Let's talk about pitch shifters!

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Is the Pitchshifter idea still on hold? I saw the post where you mentioned Little Microshift as doing the doubling thing well, and putting your idea on the back burner. I still think there's room for a Valhalla PitchShifter. If still on, I guess my question would be, if so: what do you envision the plug as being? For instance, is it a 4 voice H910 style plug? I ask because you mentioned at one point wanted to do the Low drum sound, which is that detuning snare, so I'm guessing your shifter would need a delay (I'm pretty sure it's a short delay with the detuning more with each pass). In addition, I really think the VST world is sorely lacking a good Whammy effect (i.e. smooth pitch bends).

In the last few weeks I've been running my guitars through various vintage style Pitchshifters a LOT and it made me remember this thread. In doing this, I've been playing Radiohead's My Iron Lung a lot (great example of pitch shift artifacts) and Subterranean Homesick Alien (which has great whammy dives and slides). Both songs kind of work on a "if it sounds cool playing this, I know I've got something," then I'll usually wander off and experiment some more. Out of the things I've been using:

Discord3: Been using this for everything from subtle doubling, to weirdo octave shifts, to detuning "Bowie-esque" snares. The pitch shifting algorthms could probably be better, but it's capable of a lot of cool sounds. I really dig the randomness in the granular mode. Another pro: no latency. I wish the buffer size (or grain length) were fixed for what sounded best in each mode (as a user do I care?) but knowing Chris Randall, I'm sure he wanted to give users the options to make it sound bad versus making it sound as slick as possible all the itme.

Crystalizer: Demoed this recently. It's definitely a higher quality algorithm than Discord, but in the end, covered a lot of the same territory in that both are very much H910 inspired. That said, there's a sheen about the algorithm that sounds very 80's or 90's to my ear, in a way that can be both good and bad.

Little AlterBoy: Great to screw around with, but the latency (+51ms) is killer for live use/monitoring.

Eventide H910 (UAD): Suffers from a convoluted "let's make the UI just like the hardware for no good reason other than to remind people of it" basic principal, but otherwise very cool. Sounds less "slick" then Crystalizer, but better than Discord IMO.

Digitech Whammy (hardware): just bought a Whammy IV over the weekend for a $100. I think I've wanted one since 8th grade, and about 20 years later I finally bit the bullet after seeing it on Craigslist. Talk about artifacts! But that's the charm of it right? In hindsight, I shoulda probably sprung for the Whammy V cause it has true bypass and the "chords" mode, which works better on polyphonic material, but at the same time, I've been hearing Whammy artifacts on recordings for 20+ years, so maybe it didn't need improving. Love the pitch bending aspect of this. Far more interesting than another H910.

So just for the sake of continuing the conversation on pitch shifters: based on the above, I land on my ideal pitch shifter having (or being capable of):

1. No latency (or low enough not to mess with live monitoring guitar)
2. Smooth Pitch Bends/Dive Bombs (automatable of course - should also be MIDI learnable for connecting an expression pedal or knob)
3. Harmonies (this would mean some level of "smart shifting" which I know you didn't want to do - but think digital, artifact laden harmonies like a Whammy)
4. Built in delay with the shifter in the delay path
5. +/-2 Oct Range
6. A "smooth" mode that works on polyphonic material in addition to a monophonic "vintage" with the clanky high end

So my ideal pitch shifter is basically an H910 meets a Whammy V. It doesn't need to be the slickest pitch shifting in the world either, but it just needs to sound cool. In the end, no real point to this post other than to just talk about stuff I think is cool relating to pitch shifters...

Hint (for anyone also screwing around with this stuff): if you want to tame some of the more unpleasant pitch shifter artifacts, particularly the ones that just jump out in volume, a dynamic EQ like the TDL Nova works great.

[valhallasound]

Is the Pitchshifter idea still on hold?

Yes, for now. I'll revisit it in the future, but I have a few other projects that take precedence at the moment.

Sean Costello

[Googly Smythe]

... I have a few other projects that take precedence at the moment.

Sean Costello

Time to start putting pennies in my piggy bank...

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Is the Pitchshifter idea still on hold?

Yes, for now. I'll revisit it in the future, but I have a few other projects that take precedence at the moment.

Sean Costello

I'm sure I'll be jumping on those other projects like I have every other Valhalla release so far. There's a big gap in the current plugin market for a simple Whammy style plugin (I don't know of a single good one), especially if one could combine that with some cool H910-esque features, so hopefully that's territory you'd consider exploring in the future.

[stardustmedia]

Hi Sean

Yes, a pitchshifter with your mentioned features would be indeed nice. Especially when Sean Valhalla Costello programs it, I bet it'll be great

For me most important is:
- Timing of the pitchshifted signal. No delay, or as little as possible, or respectively when mixed with the dry signal the delay is not "obvious". I'd rather miss the no or low latency for this. Maybe there is a possibility to have two different modes.

Some ideas:
- But a feature that let's you modulate the timing, so the harmonies become more "natural". I think of the Waves ADT.
- Also modulating the pitch amount slightly. I think the H910 does that too, right? If modulation, then why not adding different LFO waveforms, and even add an LFO that goes up to 1-2kHz? (If that makes any sense in such a plugin )
- MIDI-controllable, so one can "play" the melody/harmonies, thus also polyphonic would be nice (if possible at all in one plugin only)
- Awesome could be MIDI-controllable by e.g. the pitchbender

PS: Eventide creates some artifacts, yes (I know them at least from my H3000), but actually in the mix they never sound unpleasant. They are not good enough to use 100% dry though. I never was in a situation where I wanted a Microshifter to be 100% dry.

[Constructed Identity]

If you do a pitch shifter you have to do a really, really good one. They are used in multitracking vocals and as you know there are other options out there so you would have to set yourself above the competition. I use Discord 3 currently and I don't really like it for a number of reasons... I suggested another idea on your site that has less competition but I won't get into that here.
I don't know why you don't do a 'super' version of FreqEcho with more options for creative madness.

[valhallasound]

If you do a pitch shifter you have to do a really, really good one. They are used in multitracking vocals and as you know there are other options out there so you would have to set yourself above the competition.

Honestly, I feel that there is still a bunch of things to explore with really, really crappy pitch shifters. As far as really good pitch shifting, it is hard to beat something like Melodyne, which is simply mind blowing technology. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of artifacts in the old school pitch shifters that can be extended upon and exploited. I look at pitch shifting as a way of making weird and awesome sounds, versus a way of playing different notes than the note you are starting with.

Sean Costello

[deastman]

As I mentioned at the beginning of this topic, I really love the grungy texture of the SPX-900, which I got a lot of mileage out of back in the day. The SPX-90 is probably even more glorious in it's lofi artifacts, although I never used one. The SE-70 was another great one. I suppose you're mostly thinking about Eventide, but some of those cheaper boxes had a ton of character.

[valhallasound]

As I mentioned at the beginning of this topic, I really love the grungy texture of the SPX-900, which I got a lot of mileage out of back in the day. The SPX-90 is probably even more glorious in it's lofi artifacts, although I never used one. The SE-70 was another great one. I suppose you're mostly thinking about Eventide, but some of those cheaper boxes had a ton of character.

I've been focusing on my own artifacts as of late. In other words, I'm not thinking about emulating any particular piece of gear, so much as taking some of the simpler "sawtooth modulated delay lines with crossfading" pitch shifters, and figuring out different ways of routing things to get cool weirdo sounds.

I have an REX50, but it has a grounding issue. I'm worried that it will electrocute me, and/or destroy the gear that it is plugged into. I've had that happen before - a Univibe generated a shock, and fried my Juno-60. Anyway, I have a friend that has an SPX90, so I'll check that out at some point.

Lexicon always had good pitch shifters, but they don't get much credit for them. The Varispeech did pitch shifting around the same time as the earliest Eventides (if not earlier), and the later Lexicons did a good job at figuring out good splicing intervals. I'll revisit my Boss SE50 to listen to the pitch shifting in there. I also have one of those Boss half-rack pitch shifters, which undoubtedly has all sorts of tasty artifacts - gotta get it out of storage and listen to it again.

Sean Costello

[Constructed Identity]

I think what you want is something like the esoteric petal set ups used in some classic music.
It would be interesting to get a shifted artifact generator in a delay plugin.
One thing I have used that gave me some great effects was this : http://www.numerisson.com/novaflash/vst ... index.html
specifically the buffer freeze could give great results...
The effect is not being updated anymore and I think it didn't save settings or something as well (a shame).

[Krakatau]

A



I have an REX50, but it has a grounding issue.
have a friend that has an SPX90, so I'll check that out at some point.


Sean Costello

As far as i remember, except distortions or alike, both models share exactly the same algorithms : the pitch transposers in the REX50 are all present in the SPX90 ( A : single pitch rranspotition with MIDI control plus to minus one octave, B two transpostion, C also two in stereo, D : same as A)

much souvenirs with an SPX90 as creative tools both on insert or on send/return loop on a 4track K7 during eighties when i was young...

[pough]

...with my own special sauce squirted in there (ewww).

..."I'd rather that you work on an xxx plugin" ...

ValhallaAuralSex is coming soon?

[valhallasound]

...with my own special sauce squirted in there (ewww).

..."I'd rather that you work on an xxx plugin" ...

ValhallaAuralSex is coming soon?

[valhallasound]

A



I have an REX50, but it has a grounding issue.
have a friend that has an SPX90, so I'll check that out at some point.


Sean Costello

As far as i remember, except distortions or alike, both models share exactly the same algorithms : the pitch transposers in the REX50 are all present in the SPX90 ( A : single pitch rranspotition with MIDI control plus to minus one octave, B two transpostion, C also two in stereo, D : same as A)

much souvenirs with an SPX90 as creative tools both on insert or on send/return loop on a 4track K7 during eighties when i was young...

I borrowed a friend's SPX900 during the development process of ValhallaSpaceModulator (it was used to dial in the Symphonic mode). The pitch shifting in the SPX900 is straight up "my first pitch shifter" style pitch shifting: 2 delay taps, with triangle windowing to fade each tap in and out, ramp modulation. Turn the pitch shift up +12 semitones, and you get tons of metallic artifacts. Very different than the later Eventide and Lexicon pitch shifting, which always tries to find a good splicing point.

Sean Costello

[valhallasound]

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