Pitch Question

[slaughlin1103]

Hello All,

 

On my Helix I have a patch the has a simple pitch set for Eb. When I select from a standard tunning all work well except B and high E.

They are not tracking properly, is there anything I can try? I am playing an Anderson and will list the settings below.

 

Pitch is placed first in line.

Settings... Interval -1....Cents 0.00....Delay 0.0ms....Shift Level 10.0...Mix 100%.....Level 0.0db

 

Thanks

Steve

[j_hotch]

Perhaps a compressor before the pitch effect, to keep the signal more steady?

[slaughlin1103]

I tried the compressor before the pitch block and it still sounds like an out of tune 12 string?

I have the pitch block in the beginning of the chain. Might have to try some shifting around.

Thanks for your responses.

[cruisinon2]

12 hours ago, slaughlin1103 said:

I tried the compressor before the pitch block and it still sounds like an out of tune 12 string?

I have the pitch block in the beginning of the chain. Might have to try some shifting around.

Thanks for your responses.

 

Depending on exactly what/ how you're playing, it's very likely that your problem is due to the fact that it's not a polyphonic pitch shifter. It's not intended to drop-tune the entire guitar. It might work passably under certain circumstances, but artifacts and tracking issues are inevitable if you're playing more than one note at a time.

 

If you really need polyphonic shifting that's clean and reliable, with minimal latency, the Digitech Drop is still the best option out there. Something similar might come to Helix eventually, but if/when is anybody's guess.

 

And imho, any pitch shifting effect (polyphonic or not) needs to be the first thing in the chain. If you try and feed a pitch shifter a signal that's already heavily altered, particularly with distortion or any other modulation FX, they tend not to track nearly as well. 

[slaughlin1103]

That is very interesting and new to me. I am still learning so really appreciate the information.

 

Thanks

[jester700]

On 4/29/2019 at 9:07 AM, cruisinon2 said:

And imho, any pitch shifting effect (polyphonic or not) needs to be the first thing in the chain. If you try and feed a pitch shifter a signal that's already heavily altered, particularly with distortion or any other modulation FX, they tend not to track nearly as well. 

 

It does depend on the sound you're after. For drop tuning, or octaves, I agree. For "twin guitar" parallel thirds using distortion, although you're right that it tracks better if the harmonizer is first in the chain, I think it sounds better if it's post distortion. The IM distortion you get when adding the new voices wrecks the "sweetness" of that sound to my ear.

 

And yeah, my DT Whammy (latest version) drops better than the Helix, It has the same algorithm as the DT Drop.

[guenni68]

While my Helix Native 2 weeks demo experience I have found out the following points regarding pitch shifting:

1. For just detuning the guitar (i.e Eb) the best choice is the whammy => best result before amp / distortion.

2. For harmonizer stuff the block works better after the amp / distortion.

 

I hope this can help.

Cheers,

Guenter

[jester700]

The Digitech harmony man (one of the best "intelligent harmonizer" FX ever) has a split input so that you can use one feed for tracking (just clean with maybe a compressor as mentioned earlier) and a second feed for the effected actual signal, which could be post-fuzzbox. I'd think that Helix could allow this kind of routing if it were desired, and it would be the best of all worlds.