How to Use LANDR FX Plugins to Shape Your Mix
- marshallsoundz
- Jan 18, 2022
- 4 min read
LANDR FX is the first bundle of mixing plugins from LANDR.
It’s a suite of easy-to-use tools purpose-built to help you shape the most important parts of your mix.
In fact, LANDR FX’s simplified control set and release-ready presets were designed to make mixing faster.
Even so, using any mix processor requires a bit of background info if you’re just getting started.
In this article I’ll explain how LANDR FX plugins work and show five creative ways to use them for a better mix.
Let’s get started.
LANDR FX Basics
Each LANDR FX plugin is designed for a specific element of your mix. The bundle includes dedicated processors for Voice, Beats, Bass, and Acoustic and Electric textures.
All five plugins share the same basic workflow. The main parameter is a blend control that sets the balance between the dry signal and the effect.
Turning this control clockwise adds more effect to the blend, making it stronger and more apparent. At the rightmost extreme of the dial, you’ll hear 100% effect signal.
This can be a dramatic way to make sounds stand out, but you can create a subtler effect by blending in some dry signal.
I like to audition presets at 100% wet to get a feel for what they do, but I usually blend in some dry signal so it’s not overwhelming in the mix.
Speaking of presets, the heart of each LANDR FX plugin is its preset library. Instead of tons of finicky parameters, we’ve opted to build dedicated presets that put the most important sounds at your fingertips.
Hot tip: Some LANDR FX presets built around compression and EQ work better when set to 100% wet.
All five plugins share the same basic workflow. The main parameter is a blend control that sets the balance between the dry signal and the effect.
One LANDR FX preset can contain several effect types in one, so the preset banks cover a lot of ground. Make sure to experiment with different presets to hear everything LANDR FX can do.
Finally, the last two controls are for input and output levels. The input control sets the strength of the signal sent to the effects engine. You may need to turn this up for softer signals, or trim it down if you’re hitting the effect too hard.
The output control is used to set the level of the sound after the effects processing. I generally set this to match the dry signal level so I can easily compare between the two.
If you’re not sure how to gauge your levels, head over to our guide to headroom and gain staging to brush up.
And with the fundamentals covered, here are 5 ways to use LANDR FX to shape your mix.
Make sure to experiment with different presets to hear everything LANDR FX can do.
1. Add punch, weight and color to beats
First up is LANDR FX Beats.
It features specialized presets for individual instruments like kick and snare as well as several great settings for drum bus.
If you’re working with a drum loop on a single stereo track, the “Drumkit” page of presets is your first stop.
Here you’ll find six stylish effects that combine dynamics, EQ, saturation and ambience to shape the sound.
For example, the “Tight’n’Punchy” preset clears up boomy low end and adds energy in the mids and highs on a drum bus.
2. Make vocals stand out with style
Vocal processing can be tedious.
After comping, editing, pitch correcting and everything else that goes into modern vocal production, setting up lots of effects can be tiring.
When I do it manually, I typically work with parallel buses for different effects, carefully blending each to taste.
LANDR FX makes it easy to apply a curated selection of vocal processing all at once—and adjust the intensity with a single control.
From full presets on the first page to individual settings for compression, EQ, saturation, delay and reverb, there’s a lot to work with in LANDR FX Voice.
I like the Rap God preset for giving hip-hop vocals the perfect amount of lively ambience, saturation and midrange push to work in the mix.
3. Bring your bass forward
Bass is one of the most difficult parts of a mix to get right.
Many modern genres rely on fat, subby bass tones like those from the 808 drum machine.
It’s a classic sound, but it’s very close to a raw sine wave and can easily get lost in a mix.
The reason why? The sine wave 808 bass lacks harmonics in the presence zone where our ears are most sensitive.
That’s why engineers often use saturation in parallel to give it more detail and definition.
I like the “Heavy” preset in the Amp FX section of LANDR FX Bass to add some saturation in parallel for 808 bass.
I typically blend in about 40% of the wet signal to get the right effect.
4. Accent effects for any instrument
It’s easy to end up with static, repeating sounds when you work with sampled loops.
To create interest between sections or to add drama to builds, fill and drops, you may need to add creative effects that transform your basic tracks.
To create interest between sections or to add drama to builds, fill and drops, you may need to add creative effects that transform your basic tracks.
That’s exactly what you can do on the Creative page of LANDR FX Acoustic.
From chorus to flanger and pulsing tremolo, you’ll find time-synced rhythmic effects, deep modulation, lo-fi and more.
It’s one way that LANDR FX Acoustic can go beyond typical effect styles for acoustic instruments.
That said, if you’re looking for a tasty reverb, delay or EQ preset for guitar or piano, you’ll find those here too!
5. Define a space in your mix
Distorted electric guitars and lush synth patches can take up a lot of space in a mix—sometimes even too much. If you mix in a genre that relies on sounds like this, you probably struggle with carving out enough space to make them fit.
LANDR FX Electric comes with handy presets for putting these sounds in their place.
Whether you need smooth, dark heaviness or raw, cutting edge, these settings will help you sculpt these tricky sources much faster.
One knob, no limits
LANDR FX was made for creators who need quick access to powerful processing without the creative drain of endless tweaking.
If you like the idea of picking a preset, setting the intensity and moving on with your workflow, this bundle is certainly worth a try.
Even if you’re used to more traditional mixing tools, there’s plenty to explore on the creative side of these straightforward plugins.
Download LANDR FX now to try all five for free and hear for yourself.
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