Need Help creating an effect in Logic Pro!!!

[Laurence Maher]

Hey guys,

Well, all I currently needed was to take my normal voice in a wave file and then massively lower the pitch and add some reverb and maybe a bit of EQ to create a comic impending "Vampire Voice". This all needed to be done without changing the speed of the voice, so I could sync it back to my video in FCP.

I was going to get the full version of peak for my G5 but then realized that soon I'll be wanting to create surround sound. So why bother spending $300 + dollars on peak when soon I was going to get logic to make surround for my movies. I went ahead and grabbed me some logic pro 7 for an academic price of about $500. And . . .

Wow, talk about biting off mouthful! This is a pretty complicated mother! I figured it would only take a day or so to figure out how to import my voice via .wav file and then add the effects. But good lord!!! I mean, in 3 days I've learned plenty, but more about midi and sequencing than anything else. Can someone give me some quick "follow these steps . . . one, two, three" advice for creating that simple vampire effect?

THANKS!

[Justin Kohli]

Heey Laurence. Hang in there, I've got Logic Audio 6 and I'll see what I can do.

[Justin Kohli]

Ok, I'm assuming you haven't learned how to setup an audio track to edit and arrange etc. I use a setup that I've saved as "autoload" and it loads upon Logic's startup. So once you arrange the windows how you want them, save it as "autoload" in the Logic directory. I would guess this is how you would do it for Logic Pro still, but maybe I'm wrong.

Also if anyone with Logic experience notes something I mentioned wrong or has alternate suggestions, by all means.

1. File / New. I'm not sure what screens will popup, but you should have the ARRANGE window, and TRACK MIXER window open. You may have an array of Audio & MIDI tracks. For instance, I have 8 audio tracks and 16 MIDI tracks on the mixer. Personally, I don't even use MIDI so I usually have 16 audio tracks setup. But we'll leave it as is for what you need.

2. Click the AUDIO menu that is in the menubar, then AUDIO WINDOW. In the AUDIO FILE menu, click ADD AUDIO FILE. Choose your file, and it will be added into the audio window. Now grag it to TRACK 1 in the ARRANGE window, at measure 1. Hit PLAY to see if it plays. If it does, great.

3. Double click the file you just added to the arrange window. The file lying in the arrange window on track 1 you just dragged, is known as a region, I believe. The sample editor will now be open. You can also open it in the AUDIO WINDOW by double clicking the file you added. Click FACTORY and then choose TIME AND PITCH MACHINE. Note: this might differ in Logic Pro. Check your manual for any pitch features.

4. In the window that opens up, I got options for TIME MACHINE, AUDIO ENERGIZER and SAMPLE RATE CONVERT. Choose TIME MACHINE. In my Logic, there is a graphic on the left where you drag a ball to modify the pitch. It looks confusing. But, what you'll do is this: In the TRANSPOSE (CENT) field with the number (mine defaulted to 140), hold down the mouse and drag down. The number will increase. I dragged down to 270 and got a low voice. Experiment until you have the pitch you want. Once you have that, choose PROCESS & PASTE, make a backup of the file when/if it asks you. If you close the sample edit window, it'll ask if you want to make the change. Choose YES. Now from your ARRANGE window, if you play - it should play at a lower pitch. Now the reverb and EQ.

5. In your TRACK MIXER window, on TRACK 1 (the very first strip), you should see at the very top it says EQ, then a dashed-box below it. Below the box it says INSERTS. There are 2 rectangles for inserts. Hold the left mouse button down on one of the inserts, choose MONO->STEREO or whichever applies to your project, then explore. There should be a few or more reverbs available. I went into APPLE / MATRIX REVERB. Now a Reverb effect is running through TRACK 1. Playing the project you should hear the reverb effect. Experiment in the reverb plugin window until you get what you want.

6. EQ -- insert another plugin, right below the reverb as we did earlier. Choose an EQ, for starters lets do AUDIO UNITS / APPLE / AU GRAPHIC EQ. All of the sliders should be at the bottom or in the middle. If they're at the bottom, just position the window somewhere and they'll all appear flat in the middle. What I do is hold the left mouse button down on the first slider's "track", and drag over to 50HZ so that I have 5 sliders selected. I can then let go, and drag one slider down - and they will all drag down at the same time. I basically cut anything below 50 Hz. You can experiment with the 100-200 range if the voice is too bassy. Mids are 400-700 generally, I think, highs are 1 KHz and up. Experiment, but remember - it is usually better to cut (drop frequency down) than to boost (push frequency up).

After all that is set, you can save your project. You'll want to bounce (output) the file surely, so what you'll need to do is this next step.

7. BOUNCE -- Go to your WINDOWS menu and choose ENVIRONMENT. You'll be given a whole list of faders. At the very end should be the master fader. This controls the volume and such of all tracks combined. It should say OUTPUT 1-2, at least mine does. At the bottom of the strip, see a little button that says BNCE. Click it. You're now given options for bouncing the track(s). Try WAVE, 16 Bit, Interleaved (unless you wnat seperate Left/Right for some reason), Dithering: none (generally saved for mastering projects and not really necessary for such a small file). Bounce mode: offline is quicker, realtime is slower and more CPU intensive. Up to you, but realtime you hear it as it processes. Then click BOUNCE, and type a filename.

DONE!