external effects processors or logic

[psycho_monkey]

Zoom - decidedly semi-pro, Logic's internal FX will kick anything on the 9030 or similar.

If you're looking for effects like delays and filters I'd recommend Soundtoys - their native bundle would fit within your budget (£300 maybe?), and Filterfreak and echoboy are worth that on their own. I certainly wouldn't bother looking at hardware reverbs/FX unless you've got serious amounts of analogue outboard and/or synths already, and top notch converters.

If you're thinking more along the lines of compressors/EQ, then hardware makes more of a point - but with a budget of £400 you don't really have the option to buy anything that's worth the effort of going "outside the box". The only thing I could recommend in that budget would be the RNC ("Really Nice Compressor") - but personally I'd stay in the box and get something like the Sony EQ/compressor/transient designer.

A third option is to try to find a second hand UAD processing card for your computer - that could run reverbs and dynamics processing whilst taking the load of your computer.

Hope that helps.

[tomdarude]

yep...for special fx & soundtreatment some Logic-plugins are pretty cool!
though you really have to learn to programm & tweak them...(try some of the preset channelstrip combinations for a start...and start tweaking them further!)

but logic desperatly needs improvement on the basic breat & butter stuff -> EQ/Compression/Reverb


plugs and demos to check out:

UAD1-cards (best in character-software so far imho.)

Sony Oxford (clean & veryyyyyyyy versatile)

URS

Sonalksis (nice comp&eq package)

Tritone Digital


for reverb:

Altiverb 6 (huge!!! step up in sonic quality in my opinion from space designer)
EMT140 -> for the UAD card, great vocal/drum-plate



these (EQ,comp,reverbs) will allow you a better "sound design" on all "elements" of your beats