Let's talk about pitch shifters!

[Grizzellda]

Hey Sean, I haven't tried your new plug-in yet, but if it has anything like the "symphonic mode" of older Yamaha hardware boxes, then I am excited about this!!! If so, please talk somewhat about it.

This is a beautiful lush chorus type of sound, as far as I'm concerned... would love to hear your ideas regarding these older units, late 80's, early 90's type stuff...Rock 'n' Roll!

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I should note that ValhallaSpaceModulator has some pitch shifter stuff in it.

- The Up mode is a straight ahead 2 tap pitch shifter, with staggered phase for left and right channels.
- Up/Down is similar to Up, but with different pitch direction in each channel. Note that this does NOT lead to a symmetrical shift in the left and right channels, in terms of semitones. The parameters for the pitch shift are "Rate" and "Depth," and having the same depth and inverted rate for the channels results in some pitch strangeness.
- Ocho is like a 4 voice version of Up (8 taps total), with the phases staggered across the stereo spectrum.
- VariUp is based on the Lexicon Varispeech, which uses 1 delay tap, and zero crossing to find a good splicing point. Zero crossing is ludicrously poor at finding splicing points for non-periodic signals, and as soon as you apply feedback, the zero-crossing ends up failing. I just decided to skip any attempts to find a good splicing point, and let things click. You won't notice when you turn up the feedback (and VariUp was DESIGNED to have the feedback turned up).
- VariUp/Down is a stereo version of VariUp, with different pitch directions in each channel.

All of these pitch shifters are as far away from "intelligent" pitch shifting as you can get. ValhallaSpaceModulator is all about the artifacts of these techniques (there are also some non-pitch shifter choruses and flangers in SpaceModulator, but that is for a different thread).

Sean Costello

Sounds like time for a blog post/manual on the new plug!

[caulixtla]

I borrowed a friend's SPX900

In an imaginary perfect world, Valhalla Vintage Verb is not a VST plugin, but a dedicated hardware tabletop unit next to my hardware recording/mixing unit, with the knobs the same size and positions as they are in the plugin.

Back to this thread, in said imaginary perfect world, we get a Valhalla interpretation of the SPX900’s echo room reverb algorithm.

Back to pitch shifting, it was Jon Dattorro (they guy who first made some of the Lexicon 224’s reverb algorithms public knowledge) who developed the first really really good pitch shifter, which was released as the Lexicon 2400. Film and post production loved it — it cost a pretty penny, but it was the first pitch shifter without serious artifacts. They used it to raise the pitch of the actor who played John Connor’s voice in the movie Terminator II.

[valhallasound]

Hey Sean, I haven't tried your new plug-in yet, but if it has anything like the "symphonic mode" of older Yamaha hardware boxes, then I am excited about this!!! If so, please talk somewhat about it.

This is a beautiful lush chorus type of sound, as far as I'm concerned... would love to hear your ideas regarding these older units, late 80's, early 90's type stuff...Rock 'n' Roll!

Not much to say about the Symphonic mode. It's an ensemble-type algorithm - multiple taps, with the modulation designed to sound complex with less audible patterns. I doubt that I dialed the exact parameters in of the SPX900 (there were different beating patterns at each individual speed/depth setting of that processor), but I feel I captured the basic idea. Plus, I added some scattering feedback, upped the max delay time to 500 ms or so, and turned it into a really grainy and weird pseudo-reverb (when Feedback and Manual are turned up).

Sean Costello

[mcbpete]

Think this might be completely the wrong place to query this but: Has anyone had any experience with comparing Discord3's modelling of the Eventide H910 and H949 in the plugin, vs an actual H910/949 - How close did they manage to get ?

What does the anti-feedback dial do on the Eventide BTW - Is it some sort of limiter ?