Selecting a Big Massive Space
  17. Step 2 – Using Automation to Add Movement and Interest
  18. Effecting the Reverb
  19. Pre-delay on Vocals for Better Clarity
  20. Conclusion

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User Comments

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    Anders August 12th

    Could you possibly make some case studies where you examine the techniques musicians use to reach their sound? I would like to see some tutorials covering popular sub-genres of house with case studies of deadmau5, eric prydz, chris lake ,etc.

    It would be nice with some tutorials covering general principles used in genres such as chords, rhytms and sound design using both synthesizers and samplers. Fx. how to make a really mean bass ala deadmau5, That would be really useful.

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  2. PG

    Peter Emanuel Roos August 22nd

    Hi Adrian,
    As a semi-pro composer (http://www.PeterRoos.com) working only with PCs. So I don’t have a Mac and have no recent Logic experience (although I still use Logic 5.5 for PC alongside Cubase).
    I’d like to ask you a question about Space Designer.
    One of my free-time projects is making and selling some IR libraries.
    I regularly get questions from prospective buyers how to load True Stereo impulse response sets (4 channels) into Space Designer.
    Does SD support it? Does it require two IR files (stereo) or can it load quad channel IR files?
    Thanks for any comments on this!
    Emanuel

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      Adrian Try August 23rd

      Hi Peter. I don’t have enough Logic experience to answer your questions. Perhaps Björgvin or one of our readers could answer your question.

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    2. PG

      Josef Horhay September 15th

      Hi Peter, Space Designer uses proprietory format when loading True Stereo IR’s. You can only create True Stereo IR’s with the bundled application called Impulse Response Utility when you purchase Logic Studio. This generates a .SDIR file that Space Designer recognizes, and also creates a SD’s Preset .PST file in the plugin presets folder that corresponds to the .SDIR file.

      To create sample your own true strereo IR’s. You take the mono sweep (generated by Logic’s IR Utility) and split it into two channels, Left and Right. The Left feeds the Stereo Reverb that your sampling which results in a Stereo signal. The Right feeds the Stereo Reverb your sampling which then produces a second Stereo signal. This is then de-convulved automatically by the utility into a IR that Space Designer recognizes.

      True Stereo Impulses are lovely in SD. and sound very convincing.

      Peace
      Josef Horhay
      Mixing Engineer
      http://www.acoosticzoo.com

      ( Reply )

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