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6. The Eventide Ultra-Harmonizer

1 Eventide Ultra-Harmonizers are expensive, expansive and expressive effects processors. Once unobtainable dream machines, Eventide themselves now make a native plugin version that can be enjoyed without breaking the bank. Let’s take a look at what it can do to this simple analogue-style drumbeat loaded into our DAW. 2 We’ll instantiate the Eventide H3000 Factory plugin on one of our drum track’s inserts. The default patch doesn’t do anything except pass the signal through. There are loads of interesting presets with which to play, but we’re going to dive right into the deep end and patch up our own custom effect. 3 The original H3000’s cryptic front panel has been joined by a modular patch cable-based routing system shown in the lower-left. Here, the Left and Right inputs are just routed to the Left and Right outputs. We can click and drag the patch cables as we like. Here, we’ve placed the Delay 1 and Delay 2 modules in between the Inputs and Outputs. 4 Clicking on a module reveals its parameters on the lower-right. We’ll click on Delay 1 and increase its Feedback level to 52%. Now we can hear the echoes in our left channel. We’ll click on the Delay 2 module and set its Feedback to the same amount. We’ll also set its Delay Amount value to 375 ms. 5 That’s pretty cool, but nothing special. Any stereo delay module could do this. Maybe we need to explore the Eventide’s pitchshifting prowess. Let’s detach Delay 1 from the Left Output and patch the Pitch Shift 1 module between them. We’ll click the Pitch Shift 1 module to edit its parameters. 6 Let’s increase Pitch Shift 1’s Shift Amount to 1200. We now have two distinct pitches, one in each speaker. Next, let’s change the position of some of the modules. Click the Delay 2 module and drag it to the right, over the Pitch Shift 2 module. Releasing it will swap those modules around. 7 Now let’s change the routing of our right channel, so that the Right Input goes into the Pitch Shift 2 module, which will be routed into Delay 2. Delay 2 will go to Right Output. We’ll click on Pitch 2 and reduce its Shift Amount to -4800. That’s super-low! 8 Let’s now click on Pitch Shift 2 to edit it. Find the Modulation Source section and open the Shift Amount dropdown to choose Function Generator. It immediately kicks in. Clicking Function Generator in the lower-left allows us to edit it. We’ll change the FG Type to Sample & Hold. Cool!