Great success with using pitch shifter to tune down

boltrecords

Fractal Fanatic
i played a gig saturday night and for the first time, i kept all my guitars in standard tuning and only used the pitch shifter to drop me a half step. it worked great. the feel and tone was still there. it made everything a breeze. not only did i not have to keep switching guitars, but i didnt have to waste a guitar i really love playing for 3 songs that were tuned down. i can now use any guitar for any song and not have to have a guitar dedicated to the tuned down songs. this is great

i think i may end up using a separate preset for my tuned down songs. by using the pitch shifter it does cut a small amount of gain from the tone. but very very little. if i use a separate preset i can bump the gain a little without effecting the original preset.

the rest of the show was great and i got tons of complements on tone. its amazing how much more this rig cuts through a mix than some tube amps do. my band mate has an EVH 5150 III and i always stand out in the mix so much more. i think im very close to convinving him to get one as well. that would be awesome, one band with two AXE fx's.
 
Congrats!

Funny, I did exactly the same thing on Saturday! Finally decided I was ready to incorporate the AxeII into my live rig, so I had my first gig with it. This is definately the first pitch shifter I've used that works well enough that it is actually useable for detuning. Same good tone and no pitch tracking issues. We only do a few songs in Eb, so not having to switch guitars is great. Only downside is the delay that the shifter introduces... I can tell it's there, but it's not enough to throw the timing off to where the audience would notice. If I had to do a lot of songs in Eb, I'd probably still switch guitars, but for getting by on a limited number, it's awesome.
 
Congrats!

Funny, I did exactly the same thing on Saturday! Finally decided I was ready to incorporate the AxeII into my live rig, so I had my first gig with it. This is definately the first pitch shifter I've used that works well enough that it is actually useable for detuning. Same good tone and no pitch tracking issues. We only do a few songs in Eb, so not having to switch guitars is great. Only downside is the delay that the shifter introduces... I can tell it's there, but it's not enough to throw the timing off to where the audience would notice. If I had to do a lot of songs in Eb, I'd probably still switch guitars, but for getting by on a limited number, it's awesome.

This. I too feel the delay but, it really isn't that bad. I have never tried a Morpheus peday so, I really don't know what to gauge it against. It's pretty nice having that flexibility.

-Nate
 
I haven't taken it to the stage yet, but I've got a pitch block first in my chain all of the time. It's really great when trying to cop licks on the fly !

That said, sometimes it sounds very pure to me, sometimes it sounds a little metallic ? I've chalked that up to my ears on any given day ....
 
try setting the tracking parameter to 1.81. its all the way at the bottom of the page.
i played around with it a lot and that seems to be the best spot to equal out the delay. Not PERFECT but almost.
make sure to set the mix to 100% and turn off the level completely for one of the detunes. if youre running both 1 and 2 it sounds doubled and too digital. so i turn one off.

edit: see next post for settings
 
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ok i just looked at it again...heres the actual settings.

use fixed harmony
on page 2 set voice 1 shift to -1 (for down half step)
voice 1 level to 100%
voice 2 level to zero (so the sound isnt doubled)
pitch track on
track adjust to 1.81 (if someone finds a better setting for this let me know, i could be off)

mix page
mix to 100%
level to 1.0

any parameter i didnt mention was left at the default
 
Guys,
I am getting some additional latency with my unit using these and pretty much any settings. I don't recall it being like this with my Ultra. Anybody else? I want local poly correct?
 
I'm revisiting this to see if anyone has any additional tricks or suggestions because the latency was quite a bit less in the Ultra. I can feel it and am having to compensate for the delay which I didn't really have to do before. I am NOT imagining this. If it is what it is then I will deal, maybe get another guitar for 1/2 down stuff which is exactly what I wanted to avoid but the feel just isn't that great IMHO.

Lovin' 5.04b, best thing in the world!
 
I am going to give this a shot. Some fingerings are a pain when they get moved to accommodate vocal ranges and such. Is it possible to set up so you can have a global pitch change triggered by the MFC, or would it be a per-patch sort of thing?
 
does placement have anything to do with latency? If so what is the optimum placement? If I can shave a few milliseconds here or there it might make all the difference in the world in my case.
 
You generally want to have the pitch block first, because otherwise it's having to try to work on shifting a signal that's already been processed. I don't know it that will affect latency, but it generally gives a more consistent sound.
 
Hey,
This is really a great thread.........I never knew we could do this and....now......I am playing along to the new Van Halen Album in Eb by activation of a single block. PHENOMONAL. It sounds great to me !!!

Thanks Anthony for sharing the preset info !! DEFINATE KEEPER :)
 
I am going to give this a shot. Some fingerings are a pain when they get moved to accommodate vocal ranges and such. Is it possible to set up so you can have a global pitch change triggered by the MFC, or would it be a per-patch sort of thing?
If you put a pitch shifter in every patch and attach it's bypass state to an external controller it will be global.
 
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