TC Just jumped up the pitch shifter game. This is the kind of pitch modeling we need on the Helix

[tjbassoon]

http://www.tcelectronic.com/quintessence-harmonizer/

 

Custom scales? Check

Great sound? Seems like check

Single or dual harmony.

Delay option.

 

C'mon Line6, I know you can do this.

[DanishMic]

Sweet.

[mdmayfield]

At about 2:00 in that video, they show holding the button down to change the pitch. You can already do this in the Helix by assigning a pedal to a parameter or snapshot controlling the interval.

 

At 2:37, there are delay effect arpeggios, which are also doable in the Helix easily using a 50% Mix on a delay in the top path plus 100% on another delay in the bottom path.

 

This pedal doesn't appear to have the ability to automatically mix, say, 3rds and 4ths for different notes within a scale (as would be necessary for licks like The Boys Are Back In Town). The Helix can't do this either, but you can assign a pedal to Momentary mode and coordinate feet with hands.

 

Also, being a pedal, it's hard to put after the amp in order to get a nice studio double-tracked sound. At best you can put it in an effects loop. On the Helix you can actually harmonize the post-amp sound.

 

On the other hand, the actual pitch shifting algorithm does sound better to me than Helix's. It sounds like TCE is doing some sort of formant correction which the Helix does not (Helix pitch shifts can get a little "chipmunk"-y).

 

Personally, I only use harmony on a song or two here and there, and from the video at least, this pedal doesn't seem enough of an improvement to me over the Helix's built-in pitch shifters to be worth lugging around and putting in a Helix effects loop. It looks more like something specifically for people who want to stick entirely with individual pedals instead of programmable multi-FX.

[tjbassoon]

 

This pedal doesn't appear to have the ability to automatically mix, say, 3rds and 4ths for different notes within a scale (as would be necessary for licks like The Boys Are Back In Town). The Helix can't do this either, but you can assign a pedal to Momentary mode and coordinate feet with hands.

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure this fits into the "custom scales" bit that you can design on the computer. You only have three presets to work with, but that will cover it. Every time you play Tonic harmonize a third, ever time you play Supertonic harmonize a fourth, Mediant harmonize a third again. This is something we can't do on the Helix yet. I can do it on my Voicelive from TC Helicon.

 

But yeah, the sound quality was what I was thinking more about. Tracking and sound quality seem to be the issue most people here take with the pitch shifting on the Helix (which really isn't that bad, don't know why it's sh*t on so much).

[mdmayfield]

I saw you were using a bassoon with the Helix.... Times have changed a lot since New York Counterpoint huh? :-D

[tjbassoon]

I saw you were using a bassoon with the Helix.... Times have changed a lot since New York Counterpoint huh? :-D

 

No doubt. :-)

 

https://soundcloud.com/northerndarling/circles (made before I got the Helix, but you get the gist)

[shanecgriffo]

the video uses pretty much the same guitar tone throughout.. would have liked to see how it sounds with a bit of tonal variation..

[tjbassoon]

the video uses pretty much the same guitar tone throughout.. would have liked to see how it sounds with a bit of tonal variation..

 

Agree. A clean sound would be very telling.

[cclement]

I saw you were using a bassoon with the Helix.... Times have changed a lot since New York Counterpoint huh? :-D

 

Wow... a Steve Reich reference on a guitar forum about a digital amp modeler... what a word we live in ;) 

[Roberttheprole]

Helix pitch shifting is usable, but only just, tracking is very poor. I hope getting this straightened out is one of line 6's main priorities with Helix......

[shredzilla1964]

I'll stick with what's in the helix over that, from what I see in the vid it's imo nothing revolutionary?

[mileskb]

I'm more interested in a whammy type pitch shift.    The Helix does what i need for harmonies now "good enough" and will only get better.

[phil_m]

I can't really comment on the TC pedal itself, but I thought the video was rather unimpressive... I thought all the harmonies in it sounded kind of fake.

 

Honestly, it's very hard for me to get excited about any pitch-type effects other than Whammy-type drops. They just always sound dated to me.

[MarkJarvis]

Guys..I like TC but damm if this thing sounds awful....

[jmp22684]

Helix harmonies, pitch shifting, octave, whatever is usually kept at a low mix for me.

 

The tracking needs A LOT of work.

 

Basically I mix in just barely enough that you can tell something is there. Anything beyond that and its poor tracking REALLY shines through. The HD500 handled octaves and such better than the helix imo.

[Tehzim]

Yeah I'm a TC Fanboy and I have to say that sounded kind of jankey.  I mean it sounds like it has a lot of features but without them actually playing some of the licks they describe it's hard to judge on some dude just jamming.

[jbuhajla]

Pitch shifting has always sounded cheesy to me anyway, no matter how good the tracking is. I'll use a Whammy on occasion, but only to slide up/down octaves ala Satch

[tedulrich]

Pitch shifting has always sounded cheesy to me anyway, no matter how good the tracking is. I'll use a Whammy on occasion, but only to slide up/down octaves ala Satch

 

Satch is one of the few that I've heard a harmonizer sound I like from.  In particular it was 'Why?' from The Extremist, and going by interviews that was done with an old IPS 33B, which he still uses live exclusively for that song because nothing else can match it. 

 

For guitar, I like a few cents dialed in as a detune here and there, but I use a crappy old ART rack processor I picked up dirt cheap on a pawn shop trawl for that - I like the sound from that particular old piece of kit, and that's pretty much all I use that thing for. 

 

The Helix pitch shift works a lot better for me on synth, as it's already an "artificial" sound so to speak, and it seems to fit quite well in that application. 

[bonzai01]

Yeah I'm a TC Fanboy and I have to say that sounded kind of jankey.  I mean it sounds like it has a lot of features but without them actually playing some of the licks they describe it's hard to judge on some dude just jamming.

The main reason that it sounds bad is that the harmonizer is before the amp.  Time and pitch based effects need to go after the amp.  That is the whole reason for effects loops.