Pitch Shifters

From harmonising to replicating the sound of a bass, meet the effect that’ll unlock your pitch

The pitch family of effects includes everything from octavers through to the pitch-bending legato of DigiTech’s classic Whammy, but this issue we’re turning our attention to pitch shifters.

A pitch shifter pedal is generally more fully-stocked than an octaver, with a greater range of intervals on offer, covering multiple jobs in one pedal. Pitch pedals have come a long way in the last few years. Whereas pitch shifters of yore would take your notes and warble them up or down to varying degrees, 2017’s models are stable, solid and more sophisticated than ever before.

The concept is simple – much like the ‘transpose’ button on a keyboard, pitch shifters quite literally take the incoming signal and shift it by your choice of interval. This used to only apply to single-note lines, but now it’s perfectly feasible that a pitch shifter can handle polyphonic playing like doublestops and chords with ease.

Some examples allow the connection of an expression pedal, as well as individual controls for mixing the pitch-shifted sound with your original. So, with that in mind, a polyphonic pitch shifter has you covered for everything from simple octaves up or down, intervals in between, or harmonised playing too.Once you’re used to using them, you can also try placing your pitch pedals in different parts of your chain to get creative.

pitch pedals have come a long way… 2017’s models are stable, solid and more sophisticated than ever

1 Pitch This will determine how many semitones the pitch changes by. Some pedals offer chromatic steps, while others use preset common intervals 2 Blend If your pedal has a blend control, it will balance between the effected and original pitch...

3 Expression pedal Some pedals allow you to connect an expression pedal to provide whammy bar-style pitch bends