Logic 9 - using Pedalboard in parallel mode for fat Bass and Guitar sounds

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A little while back I wrote a blog article about cool things to do with multi-band compressors

One of the things I discussed was how to use the crossovers built into one of these plug-ins to separate the lows and high frequencies of, for example, a Bass track, so that distortion could be added to the top-end of the Bass without robbing the fat bottom end.

Well now with Logic 9's new Pedalboard, you can easily add some grainy distortion to the Bass track without thinning the sound by using the distortion pedals inserted in parallel mode.

Pedalboard is a great new plug-in that has been added to the latest version of Logic, and includes some great-sounding pedals that can be custom-assembled into complete pedalboards. (You can even map individual pedals to controllers with built-in macros, but we won't cover that in this article)

By dragging, for example, a Distortion pedal from the selection box on the right into the main pedalboard, then adding a Splitter pedal, you can then click on the name above the Distortion pedal to toggle it between series and parallel modes.

Series means the whole Bass sound goes through the distortion pedal, parallel means the distortion pedal is blended with the original dry Bass sound.

What's even better is you can switch the Splitter pedal into "Freq" (Frequency) mode. This allows you to select what range of frequencies goes into to the parallel chain. In my example, I've set it to send from 1.5kHz upwards. (Hint: to see this exact value, I temporarily switched the plug-in "View" from "Editor" to "Controls").

When you insert a Splitter pedal, it automatically inserts another Mixer pedal at the end of the chain so you can blend the two parallel paths back together again, in whatever proportion you desire.

Here's another tip - if you've recorded your electric guitar straight into Logic via your audio interface and are then adding effects in Logic - try using the parallel mode to blend your clean electric guitar with the distorted version on the other side of the parallel chain. This can give your wall of distorted guitars some extra clarity.