Pitch Shifters / Harmonizers
Pitch shifters / harmonizers enable me to quickly create brass riffs/chords and bass lines within my loops. As well creating effects like swooping up and down octaves.
The machine I have used since the early 1990s for this is the amazing Digitech whammy pedal. At one point I had three whammy pedals running simultaneously. An example is the swooping chords on this Spaceheads track.
Around 2002 I started to look for a better quality harmonizer that I could use in the studio… that did everything the Whammy pedal did. I bought an Eventide eclipse
It is not as easily usable as the whammy, but with a bit of setting up, offers a lot more and is quieter (less hum) for studio use. Review here
This example is trumpet played live through the “steeplechase” pre-set on the Eclipse.
Recently Eventide have bought out a smaller compact harmonizer called the pitchfactor. This is my current harmonizer of choice as when it is hooked up to an expression pedal it does everything 2 whammy pedals can do
