Questions about the Pitch shifter

[d0stenning]

Is the Pitch shifter some kind of granular or other pitch-time shift algorithm effect thing like the suite of such DSP effects zPlane licenses to Ableton and other DAW makers ?

 

 and why do some like it as an alternative to delay or chorus type sounds ?  

 

I notice Scott Minck ( HELIX Channel )  uses it a lot in his patches but i always thought it was kind of weird because most pitch shifting technologies out there degrade the original sound somewhat - admittedly the tech is getting better every few years... but still

[phil_m]

I don't understand what you mean by "granular effect thing"... Pitch shift is kind of related to chorus in the fact that a chorus is kind of a light detuning effect. The Digitech Whammy has a detune setting which is very chorus-like, so I think sometimes people use a pitch shift effect with small intervals to try to recreate that.

[DunedinDragon]

I use the pitch shifter quite often on finger picked songs or ballads.  It gives it that fatness almost like a 12 string, but more constant without the fluctuation of a chorus effect.  In a way it's similar to what happens on a piano with multiple strings struck by the hammer.  I suppose if you broadened the shift you would almost approach a honky-tonk detuning effect.

[HonestOpinion]

Chorus effects also add a short delay. They get the thickening effect by modulating that delay and mixing it with the direct signal.

[JimBenson]

The current pitch shifters in Helix do not work well for any but the simplest chords.  For example, any pitch shifted chord that includes a tritone sounds bad.  Is it reasonably feasible for the Helix pitch shifters to be improved to the point where any pitch shifted chord sounds good?  (Do the pitch shifters in other products, like the H9, pitch shift chords well?)

[WickedFinger]

Far as I know they are not new tech polyphonic tracking so playing chords is going to be a glitch out. You can usually get away w simple two note, root & 5th chords but little else. 

Far as single note riffs they do very well. I do miss my Whammy V, may have to get another one and loop it in. The new V is polyphonic and true bypass. I used to marvel at users of the older model whammy and other monophonic tracking pedals playing chords and thinking the tracking glitch burble was a part of the "tone". 

[d0stenning]

I don't understand what you mean by "granular effect thing"... Pitch shift is kind of related to chorus in the fact that a chorus is kind of a light detuning effect. The Digitech Whammy has a detune setting which is very chorus-like, so I think sometimes people use a pitch shift effect with small intervals to try to recreate that.

there are several different DSP technologies used in products such as DAWs such as Ableton  and in plugins etc  to deliver both time and pitch shifting. 

 

Companies such as zPlane and AutoTune and TC Electronic etc licence them.  Of the many schemes to do pitch shifting - one uses a technique called granular synthesis. without getting into details - it introduces artefacts - well they all do in fact but of course as tech progresses the makers of these try to minimise such things. 

 

Having said this - of course Ableton and DAWs usually have the advantage in that the audio is already in place and the processing isn't necessarily having to be done in real-time  - as of course **is** the case for  HELIX or H9 etc.. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_time-scale/pitch_modification

 

 

http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/granular-synthesis

[d0stenning]

Chorus effects also add a short delay. They get the thickening effect by modulating that delay and mixing it with the direct signal.

sure.  i was just wondering why Scott prefers the sound of whatever is in the Pitch shifter algorithms.  And whether others here prefer the pith shifter for chorus type sounds.