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Re: Pitch Shifter



Title: Re: Pitch Shifter
At 9:58 AM +0200 5/21/04, Jens Wolters wrote:

"How much do you want to spend?"
Since I just but bought the really expensive Echoplex I cant spend that much.

That's not a helpful answer. I was hoping for something along the lines of "$500" or "$1500."

"How good does it have to sound?"
Its has to sound pretty good. I would like to use it for live n studio work.

The more you spend, the better it should sound. In my personal experience the processors that sound good enough for studio work are in the price range above $1000. However, much depends on the prevailing quality of sound and on the function of the processed sound in the mix. You can get away with a lot in some situations. For instance, if looped material doesn't need to match the live parts, but rather can sound remote,it can be low pass filtered and/or reverberated. This will camouflage a lesser quality of sound.

"What type of material are you processing?"
I play in jazz rock/fusion context. (drums, bass, guitar) On the one hand Im looping rhythmic phrases and on the other hand soundscapes.
Since were playing jazz I dont wanna stay in the same harmonic context all the time. But when I create a new loop with a different chord the hole energy goes down to much. I want to keep the flow. So I want to take the loop and just transponse it 4 notes up for example.

You'll want to avoid pitch shifters that are designed mainly for voice. Some of those from Digitech and TC are of that type. They have the ability to independently adjust formants, but the method used isn't optimal for instrumental mixes. In general it is a greater challenge to shift complex mixes; therefore it can be more expensive.

size="-1">"Eventide and Lexicon have been pitch shifting the longest and have excellent quality. Digitech has done a good job at a lower price. tc electronic is good."
Those seem to be really expensive.

What do you consider not "really expensive"? Zoom? Maybe someone on the list can suggest something cheap and decent sounding. In my experience this can sometimes be found (in a reverb shoot-out some years back we found that the Alesis Quadraverb stood up pretty well even against the high-priced reverbs).

Since Im owning a notebook and I might use Ableton/Reaktor I thouht about using a software solution. What do you think about that ? Of course a simple Hardware would be nicer.

There are some very good plug-ins. I'm particularly fond of GRM Tools, SoundToys, Waves, and PSP. The best for pitch shifting are from SoundToys, but unfortunately they're limited to TDM and RTAS.  Waves UltraPitch is also quite good and is VST compatible.
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