H3000 Factory – stereo, dual mono or what?

[radioman521]

There’s a bit of a conversation going on over at the Gearslutz forum (nothing new there) about the H3000  Factory plugin being a mono unit. I challenged the person that made the statement to provide info. He posted a link to an article on a German site: https://www.delamar.de/test/eventide-h3000-factory-testbericht/ As best as I can figure out via Google Translate they lament that there’s no stereo linking and that each channel processes the signal as if it were mono. I’m taking this to mean that the article is saying that the H3000 Factory plugin is dual mono. The person at GS believes that the H3000 is just mono from input to output i.e. it monoizes the signal.

 

Can someone explain what’s really going on? Maybe a block diagram of the plugin?

[Bodde]

radioman521 wrote:

There’s a bit of a conversation going on over at the Gearslutz forum (nothing new there) about the H3000  Factory plugin being a mono unit. I challenged the person that made the statement to provide info. He posted a link to an article on a German site: https://www.delamar.de/test/eventide-h3000-factory-testbericht/ As best as I can figure out via Google Translate they lament that there’s no stereo linking and that each channel processes the signal as if it were mono. I’m taking this to mean that the article is saying that the H3000 Factory plugin is dual mono. The person at GS believes that the H3000 is just mono from input to output i.e. it monoizes the signal.

 

Can someone explain what’s really going on? Maybe a block diagram of the plugin?

Good questions. It’s not totally clear to me either. If I want to use it on a mono track do I connect only left input to an effect block and then to the left output? Or do I have to use both left and right inputs and outputs?

[rlehman-borer]

H3000 Factory can operate in stereo or mono. From the user manual:

Eventide H3000 Factory is available for use on mono and stereo sources in Mono → Mono, Mono → Stereo, and Stereo → Stereo configurations. When the plug-in is in Mono input configuration the input will be routed to both LEFT and RIGHT input blocks. Similarly, when the plug-in is in Mono output mode, the LEFT and RIGHT output blocks will be summed at the plug-ins output. The plug-in also provides a dedicated input block to route side chain inputs from your DAW session into the H3000 Factory signal path.

I created a small example to demonstrate that left and right channels can interact with each other. In the attached image, input to the left channel is pitch shifted based on the envelope of input to the right channel. The result of this is sent to both the left and right outputs. I hope this helps.

-Ryerson

[radioman521]

rlehman-borer wrote:

H3000 Factory can operate in stereo or mono. From the user manual:

Eventide H3000 Factory is available for use on mono and stereo sources in Mono → Mono, Mono → Stereo, and Stereo → Stereo configurations. When the plug-in is in Mono input configuration the input will be routed to both LEFT and RIGHT input blocks. Similarly, when the plug-in is in Mono output mode, the LEFT and RIGHT output blocks will be summed at the plug-ins output. The plug-in also provides a dedicated input block to route side chain inputs from your DAW session into the H3000 Factory signal path.

I created a small example to demonstrate that left and right channels can interact with each other. In the attached image, input to the left channel is pitch shifted based on the envelope of input to the right channel. The result of this is sent to both the left and right outputs. I hope this helps.

-Ryerson

Actually it really only answers part of the question. What you’re not answering is are the two channels separate or are they summed to mono when using a stereo to stereo instance? Also is there any interaction between the 2 channels when in stereo mode without having to route like you did? The article linked to laments that there is no stereo linking. The manual is no help because it never addresses what happens in a stereo to stereo instance.

[rlehman-borer]

Oops, I guess I slightly misunderstood your question the first time. I'll try to clarify my answers:

radioman521 wrote:

What you're not answering is are the two channels separate or are they summed to mono when using a stereo to stereo instance?

The two input channels are not summed to mono when processing a stereo signal. Each channel of the stereo signal is processed separately (as a mono signal) within the plugin, and the processed results are passed to the two output channels, producing a stereo output. However, these two signal chains can be interconnected so that there is an interaction between the left and right channel.

Another way to think about it: each of the patch cables carries a mono signal, and each of the effects blocks processes a mono signal.

radioman521 wrote:

Also is there any interaction between the 2 channels when in stereo mode without having to route like you did? 

I'm not 100% sure I understand this part of your question–it's definitely possible for the channels to interact with each other. I tried to create a relatively simple demonstration of this with the screenshot I posted, but there are also presets that ship with the plugin that do this out of the box.

radioman521 wrote:

The article linked to laments that there is no stereo linking.

Unfortunately I also don't speak German, but I think what the article means by "no stereo linking" is that, since the signal routing within the plugin is all mono, it requires twice as many effects blocks to perform the same effect on both channels. This is true.

 

Does that answer your questions?

-Ryerson

[radioman521]

rlehman-borer wrote:

Oops, I guess I slightly misunderstood your question the first time. I’ll try to clarify my answers:

radioman521 wrote:

What you’re not answering is are the two channels separate or are they summed to mono when using a stereo to stereo instance?

The two input channels are not summed to mono when processing a stereo signal. Each channel of the stereo signal is processed separately (as a mono signal) within the plugin, and the processed results are passed to the two output channels, producing a stereo output. However, these two signal chains can be interconnected so that there is an interaction between the left and right channel.

Another way to think about it: each of the patch cables carries a mono signal, and each of the effects blocks processes a mono signal.

radioman521 wrote:

Also is there any interaction between the 2 channels when in stereo mode without having to route like you did? 

I’m not 100% sure I understand this part of your question–it’s definitely possible for the channels to interact with each other. I tried to create a relatively simple demonstration of this with the screenshot I posted, but there are also presets that ship with the plugin that do this out of the box.

radioman521 wrote:

The article linked to laments that there is no stereo linking.

Unfortunately I also don’t speak German, but I think what the article means by “no stereo linking” is that, since the signal routing within the plugin is all mono, it requires twice as many effects blocks to perform the same effect on both channels. This is true.

 

Does that answer your questions?

-Ryerson

To sum up: if a stereo signal is present at the input and IF I don’t set up a patch that would work like what you have shown the two channels stay separate from each other from input to output right? A block diagram in the manual would help a great deal.

[Bodde]

So if I understand correctly if you only want a single mono delay or pitch block you only connect left input to delay and then to the left out? No need to patch the right input or output?

[radioman521]

bodde wrote:

So if I understand correctly if you only want a single mono delay or pitch block you only connect left input to delay and then to the left out? No need to patch the right input or output?

That’s the way I understand it. Eventide does a poor explanation of this basic functionality in it’s documentation. I used to be an EE  (electronics engineer) in aerospace as my day job and even I have problems with some of their explanations.

[tlongabaugh]

Hey all-

Yes, the documentation for this particular issue is certainly lacking. We've created a ticket here to add block diagrams to the User Guide, and clean up the explanation.

Here's how the routing works in each format:

Mono-In -> Mono-Out:

The mono input is fed to both the Left (yellow) and Right (red) input blocks. Both of these signal paths operate independently inside of the patching section. The Left and Right output blocks are then mixed at the output of the plugin (with proper gain staging applied). Thus, the two attached screenshots (MonoMono1 and MonoMono2) are identical in terms of sound.

Mono-In -> Stereo-Out:

Similarly the mono input is fed to both the Left (yellow) and Right (red) input blocks. Both of these signal paths operate independently inside of the patching section. The Left and Right output blocks are in stereo and thus correspond . Thus, the two attached screenshots (MonoStereo1 and MonoStereo2) are identical in terms of sound.

Stereo-In -> Stereo-Out:

The Left and Right inputs correspond to the left/right channels of the stereo track, similarly with the outputs. Both of you are correct in guessing that each of the signal paths are "dual-mono", and operate independently of each other. Of course, they could be mixed/modulated/affected in any way inside of the patching seciton, but the yellow/red paths are totally independent of each other.

 

So, if you wanted to set up only a signle mono delay or pitch block, it would depend on what IO format of the plugin you are using. In Mono-In -> Mono-Out or Mono-In -> Stereo-Out, you could just patch the Left input through a block, and then the output of that block to both Left/Right outputs.

For Stereo-In -> Stereo-Out, you'd have to use two delay or pitch blocks, with identical settings, if you wanted to preserve the stereo image. One way you could do this is to map the desired parameters (e.g. delay time) of both delay or pitch blocks to a soft key, so that they could be controlled together (see attached preset). This preset would work in all IO configurations as well.

 

Hopefully that clears up some of the confusion. It's definitely not straightforward, and we'll update the documentation to be more helpful.

-Tom

[radioman521]

tom:

Thanks much for the reply/explanation. The additions to the manual will go a long way to helping people understand what’s going on (and also help with the thread over on Gearslutz).

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