4/15/2024 0 Comments Octave pedal vst plugin macPitch shifters usually run from -12 to +12 semitones, with 12 designating a full octave down or up. Semitones are also called half-steps in music theory and let you raise or lower the signal’s pitch by a chosen interval. Most pitch shifter VSTs will have some sort of control for changing semitones, cents, and formant. You can alter the pitch of any signal by time stretching or consolidating a clip, but that also changes the length of the audio. That’s what really sets these plugins apart from manual pitch shifting. All of this happens instantly with realtime pitch shifters, and with no change in the duration of the recorded signal. When you pitch up, it shortens the waveform. When you pitch down, it extends the waveform. What it essentially does behind the scenes is chop up the recorded waveform into dozens and dozens of small parts. They’re used on vocals, instruments, and anything else you could think of that would make something sound cool or exciting. These types of plugins are a staple of modern production in genres like pop, hip hop, EDM, and more. It won’t just raise or lower the tone of the instrument, but also change the timbre of the signal because of how it manipulates the waveform. Image Source: Picture of 12 string guitar taken by Kirsty Darbyshire (flickr).A pitch shifter is any plugin that can change the pitch of a signal up or down. Much like the Variax it is far from perfect but, if used with care and subtlety, an interesting technique to have in the toolbox. I selected the “Clean Guitar Chorus” preset, but wound the dry/wet mix back so it is a bit more subtle.Īnd here’s a soundclip of the results, stepping through the various stages first raw, then with pitch-shifter, then with the EQ and finally with the chorus. I used the chorus from the excellent free Kjaerhus Classic collection. To give a final gloss I added a touch of chorus to the master track. To my ears it sounded best at 2.2k, but this is something you could experiment with. For #1 I set the type to “low pass” and then experimented with the cut off point. This is a four band EQ but in this case I’m only interested in having a simple low-pass filter so I disabled 2 thru 4. For this I used the bundled ReaEQ plugin. Whilst we can’t totally get rid of this, we can tame it to a certain extent, by EQing the signal before it goes into the pitch-shifter. This is both a basic flaw in the way pitch-shifting works but also because we’re affecting the B and E strings. I set the level of the “Octave up” track to be about -12db, just so it subtly underpins the raw guitar.Īt this point it is starting to sound like a 12 string but, with this pitch shift, particularly in the higher registers, there is a harsh an unpleasant squeakiness that has been introduced. I set this to shift the pitch up my one octave. On the “Octave Up” track I added one of Reaper’s bundled VST plugins called “ReaPitch”. On the “Raw Guitar” track I clicked on the “io” button, and added a new send, to route this signal to the “Octave Up” track. I then set up a second empty track which I called “Octave Up”. For this I used the neck pickup on my Hohner G2T, plugged into a Line 6 Pod XT Live (because it happened to be handy). So my first step was to record a single track of plain 6 string guitar. The B and E have an identical string tuned in unison. The E, A, D and G all have a second string that is tuned one octave higher. It set me thinking about whether you could mimic the sound of a 12 string in post-production, using Reaper and some of the free VST plugins that I have installed.īefore we dig into the steps I followed to do this, lets just take a minute to look at the way a 12 string is tuned. If you listen to it in isolation is is far from perfect but, especially when put into a mix, it is definitely usable. Now I have a Line 6 Variax, as does one of the other contributors and the Variax does a half decent job of simulating a 12 string. As we’ve been sharing out the various tasks and jobs somebody mentioned that they didn’t have a 12 string guitar. The song chosen is Pink Floyd’s “Hey You” from The Wall. On the Six String Bliss forum I’ve got involved in a collaborative recording project where we’re going to document a lot of the background discussions and processes that go on, both so that we can find out more about how each other works and to pull together a “how to” guide (no doubt with elements of “how not to” as well).
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