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Pitchshifting---a blind shootout for your perusal

Which pitchshifter does the best job?

  • A

    Votes: 12 42.9%

  • B

    Votes: 4 14.3%

  • C

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • D

    Votes: 12 42.9%
  • Total voters
    28
  • Poll closed .
#22
Adamixoye said:
Apparently, B is pretty polarizing, as two people have declared it the best and two people have declared it the worst. I actually want to listen to these again today and try to do it as objectively as possible. I got kind of sick of my own riffing as I was recording the same thing over and over again last night.
Click to expand...
To me, the B effect seemed to roll off the highs a bit like a tone control, while the A effect retains more of the highs. I found it particularly noticeable at the fret buzz or clank or whatever that growly sound is at 5 seconds into the clip.

It really comes down to tone preference, as I think all the effects do a good enough job with the actual note reproduction, and they all sound pretty much like a bass guitar.
 
#24
cybersnyder said:
Good work. Did you have a feel for which has more latency? (We can talk about that after the poll closes. Just throwing it out there for future discussion.)
Click to expand...

Not really. I would describe them all as either not noticeable or barely noticeable. I noticed it more depending on what I am playing than which unit I am playing through, if that makes sense.
 
#25
Proton Lenny said:
C seems to be the only one that I can hear wobbling around on the low notes. The other three hold pretty well intact, but have differing tone. I actually would like to hear an octave up test of all of these.
Click to expand...

I agree with this.

The Drop and Droptune do not do octave up, so I couldn't run that test---unless you mean I should play higher up, in which case I did try to move around the fretboard (from low B all the way up to, I believe, a B above the G string octave).
 
#26
oysteivi said:
To me, the B effect seemed to roll off the highs a bit like a tone control, while the A effect retains more of the highs. I found it particularly noticeable at the fret buzz or clank or whatever that growly sound is at 5 seconds into the clip.

It really comes down to tone preference, as I think all the effects do a good enough job with the actual note reproduction, and they all sound pretty much like a bass guitar.
Click to expand...

Re: the fret buzz/clank---I probably need a setup. It wasn't as noticeable to me until I was recording (and my attack is a little sloppy).
 
#27
FYI: I edited the poll so that it will close after 3 days. Then I'll reveal the answers. Hopefully I can get some guitar clips up before then, just as a reference. Because my sense is that guitar and bass are really two different questions for this set of pedals. I'm looking for the best of both worlds.
 
#28
Adamixoye said:
I agree with this.

The Drop and Droptune do not do octave up, so I couldn't run that test---unless you mean I should play higher up, in which case I did try to move around the fretboard (from low B all the way up to, I believe, a B above the G string octave).
Click to expand...

Ah, gotcha. Didn't know too much about the Drop. I always find low octaves to be 'fine' but upper octaves always sound completely different than my dry bass. I've always had really mixed feelings about my Pitchfactor for octave stuff. I love it as a creative tool (pitched delays, arpeggiator stuff, soundscape unique tones, etc). But the octave stuff is pretty meh in my opinion. The polyphonic-ness and tracking doesn't even come close to the EHX Hog. The Whammy (Pitchflex) sounds great (in terms of the smoothness of the bend), but if you use a pure wet one octave glide (i.e. like the Digitech Whammy), there is a quite a bit of latency. Also, the upper octaves are really tinny. But alas, I don't have room on my board for two octave/pitchshifters. Ideally I'd buy an Eventide H9 for all the Pitchfactor Unique sounds that I can't get anywhere else, and I'd use the Hog for octaves, 5ths, freeze/gliss, and whammy. But the HOG is so damn big!
 
#30
Oh, the ridiculous timing of it all...just announced by EHX.

 
#33
nshuman said:
Better buy one and add it to your comparison...
Click to expand...

I'll accept donations. I wonder how this thing is on bass.

It should be noted that it appears that this new Pitch Fork can't do d5 like all of the ones in this test. But it can do a lot that the Drop and Droptune can't.
 
#34
I voted D but it was really tight with A. The D seemed to have more punch to it and sounded fuller. I couldn't tell if it was a volume difference but the Beat buddy seemed to be at the same volume.

B has a pretty mean buzz compared to the others. Other than the buzz, I thought it sounded pretty good but not quite as rich as D and A. C was the only one that I really heard struggle with some of the lower tracking notes. Frankly I am amazed at how well the others (actually all of them really) tracked.

And I wasn't impressed at all by the sound of the Beat buddy. Sounded really thin and crappy.

Thanks so much for this thread Adam. Awesome.
 
Last edited:
#36
Mosfed said:
And I wasn't impressed at all by the sound of the Beat buddy. Sounded really thin and crappy.
Click to expand...

FWIW, I did absolutely zero to "tune" the Beat Buddy. I just picked a straight beat at a reasonable tempo. I don't think it sounds great here, though I'm not sure I'm as down on it as you are. It definitely CAN sound better. It benefits a lot from a mid-scoop when I run it through my bass amp. Here it is basically running direct and I didn't do any EQ in Audacity.
 
#37
Mosfed said:
Thanks so much for this thread Adam. Awesome.
Click to expand...

Thanks, by the way. I hope for all the limitations of my playing that it's useful to people. I'm looking forward to revealing the answers.
 
#38
Adamixoye said:
FWIW, I did absolutely zero to "tune" the Beat Buddy. I just picked a straight beat at a reasonable tempo. I don't think it sounds great here, though I'm not sure I'm as down on it as you are. It definitely CAN sound better.
Click to expand...

I probably shouldn't even have mentioned it. Apologies - I didn't want to make a comment on it but it struck me on every sample. It just had that "digital drums" sound.

I kept listening after voting and then reading people's comments. It is pretty surprising that we are all in such agreement about C - it just sounds a little off. Was I the only one that noticed how much louder the buzz was on B? Listening on headphones made a big difference for sure.
 
#39
Mosfed said:
I probably shouldn't even have mentioned it. Apologies - I didn't want to make a comment on it but it struck me on every sample. It just had that "digital drums" sound.

I kept listening after voting and then reading people's comments. It is pretty surprising that we are all in such agreement about C - it just sounds a little off. Was I the only one that noticed how much louder the buzz was on B? Listening on headphones made a big difference for sure.
Click to expand...


I did hear some buzzing on B as well. But, only when I listened to it later in the day. My daughter was home feeling sick today, so I did not really get to listen to it loud enough through my monitors until later in the day.

I will say that C did not sound good to me even at lower volumes (still through my monitors though, I use JBL LSR 2300 series monitors as my computer speakers). There is some kind of warble, and maybe some latency that makes it sound off?
 
#40
Mosfed said:
I probably shouldn't even have mentioned it. Apologies - I didn't want to make a comment on it but it struck me on every sample. It just had that "digital drums" sound.

I kept listening after voting and then reading people's comments. It is pretty surprising that we are all in such agreement about C - it just sounds a little off. Was I the only one that noticed how much louder the buzz was on B? Listening on headphones made a big difference for sure.
Click to expand...

Beat Buddy: I edited my comment above to give some specifics about the EQ. Just FYI. I don't mind the feedback---I'm just trying to put it in context. I wanted to put the samples to a beat so my timing wasn't (as) distracting.

I do think some definite trends are emerging. I don't want to give things away or lead people, but after the first few comments I wasn't sure where the votes would head. However, as the sample size has increased I think things are making sense.
 

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