How To Use Delay in Logic Pro | Add Depth To Your Tracks With Echo Effect

Music producers and artists use a plethora of effects and plugins to add depth and color to their tracks. One of the most fundamental plugins used in music production is the delay effect. A delay plugin will take the input signal, store it for a short time, and send it back to the effect input or output.

The delayed signal gives an echo-like effect that gives more presence, adds emphasis, and makes a track sound overall more dramatic. Depending on how you set up your delay plugin, it can give a subtle chorus-like effect or make it sound chaotic by increasing the repetition of the signal. Moreover, you can use delay plugins to double individual sounds. Say you have a guitar track, and you want to emulate a group of instruments playing at the same time. The delay effect allows you to achieve that by repeating the signal of your original track while adding subtle changes to it depending on your preferences.

Logic Pro’s vast array of tools offers an extensive list of invaluable plugins that can help you process audio. Among these, there are various delay effects that each come with distinctive characteristics. Whether you want to mix vocals or track guitars professionally, the delay effect can aid you in landing the sound you’re looking for. Without further ado, let’s take a look at some of Logic’s best stock delay plugins.

Tape Delay

One of Logic’s most powerful delay plugins is the Tape Delay effect. It emulates the sound characteristics you get from vintage tape echo machines. Moreover, the plugin comes with lowpass and highpass EQ filters in the feedback loop to create authentic dub echo effects. Here’s how you add it to your tracks:

•  Open the Inspector Menu by pressing “I’ on your keyboard or clicking the dedicated icon from the top-left corner of your screen.
•  Click the Audio FX slot and hover your pointer on “Delay.”
•  Open the “Tape Delay” effect.

You can set the delay time manually, or synchronize it with your project’s tempo by clicking the “Tempo Sync” button from the top-left of the plugin’s interface. Moreover, you have a Character segment that allows you to add the vintage saturation effect on your delay signal. The Clip Threshold knob allows you to set the level of the distorted tape saturation signal, and the Spread knob determines the width of your effect signal in stereo instances. Furthermore, you can switch between two Tape Head Modes that affect the behavior of other parameters, such as flutter and feedback.

To the top-right, you have the Feedback knob. Use it to set the amount of delayed and filtered signal that is routed back to the input. The more feedback, the more repetition you get from your original signal. To the bottom, you have parameters to control the modulation. Lastly, you can control your dry and wet signals from the faders at the bottom right.

Stereo Delay

Stereo Delay is another powerful delay plugin that comes stock with Logic Pro. It allows you to adjust parameters separately for left and right channels. It’s particularly useful to make vocals sound professional in Logic Pro. Although it might look a little bit overwhelming at first, it is fairly simple to use. First, add the Stereo Delay plugin to your track by opening the Inspector Menu and clicking the Audio FX slot.

In the plugin’s interface, you have two general segments for controlling delay time, feedback, and EQ for each segment. From the top-right corner, you can change the internal signal routing. You have different options to play with here.

One of my favorites is the Ping Pong effect. Choosing the Ping Pong L allows you to only treat the left channel and have it played alternatively from left and right on the stereo spectrum. Crossfeed also gives you a quirky stereo effect. If you want your left and right channels to behave identically, you can turn on the Stereo Link Button under the routing segment. It allows you to make corresponding parameter adjustments for both channels.

How To Use Delay Like A Pro

Learning how to use delay plugins in a tasteful manner is more than just knowing what each knob and fader does. If you’re using the delay plugin directly on your track, you’d generally want to keep the dry signal at 100% to ensure you don’t lose your original signal, unless you’re deliberately looking for an unusual effect.

However, more often than not you’d want to use your delay plugin on a bus. Doing that allows you to ensure you’re not putting too much stress on your computer’s processor by running multiple identical delay plugins on multiple tracks. Instead, you can route different tracks to a bus that includes your desired delay effect. Click here to learn more about using buses and routing audio in Logic Pro.

When you’re using a bus to route the delay effect, you’d want to set the dry signal to 0% since it’s already coming from the original track. Moreover, I’d like to keep the wet signal relatively high, almost 100%, and change the level through the dedicated bus knob on each track. You can take it one step further and add delay on your reverb signal. It’s a cool technique that thickens your track and makes it spread out across the mix.

To learn more about music production, mixing, and mastering, check out my Free 6 Pillars To Learn Logic Pro Faster guidebook.