G1&G2 - Digital back on track!

In case it might have not been clear yet, I'm quite far from being an analog purist, despite I really like analog machines!


But when it comes to sound processing, I generally end up preferring digital machines.

It is not that analog machines don't sound great, cause they really do!
It is just that, when you put things in perspective, digital machines just give you so much more than analog machines for the same amount of cash...

For instance, when I compare my Roland SRE555 (Roland RE501 in rack form) with my Eventide H3000D/SX, I just have no doubts in choosing the Eventide if both were presented to me for the same price!
While the Roland SRE555 sounds fantastic and has all those nice controls in front of you that are begging you to tweak them, the Eventide H3000D/SX sounds amazing as well and can do so much more!
And of course, you can find plenty of digital gear with true stereo inputs, while most analog machines feature only a mono input...


Still, that is not really the point of my post, despite it's a great topic for a future post, when I am back in the studio! ;)

My point with this post now was to talk about an interesting trick I noticed while experimenting with my Clavia Nord Modular G2 Engine!

And if you like pitch shifters, I'm sure you'll appreciate this post! ;)


As I just mentioned, this post is about a simple patch I made that uses the pitch shifter module available in the Clavia Nord Modular G2!

And all I did to come up with this patch was to ask myself how would a sound be affected by a shift in the pitch followed by another shift in the pitch that leads it back to the original pitch?

But I couldn't be quiet and do something as simple as that, so I came up with the following patch that can go considerably further than the original idea!

As it is configured in the previous picture, this patch does exactly what I described before, pitching a sound down and then up again back to the original pitch!

But that is far from all it can do, and looking carefully at the previous patch, you'll notice it features several enhancements that make it much more versatile!

The key for this extra versatility lies in the extra mixers considered in the light blue section of this patch!
With those mixers, you can have feedback (and cross-feedback) as well as the possibility to run your two pitch-shifters in parallel, serial, or something in-between!

This means you can easily obtain chords using this patch, but also some very nasty effects due to the feedback lines available!

For instance, a very interesting way to configure this patch is to consider different shifts for the pitch in each of the channels, and make use of the cross feedback!

But you should also not neglect how nice pitch-shifters can sound with a small amount of modulation, which is in this case provided by a mix of two LFOs!
This can really bring some extra life into your sounds!

And of course, the extra EQs, positioned before and after the pitch-shifter section, can also enhance your sound a bit! ;)


But going back to initial question, "how would a sound be affected by a shift in the pitch followed by another shift in the pitch that leads it back to the original pitch?", what I can say is that it adds a nice metallic taste to it and you can definitely spot the difference!

In some cases, this digital nastiness might be just what you need! ;)
And it can get even nastier with a bit of feedback thrown in, just for fun! ;)

In others you still get an amazing versatile dual pitch-shifter with some modulation!

And this is why I love this machine so much, you can come up with really versatile patches that can have multiple uses, just like this one! ;)