Pitch Shifter - does it do the SPX90 Trick?

Cubase
1

I just saw a video on the new Pitch Shifter plug in that’s inside C15.

I was just telling my engineering mentor how much i missed my SPX90 for the one patch alone, which is Pitch Change C (defined below)

  • Pitch Change C (Program 23): This preset creates a wide stereo image. It works by shifting the pitch of the signal on the left and right channels by a few cents in opposite directions (e.g., +8 and -8 cents), resulting in a thick, stereo-widened sound with no movement.

Can the Pitch Shifter pull off this SPX90 patch? If so, i may leap out of my skin. I’ve not upgraded yet. This would cause me to upgrade in an instant. I’ve tried other plug ins that tried to pull it off but they never seemed to have the SPX 90 X factor.

2

Not directly answering your question, but Cloner can probably do what you’re describing.

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3

Hmm, worth looking into. Thanks for the heads up. I have C14 and never once used cloner.

4

I think it will theoretically work. You have to turn off the semitone lock and convert the cents you want to a decimal amount of a semitone (8 cents would be 8/100 = .08) and type it in as + and - for each channel.

That said, if the SPX has some magic X-Factor that you haven’t heard elsewhere then I’d imagine something else other than a straight pitch shift is involved in that patch

(8 cents would be 8/100 = .08)

EDIT….Google is telling me the pitched elements of the SPX are also delayed 12 and 18ms and then mixed with the original…..so if that’s correct this plug won’t do it.

5

I believe this guy can do it.

6

Always sounded flangey to me. Use DOP, same pitch and delay, but then send L&R separately to Korg ensemble (vc10/Polysix analog in stereo) plugin. Now thats the deal…:slight_smile:
Ie way mooooore than the SPX90 thing ime

7

What is DOP?

8

Direct Offline Processing (F7 opens the dialog window).
EDIT: Sorry, that was a reflex answer. After reading the post above I am not convinced anymore that DOP actually refers to Direct Offline Processing…

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9

I used to use a Harmonizer box for this sort of thing back in the day, applying small pitch shifts and delays to one or both channels.
I have Eventide’s Harmonizer plugin which will allow me to do the same thing in software. Not cheap, but it works.

10

Sorry, yes DOP is direct offline processing but its great for snapshot stuff being applied as a single chain (you can save all of it to one preset)
You can wrap it all up Waves studio rack in DOP ie You can get it all correct in an IFX then just save it as a Studio Rack preset as I cant remember if it maintained the routing when loaded into DOP. Was a while ago but I use DOP as its like a tape bounce and forces you to just get on with it instead of endlessly fiddling…works for me anyway :slight_smile:

Ill try and find an old project with it and check what I did

11

The link you provided describes exactly what you need :grinning_face: . If you read that, you’ll see you need more than just a pitch shifter.

12

Those details would get you close and you could also consider the following (quoted from Gearspace topic):

The great thing about a lot of those older digital effects was the more grainy sound due to lower sample rates. I believe the SPX-90 was 31.5kHz, and the bandwith was only 20Hz to 12kHz. Also, the dry signal never went through the converters.

To effectively recreate that sound, I’d imagine you’d need the plugin to downsample to 31.5kHz, emulate an anti-aliasing filter at 12kHz (phase distortion and all), then upsample back to the project sample rate.

If you want a grainy sound you might consider combining PitchShifter (or Cloner) with something like Klevgrand Degrader: Klevgrand - Dream Louder or similar,

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13

In this case OP should really take a look at Cloner. It shifts the pitch and delays signals.

14

I also suggested to add delay, it would be very useful and necessary to compete with the competition.

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15

Soundtoys’ Microshift sounds pretty good, too. It emulates an Eventide H 3000, H 910 and the AMS Neve DMX 15-80. They all work on delay-based, detuned and staturated clones of a signal. Getting the SPX90 sound exactly right might be challenging if you are looking for an exact match, though.

BTW: Microshift with a lot going on under the hood takes about 0.7 ms of latency. PitchShifter 256 ms. I think I am not exaggerating when I say that there is room for improvement :wink:

16

I think you can.

17

Indeed. I was interested in trying the pitch shifter out until I saw that number. I have no idea how they got there.

18

So, could i +.08 / -.08 and then delay each L=12ms and R=18ms?

Is that math, mathing correctly? Or did i totally misunderstand how it works?

19

Probably on the math, but the Pitch Shifter plugin doesn’t have the delay part (it could do the cents shifts). Something like Waves Doubler could do both aspects (as well as mixing the shifted/delayed signals with the original). How well, or not, it matches the SPX90 patch might depend on both whether the specific summary of what it does is correct or not and if there are other aspects of what the SPX90 does that enter into the picture (e.g. bit-depth conversions, sample rate considerations, …).

20

Looks like i might be starting a search for the real deal, then. Due to its X factor and how i will use it, it seems to make the best sense.

Seeing that Yamaha owns Steinberg, seems like they are missing a GOLDEN opportunity. They could create a Steinberg ONLY SPX90 clone. As a marketing strategy, that could bring some users (not a ton) over to the Steinberg universe. A ton of old timers, like me, owned, know and love the SPX90.

In a world where the modeling of Ocean Way studios is being done, you’d think stealing the spirit of an SPX90 would not be that hard to do.