Pitch shifting effects

[mbengs1]

I bought a Digitech whammy DT last year. it was my all around pitch shift pedal since it could do everything, whammy, harmonizer, detune, and drop tunings. but it was a flop. it didnt sound right. there was a volume drop when activating the whammy and loss in treble frequencies. so i returned it. now i don't have any pitch shifting pedals. i'd like to get some though. the boss super octave and the harmonist. is this a good idea? what are your pitch shifter pedals?

[onelife]

The ME-25 has a Harmonist, Octaver and the Volume/Wah pedal can be set to raise or lower pitch by up to one octave. That's what I use.

[WRGKMC]

I don't bother with them. I use the natural method of bending strings, using a slide, or an actual whammy.

 

Strings can twang sharp when you pick them hard, finger pressure on the frets can change the pitch as well as temp changes.

A string doesn't produce a perfect sine wave either, it has overtones that ride on them and the waves can be asymmetrical depending on how the string vibrates across the pickups.

 

All of this plus the strength of the signal being generated can cause pitch lock issues using pitch effects. There's also a delay between the initial tone and getting a lock on the note. When using them your instrument has to be set up well and you often have to modify your playing style to get the most effective results.

 

The pitched notes aren't going to sound exactly the same as the original however. The overtones are usually filtered out because it takes extremely high speed clocks to reproduce them. What you're left with is a synthetic sounding clone of the original with those overtones missing. If you use a 50% or less mix between the pitched note and the original the effect can sound pretty good. 100% pitched can sound quite unnatural due to the missing overtones and limited frequency response.

 

Some of the pitch effects have gotten much better. Early versions had no filtering at all and getting a good lock was like pulling teeth. Some have gotten much better using various filters to remove harmonics that can cause false triggers and the clocks are faster so you can get a locks and releases at higher speeds.

 

Multiple strings have issues too because a guitar does not have true temperament. They use straight frets and tempered tuning which places all the notes at a slightly compromised frequency to yield close, but not perfect, tuning in all keys.

 

The pitch devices will lock on multiple strings if they are tuned to produce true temperament only. This means you can tweak a guitars tuning to produce a pitch shift on a guitar cord in one key, but the minute you switch keys or chord types the pitch lock for most pitch effects go nuts because of the string beating between notes.

 

You can get by some times, tuning a barre chord for minimal glitches and then playing the same bar chord up and down the neck for a chord progression. Other times you may get by switching between two barre chords like E and A type depending on how much of the chord you play. The B and G string are usually the toughest to lock and your tick strings are usually the easiest because they are a lower frequency and the frequency between notes is larger.

 

Single notes can be fairly easy so long as the notes are relatively the same strength and played cleanly.

[onelife]

Modern pitch shifters are much better - many of them are now polyphonic and do not require hex pickups.

 

Things are much different now than they were when you and I went to school.

[Jisatsu]

I still occassionally use my whammy 4, but it's been kicked off the board by a behringer ultra shifter/harmonist with an expression pedal. I also use my pitch factor from time to time, but its over priced for what I use it for. Surprisingly the behringer is polyphonic and works great and doesn't have any of the evil voodoo you'd associate evil cheap pedals with. I wouldn't use it in a war zone, but it works great in the studio or in the comfort of my home. Probably the best $40 I've spent on a new effect.

[mikesr1963]

Make a list of the pedals you think are the one for you then go to YouTube and enter the pedal name. Listen to all the samples.