Harmonizers?

[tomperson]

I've read a lot of times of producers working with hardware Harmonizers (the eventide ones seem to be particularly highly-regarded). I wonder, what options are out there for harmonizers in VST format?

[zstowasser]

I'd like to know as well! Good question. For those who don't know about harmonizing, its to make something sound fuller/louder without turning it up.. basically its emphasizing magic frequencies above (or below?).

[kaufi]

Crysonic Spetralive 2

[xuoham]

I'd like to know as well! Good question. For those who don't know about harmonizing, its to make something sound fuller/louder without turning it up.. basically its emphasizing magic frequencies above (or below?).

I think you're confusing with spectralizers and other harmonics enhancers!
Though putting drums or percussion through a harmonizer can really make it fuller, but not the way you mean. If you put, let's say, some tablas through a harmonizer with a low pitch at -5 and a high pitch at +5, you get that typical "Jon Hassell sound", like for example on the album Power Spot (1987), co-produced with Daniel Lanois.They used harmonizers (Eventide) almost everywhere! Not only on Jon's "one- of-a-kind" trumpet. The percussions on the first track (Power Spot) are just so amazing! I was shocked the first time i heard this track! I love harmonizers best when set to a "neutral" chord, like a sus4, so you can play the whole scale and get very sweet sounding harmony clashes. Like a guitarist would play the same chord and just move it along the fingerboeard, regardless harmony laws. Much harder to do for a keyboardist. Some harmonizers let you follow the modal rules of a scale to fit harmony laws, but though it's an extra option, i thinks it's reducing the charm of it.
A decent VST harmonizer is GRM tool's "Pitch Accum" plugin.
But surprisingly, there are very few good harmonizers as a vst. I'd love to see a true Eventide emulation...

[Pitch Black]

Ben Burtt used a harmoniser in Star Wars with a slight upwards pitch-shift feeding back into itself for the sound of the x-wing fighters attacking the death star - the pitch of the engines is always rising, adding tension.

[/geek]

[MrYellow]

I read that the laser sounds are hitting an big antenna and the wires going
nutz...... Makes sense, spent a good hour hitting an electric fence with a
stick on shrooms once

....

Harmonisers..... To me they are at their most basic a multiply (can do
them in reaktor really easy).... Signal A multiplied by signal B.... Places
I've been most exposed to them is 80s Slash guitar solos with "voice wah",
Steve Via tunes like Ballerina (dry, delay up 3rd, delay down 5th or
something like that), and now Squarepusher....

-Ben

[tomperson]

I'd like to know as well! Good question. For those who don't know about harmonizing, its to make something sound fuller/louder without turning it up.. basically its emphasizing magic frequencies above (or below?).

I think you're confusing with spectralizers and other harmonics enhancers!

Yes, he is!

But surprisingly, there are very few good harmonizers as a vst. I'd love to see a true Eventide emulation...

That's why I posted this. I thought I was missing something. Lots of times i've read on interviews on some of the producers I like the most (flood, daniel lanois, eno) that they extensively use the Eventide harmonizers, yet, I hadn't ever found a VST harmonizer (until you mentioned the GRM tools one).

How strange...Why is it that there aren't more harmonizers on VST format?

[Pitch Black]

The thing is, Harmonizer is actually a trademark of Eventide that has sort of become a generic term for "pitch-shifter". The Eventide Harmonizers are actually high-end multi-effects boxes that do a lot more than just pitch-shifting.

Have a look at a (large) .pdf of H8000 presets here:

http://www.eventide.com/pdfs/8kpre.pdf

[zstowasser]

Sorry for the confusion! I was thinking of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonics

[xuoham]

The thing is, Harmonizer is actually a trademark of Eventide that has sort of become a generic term for "pitch-shifter". The Eventide Harmonizers are actually high-end multi-effects boxes that do a lot more than just pitch-shifting.

Yeah, that's true, but pitch shifting seems like it's been the main reason why Eventide was so used by the cream of producers, and why it found a niche regardless of the strong competition by Lexicon and others. So, regarding Tomperson's topic, i also think it's surprising that very few (dual) pitch shift (let's ban the word "Harmonizer" here ) plugins are on the market. There are the Waves pitch shifters but it's a slightly different approach.
There is also this Spatharmo 8 Octo Harmonizer from Acousmodules (tons of interesting free plugins!), but it seems too complex and cpu hungry, so i never tried it deeply. Stuck with the GRM plugin instead. PShift by Concrete FX has a wrong name because it's much more a warping tool than a pitch shifter. Discord 1.5 from Audio Damage just sounds like shit and is a single pitch shifter (There is now a Discord 2 plugin that is not free anymore, but looks interesting, and should sound better since there seems to be a buffer parameter now, for 49$, it might be interesting...). Also many other pitch shifters are available on KVR but they are not DUAL, and some of them don't even have a dry/wet parameter.
With all this new formant technology (that to my knowledge Waves only seems to be using in a pitch shifter so far) i am amazed that there are so few plugins that could rival with a good Eventide pitch shifter, even one from the mid eighties.
But regardless, hey, cheers to you Tomperson! Long time no see! And glad that Lanois and Eno have a place in your heart! Actually, i was mentioning this beautiful album by Jon Hassell, "Power Spot", so unclassifiable, so outlandish, so much "too much class for the neighborhood", so much more daring than 90 percent of the electronica i hear nowadays, and produced by Dan Lanois: the fact is that Jon Hassell's first album "Vernal Equinox" has no harmonizer whatsoever, and since the second one ("Fourth World Vol.2") is full of harmonizer and produced by Eno, i came to think that Hassell's typical use of harmonizer for more than a decade was suggested by the great Brian himself.
Anyway, since Eno and Hassell had a great influence on my teenage years, back in early eighties, i am also in love with "dual pitch shifters"! After delays, the second best companion for my guitar...

[Machinate]

Harmonisers..... To me they are at their most basic a multiply (can do
them in reaktor really easy).... Signal A multiplied by signal B....

That would be AM /ringmod ? Or are you thinking about frequency dividers, like the Boss Octaver?

Places I've been most exposed to them is 80s Slash guitar solos with "voice wah",

Talk-box?

[...]and now Squarepusher....

That's ringmod again, right? On the bass?

Traditional harmonizing was always just a pitched delay added to the signal. Only within the last years did it get really interesting for me, since the machines now also force to scale. It's really awesome seeing/listening to a singer doing proper three-part harmony with herself in real-time, imo.

[xuoham]

Like,try to process some indian classical music with one pitch shift at -5, and one at -2, for example, and blend with the original, i think it just sounds so awesome.
A good raga by Hariprasad Chaurasia and Zakir Hussein, or some songs by Lakshmi Shankar... Still some monodic and modal music, but with a "chordal" dimension and sweet harmony clashes. And the tabla sounds like it's gonna kill you!
Harmonizers give a "nagual" dimension to music (sorry for the Carlos Castaneda hint), make things sound like they were extatically played some hundreds of thousand years ago, by highly civilized unknowned people in an unknowned place.
Ok, ok, i'd better calm down, sorry, blame it on beer!
my 2 cents

[xuoham]

Only within the last years did it get really interesting for me, since the machines now also force to scale. It's really awesome seeing/listening to a singer doing proper three-part harmony with herself in real-time, imo

That's funny: different men, different tastes!
What i love with harmonizers is the fact that they will transpose a voicing, regardless "proper" harmony. Before them, that used to be a thing that probably only stringed fingerboard instruments would allow you to do naturally.
And those force to scale options might be convenient, but somewhat limited: no contrary movement of the voices, too "proper" and diatonic (instead, it would be nice to be able to harmonize "properly" some minor-melodic scales like C D E F# G# A B)

[Machinate]

Only within the last years did it get really interesting for me, since the machines now also force to scale. It's really awesome seeing/listening to a singer doing proper three-part harmony with herself in real-time, imo

That's funny: different men, different tastes!
What i love with harmonizers is the fact that they will transpose a voicing, regardless "proper" harmony. Before them, that used to be a thing that probably only stringed fingerboard instruments would allow you to do naturally.
And those force to scale options might be convenient, but somewhat limited: no contrary movement of the voices, too "proper" and diatonic (instead, it would be nice to be able to harmonize "properly" some minor-melodic scales like C D E F# G# A B)

I totally agree with you on this - however, things have come a loooong way since the first scaling ones and the Autotune bullcrap: Add a bit of footpedal control and you can totally do those things you mention

[conny]

There is also this Spatharmo 8 Octo Harmonizer from Acousmodules

I get a serious program error when trying the SpatPitch88 in both Live 5 and 6.

// C