external effects processors or logic

[djbizness]

Hey guys,

I am looking at getting an external effects processors to change up my samples and loops I use on hip hop tracks. At the moment I use logic and thats o.k but I am wondering if the external stuff will sound much better.

Heard Zoom make some good effects processors like the 9030. Are they any good? Has anyone had any experience using effects processors with hip hop. obviously there are no limits in what you can do.

Can you shed some light on any of this. Dont want to spend money on something I dont really need. I have a max budget of £400.

[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