Effective harmoniser?

[saulhudson]

I may have asked this sometime ago, I'm possibly gonna join a three piece, however they wanna do a couple of Lizzy tracks, (Boys are back, Jailbreak) and possibly some Queen, as they feature harmonised guitars I was wondering about using maybe a Boss Harmonist, what do people think out there...are they any good, will it actually sound any good, or should I just play the main parts as is, never having used one I'm clueless as to how effective they are in a 'live' environment.

[hywelg]

I'm in the same situation and have tried two, the TC Nova System and the Eventide Pitch Factor. The Nova was Ok'ish though it did sound a bit too processed for my liking and its gets its knickers in a twist if you try and play two notes at once, so I sort of dismissed it.

I then had to travel quite a distance to try the Pitch Factor, expecting it to be the dogs danglies. It was good and sounded much more realistic but it has two serious flaws to my mind, you can't name the patches so if you have a lot stored you are going to have to write them down (complete pants, this is 2009 for god sake) and then you can only cycle through the patches going UP. There are 100 patches so thats completely useless, You can limit the number and range of the patches that are in use at any one time but still.... Aparently you can also connect another footpedal to it and set that to cycle down through the patches.

I've not tried the Boss nor the Digitech but I'm not everso hopeful having heard them on Youtube.

Whatever you do, try before you buy, and give them a good workout, something like half an hour or so. I'm going to try the TC G Major 2 in the hope it will be a little better than the Nova, but at the moment it looks like I might have to go with the Eventide and get a pen and paper and another footswitch. It is USB enabled so its possible to reflash the chip if they ever do release an update.

[hywelg]

Bump. Would like some feedback from others myself on this.

[saulhudson]

Originally Posted by hywelg

I'm in the same situation and have tried two, the TC Nova System and the Eventide Pitch Factor. The Nova was Ok'ish though it did sound a bit too processed for my liking and its gets its knickers in a twist if you try and play two notes at once, so I sort of dismissed it.

I then had to travel quite a distance to try the Pitch Factor, expecting it to be the dogs danglies. It was good and sounded much more realistic but it has two serious flaws to my mind, you can't name the patches so if you have a lot stored you are going to have to write them down (complete pants, this is 2009 for god sake) and then you can only cycle through the patches going UP. There are 100 patches so thats completely useless, You can limit the number and range of the patches that are in use at any one time but still.... Aparently you can also connect another footpedal to it and set that to cycle down through the patches.

I've not tried the Boss nor the Digitech but I'm not everso hopeful having heard them on Youtube.

Whatever you do, try before you buy, and give them a good workout, something like half an hour or so. I'm going to try the TC G Major 2 in the hope it will be a little better than the Nova, but at the moment it looks like I might have to go with the Eventide and get a pen and paper and another footswitch. It is USB enabled so its possible to reflash the chip if they ever do release an update.

Cheers for the informative reply hywelg, as not a lot is happening with the band a the moment, (They seem to prefer more talking about it than getting off their arse and doing!) I haven't really looked into it yet but this is good info, cheers.

[fretmeister]

There is a H3000D on Italian ebay at the moment.

http://cgi.ebay.it/Eventide-H3000D%2...711165001r7872

Blimey - the current cream of the crop is £6000.00!

http://www.dv247.com/studio-equipmen...effects--19927

[stickyfiddle]

I haven't used the Pitchfactor, but I do have an Eventide timefactor. For only about another £30 you can get the extra footswitch to control patches as well as other options- it's very well programable. Don't let the footswitch thing put you off if the pedal sounds good!

[Sir Axeman]

Watch these and appreciate how good Brian Mays harmonies are - no pedal can do this!!! The lizzy stuff is usually just stacked 3rds and a pedal can do a good approximation - but not this type of stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBIPl...e=channel_page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFnyE59ZGH4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNEUK_nYNL0&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3CQz...eature=related

and watch this from around 2 mins in...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POsOP3TF-XY

and just for extra...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDC9T...eature=related

[hywelg]

Originally Posted by stickyfiddle

I haven't used the Pitchfactor, but I do have an Eventide timefactor. For only about another £30 you can get the extra footswitch to control patches as well as other options- it's very well programable. Don't let the footswitch thing put you off if the pedal sounds good!

Do Eventide sell a footswitch for his unit? I've not seen anything on their site. I have read the manual and I believe I could use my TC G-Switch (3 momentary switches used with the G#) , but it annoys the hell out of me that at £400+ this aspect is so badly thought out.

And I really don't want to have to write down what my patch settings are. They really should have allowed some sort of naming scheme for patches that would show on an LED screen. Seems like penny pinching or just badly planned to me. Its a good unit though

[hywelg]

Originally Posted by Sir Axeman

Watch these and appreciate how good Brian Mays harmonies are - no pedal can do this!!! The lizzy stuff is usually just stacked 3rds and a pedal can do a good approximation - but not this type of stuff!

Yes but even Brian May had to play it live at some point and he used Eventide harmonisers AFAIK. Shame that one of the ones (and I think he had at least two because they don't do progam changes very quickly) he uses would set you back more than a kidney!

[stickyfiddle]

Originally Posted by hywelg

Do Eventide sell a footswitch for his unit? I've not seen anything on their site. I have read the manual and I believe I could use my TC G-Switch (3 momentary switches used with the G#) , but it annoys the hell out of me that at £400+ this aspect is so badly thought out.

And I really don't want to have to write down what my patch settings are. They really should have allowed some sort of naming scheme for patches that would show on an LED screen. Seems like penny pinching or just badly planned to me. Its a good unit though

No, eventide don't make a switch, but the digitech fsx3 (iirc) works fine- TRS cable with 3 switches and a diode in a box, basically. You could make your own easily, i just didn't have the tools to do it at the time!

As for patch settings, best thing to do is to keep your setlist with the patches you need to use next to the songs- make life nice and simple