Graphical Design Tool Ready for Eventide's Orville, DSP7000/75000

At the AES show in Los Angeles, Eventide announced that it is making version 2.0 of its VSIGfile program available to owners of its Orville and DSP7000/7500 Effects Processors. VSIGfile is the PC program used by effect designers at Eventide to create the many "presets" or programs contained in the company's Harmonizer brand effects processors. The number and wide variety of available effects is directly attributable to the use of VSIG to chain together the "building block" algorithms contained in the Harmonizer's operating system.

Eventide is making the new version 2.0 of this program available so that all owners can take advantage of its advanced programming capabilities. The program supports Eventide's current offerings - the Orville and DSP7000 series - and also works with the earlier DSP4000 units. Customers with these products will be able to, for example, load a "factory preset," see graphically how it is constructed, and modify it using the familiar "drag and drop" procedure, allowing processing blocks to be added or substituted.

Even more interesting to "power users" and sound designers will be the ability to create presets and algorithms from scratch.

"The capabilities of VSIG enhance and greatly extend the power of our processors," asserts Richard Factor, Eventide president and VSIG fan. "For example, in addition to recreating our classic Omnipressor brand dynamics modifier by replicating the original analog circuitry with digital building blocks, I also used VSIGfile to generate the complex signal of a VOR radio navigation beacon." Other applications - audio, broadcast, and exotic - are open to VSIGfile users. Using the 96 kHz sampling rate of the current generation of Eventide processors allows one to create an FM-stereo signal source. Complex tone and test signals can be synthesized, and even a spectrum analyzer module is available.

VSIGfile 2.0 with its new and comprehensive user manual is available for free download at www.eventide.com/vsigfile. New features for this 32-bit release include improved printing, graphics, communications options, and a host of features. Of particular note is the "Supermodule" capability, which allows the user to group modular building blocks as a single construct. These constructs then become a "library" of user-specific modules that can themselves be used to create new programs.

The program is compatible with Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, and NT4.0, and requires either a serial port or MIDI to communicate with the Harmonizer. Non-Eventide-owners can explore its capabilities without any external connection, as the "database" of Harmonizer building-block modules can also be obtained from the web site.