I can't think of a single effect that the Orville does better than the Axe-FX (except for the few not available in the Axe). I know the effects libraries for the Orville are largely the same as the H8000's. These observations are taken from the Orville.
Noise gate:
Ultra: Expander-type. Works great.
Eventide: No expander-type. Never liked it. I used a hardware expander instead.
Compressor:
Ultra: Feedforward or feedback, lookahead, knee control, sidechain filters, etc. Sounds great. Easy to use.
Eventide: Soft knee only. No lookahead. No detect type. Ultra's sounds
much better to me.
Filter:
Axe: 2nd order. Great sounding and highly adjustable.
Eventide: 2nd order. Also great sounding. Has more modulation possibilities, super high Q, and an FIR (convolution) linear phase filter type with 63 taps. If you need a Q of 1000 (whatever that
really means)...
Graphic EQ:
Ultra: 8 bands. Sounds great.
Eventide: Any number of bands up to 31 band 1/3 octave or more, limited by DSP. Sounds great. You may need to construct your own, and they hog userobject resources (resources that allow you to 'draw' the user interface on the display). Practical limit is around two stereo 31 band eqs (with ganged L/R controls), unless they have freed up more userobject memory.
Parametric EQ:
Ultra: Four five-band blocks.
Eventide: Limited by DSP power. You may need to construct you own. Quality is comparable.
Crossover:
Ultra: Two two-way stereo blocks. Easy to use and sound great.
Eventide: Limited by DSP power. Filter order is user-adjustable. You may need to construct you own. Quality is comparable.
Resonator: Eventide can do it, but it is not a straightforward block like the Ultra. You must dig through presets to find something similar, then copy it. The comb filter modules are useful for this if you build it from scratch, along with delays, filters, mixer, lfos, etc.
Chorus / Quad Chorus / Flanger:
Ultra: Superb! Only wish there were triangle LFO for more than 2 voices on Chorus. Very easy to set up top quality effects.
Eventide: There are no "chorus" or "flanger" modules. You must extract one from a preset (and hope it is what you want) or build your own with modulatable delays, lfos, mixers, etc. PITA, but offers ultimate flexibility for those with time. Superb quality if built correctly. Not "better", just more flexible and more work.
Phaser:
Ultra: Awesome. Easy.
Eventide: Phase shift module on its own sounds awful and is of little use without other modules to modify its behavior. Search for preset and copy one that sounds good. I never found a preset with an awesome phaser, although I'm sure the unit can do it. I'll take the Axe phaser any day.
Rotary:
Ultra: Easy to use. Sounds great.
Eventide: Again, no "rotary" module. Build one from scratch (PITA) or copy one from a preset if you can find one you like. Quality will depend on sophistication of the particular preset. Almost not worth the trouble. Axe is a piece of cake.
Wah:
Ultra: Nice.
Eventide: Again, no "wah" module. Build one from scratch (easy) using a modulatable filter or copy one from a preset if you can find one you like.
Formant filter:
Ultra: Nice.
Eventide: Again, no "formant filter" module. This can be achieved, but you'll need to find it in a preset and copy it (Kill the Guy with the Ball).
Vocoder:
Ultra: Nice.
Eventide: Again, no "vocoder" module. This can be achieved, but you'll need to find it in a preset and copy it.
Pan/Tremolo
Ultra: Easy and pristine.
Eventide: You must link a mixer's pan control or a gain block to an LFO or control source. Great quality as well.
Various types of delays:
Ultra: Sound great. Highly programmable. Easy to use.
Eventide: Sound great, but may require lots of editor work to configure exactly how you want them. Virtually no limit to flexibility if you are willing to spend the time and effort.
Reverb:
Ultra: Awesome. Easy to program.
Eventide: Awesome. Extremely difficult to build from scratch, so scour presets for one you like and copy. The user interface and available parameters will vary wildly from preset to preset. Eventide's reverb structure is often difficult to understand, with no real description of what an arbitrarily named parameter actually does. I much prefer the Ultra's reverb, for both sound and user interface.
Amp sims:
Ultra: The best there is. This is the main reason I love this box so much.
Eventide: Meh. No contest.
Cab sim:
Ultra: Convolution. User slots.
Eventide: None. Use eq and comb filters
Drive:
Ultra: Great sims.
Eventide: Generic.
Pitch Shifter:
Ultra: Great tone and tracking of mono and poly sources. Quality easily on a par with Eventide. Intelligent shifter almost flawless.
Eventide: Superb. +/- four octaves. Great tracking of mono and poly sources. Generally need to use a mixer module afterward. The diatonic shifter in the Orville is crap compared to the Axe-FX. CRAP I TELL YOU!!!! Perhaps the H8000 is better. The Orville has no custom scales. I believe the H8000 does, but I have not tried them.
Synth:
Ultra: Nice.
Eventide: Comparable (oscillator modules). Can achieve more voices.
Ring Mod:
Comparable.
Stereo Enhancer:
Can be achieved with either unit. Comparable.
CC control:
Eventide has the edge here.
Most notable are the reverb and pitch shifters. The Axe
easily holds its own. You can't get 5.1 processing, an eight octave pitch shift range, or formant preserved pitch shift, but I don't need that. I really do think the world of Eventide's stuff. But if I had to pick one or the other, I'd pick the Axe, even for just the effects. I simply don't have the free time I used to enjoy.