Intelligent Harmonizer On-The-Fly Scale Changes

S

stringrazor

Inspired
Let me preface this question by saying that I have not yet worked with the Axe/FX II's Intelligent Harmony effect. Tonight, I will explore setting it up for Hotel California, not the iconic Felder/Walsh ending triplets but for the riffs during the verses. I have configured 2 devices (Johnson JM150 & Eventide Pitch Factor) over the last 10 years for this song. I thought I was done with it but .... well that's another story... suffice it to say I need to do it again and I'd like to use the Axe/FX. I still have the Pitch Factor pedal but I'm hoping I don't need it as I'll be using too much gear as it stands for guitars (including pedal steel and mandolin) and keys.

I'll set it up for 2 parts (one live, one generated) although I believe there are eventually 3 parts on the recording but that's overkill to try to reproduce live. The difficulty as I remember for this config is that as the lines descend, notes are repeated consecutively on one line but the corresponding notes in the other change, so no static scale not even a custom one will work. What I did in the past was find the scale that worked best then programmed a momentary switch controller to change the scale to generate the note I needed that was different from what the chosen scale generated. As I recall with both devices, I was able to able to switch between 2 scales (I don't remember which right now) and I could play the same note twice in succession, once without the switch pressed, once with and get the generated notes I needed without device patch changes. I only needed to press the switch 2 or 3 times during the run so it wasn't too bad of a dance.

What's my best tact for setting up a similar config with the pitch block? I can either use a FCB1010 midi message or pedal switch into the Axe external pedal jack. FCB would be easier - one less wire - but I'll go with whatever works best. It HAS to me a momentary effect otherwise the number of switch presses double.
 
I seem to recall someone doing a preset for Hotel that used an expression pedal to morph between scales. I might be confusing it with Boys Are Back In Town, but the scale morphing would be the same method, just different scales. I'm thinking it may have been Moke or Simeon that did the preset.
 
i do something similar to what you're trying to do but with Bad Co's Can't Get Enough. I use scenes and custom scales to step thru the harmonies I need. There's a few country tunes I play that have the same concept where one note in the harmonized scale needs to stay the same on a certain note. Again for this I use 2 scenes where the pitch block changes X/Y status to switch between to different scales. works pretty well and isn't that difficult of a tap dance.
 
mr_fender said:
Here ya go
Click to expand...

OP's asking about verse harmonies, not outro.

Custom shift mode can cover the first 6 bars if you play the lower part. Harmonic minor for the next 2. (There's a 2-note span where you can switch at any time.)

If you want to play the higher 3-part harmony after that, a pair of custom shifts could cover 4 bars each if you play the full-size notes here.

hotelcali_verse2.png


Note that you can't just choose to play any note in the chord without having to change scale more often. For example bars 9-12 have 12 different triads, and this way works because it uses all 12 pitches (one per triad). I think this is the only solution that covers the last 8 bars in two scale pairs without turning the half-step pull-offs into some other interval.

stringrazor said:
iconic Felder/Walsh ending triplets
Click to expand...

Those are 16th notes, not triplets.
 
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I finally got to play around with the pitch block last night. After some confusion (the manual doesn't really explain things very well in this area), I was blown away to find that I can set up 32 custom shifts - that is SO cool! I wish I could edit the shifts in Axe-Edit rather than using the h/w panel and it would be nice to be able to able to copy one shift definition to another without having to write it down first but these are minor issues compared to the functionality available. Since a modifier can be linked to the Voice control in the pitch block to choose the shift, there are quite a few config possibilities available. An X/Y toggle between 2 shift definitions worked nicely. I still have to set up a way to toggle it with a momentary switch but that shouldn't be difficult. I haven't done it before but I think an FCB1010/Uno switch can be configured as momentary. If not, I can always use an actual momentary switch pedal.

One thing that wasn't obvious me during the very limited time I had to play with it last night was how do I turn one of the two Voices off, other than setting its level to 0?
 
stringrazor said:
One thing that wasn't obvious me during the very limited time I had to play with it last night was how do I turn one of the two Voices off, other than setting its level to 0?
Click to expand...

Level at 0 is the easiest way to mute it. It's not possible to disable a voice and use less CPU%, if that's what you were wondering.
 
Depending on the musical piece, You can sometimes use the 'Pitch' controller to switch between 2 scales.
 
Last night I setup an external controller tied to MIDI CC17 (which I was using to control the WAH block but won't need the Hotel patch) to control VOICE 1 of the Custom Shift and Pitch Block bypass. Heel down (tolerance 20%) turns the pitch block off. MIN =1 and MAX =0 (0 controller value = Shift #1) so that Toe Down = Block on, Voice 1. I set the MID and OFFSET so that it doesn't take much to change to VOICE 2.

This was workable @ home but I don't know how it will feel live yet. I may go back to dedicated bypass and momentary Voice switches.

EDIT: After playing through the changes, I ditched the expression pedal config. I realized that along with the scales, I need to switch tones (drive amount mostly) and the exp setup required too much dancing so I integrated the tone and scale switching as much as possible. My FBC UNO chip is old (1.02e) and doesn't have momentary capability but I've realized I'm better off with a toggle anyway. This way I have arranged the runs, there are only 2 places in the song that I need to switch scales. The switch is only needed for one note so I used a FCB switch to toggle pitch block X/Y. I can switch to scales in either direction as soon as I'm passed the affected note so the toggle can be somewhat asynchronous vs. the run.
 
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