H8000FW disharmonics

[GrumpyOldDude]

We are fairly new users of the H8000FW for live sound. We are setup in diatonic, and assigning the primary key of each song. On various songs we are assigning each of three microphones with "unison", "major third" or no harmony processing at all.

Upon initial setup, we were getting a clean tone that we were extremely happy with. Over time, however, the quality of sound has deteriorated, with the unisons sounding slightly detuned, and progressing until, now, ambient guitar and bass stage sound is being processed through the PA and equally detuned.

For example: For a song in the key of A, we have the harmonizer set as diotonic, in the key of A. The root note sounds fine, but "D" comes out about 50 cents detuned. The same goes in the key of G: C comes out about a half tone flat.

We are musicians, not sound techs We aren't trying to use any of the super technical capabilities of the unit (yet!) and we did indeed have a really high quality sound at first.

1) What would cause the sound to change so much? We haven't fussed with any of the settings. We merely power up, play, power down.

2) How can we prevent the stage instuments from bleeding into the signal being processed by the Eventide? We've tried re-positioning microphones, angling speaker cabinets… stopped just short of runngin everything direct.

We realize that we really need to hire a professional tech to run our sound… we are interviewing. Right now, though, we're just in rehearsals, and want to recreate a sound that we had already acheived.

Any veterans out there with some thoughts for us? Thanks!

[IDeangelis]

 Hello
and welcome to the Forums!

I suspect there are a number of concurring causes to your problem…and some obscure details in your email.

-are you connecting the 3 mics directly to the H8000FW? You should not do this.
The Eventide should get the mics signal after 3 dedicated preamps or from the channels Aux Sends of a mixer to which the mics are connected.

-the 3 mics require using a preset with 3 separate pitch shifting channels, one for each mic.
3 physical inputs on the unit should be connected to the 3 mic feeds (as described above).
Please describe connections and preset name and number you are using.

-pitch shifting requires:
1) strictly monophonic signal (vs. polyphonic). The 3 mics should not be processed by the same pitch shifter. One mic > one pitch shifter.
2) a hefty input level! The H8000 has Pre A/D gains you can use to help input levels. These are under the LEVELS key. Make sure the signal lights up 4 or 5 leds on the front panel readout.

-diatonic pitch shifting requires you set the tonic and the scale in which the song is composed and played. Any change of root/key should be reflected in the settings.
If you are getting detuned notes it's because the input note *is* out of tune and/or because of the points described above and below. You can try setting the quant(ize) parameter to 100% to pitch correct input notes to the nearest scale step.

-good pitch shifting also requires you set the lownote parameter (under CAL(ibration) menu) to the lowest note the unit should expect to hear from the source. For instance a guitar requires an E2 or D2 to work fine. Check the vocal part for its lowest note.

-as for audio source bleeding into mics…I'm afraid there is not much to do, other than using ear monitoring (this avoid using stage monitors) and plexiglass panels to separate sources.

all the best
I

[GrumpyOldDude]

Thanks for the quick reply, I.

We are using the Aux Sends from the mixer, but I'd have to get back to you concerning the exact cable routing.

I'm fairly certain we are using monophonic signals and the LED's are 5's all day.

I know that we have the tonic set, but I'll have to recheck the scale settings.

We recheck the tuning quite often during the set, and have used both chromatic and stroboscopic tuners.

I was wondering about calibration, as a bit of the intial setup was performed off-site. I will check the manual and reset the low note parameters as needed.

We are using Shure in-ear monitors, no stage monitors at all. The bleed is from amp stage sound levels…. if we solve the de-tuning issue, the bleed becomes less of a problem.

You've given me somethings to work with. Thanks again!

Grumpy

[GrumpyOldDude]

Just wanted to update some of the info above:  We are sending 4 direct outputs (1/4") from the mixer vocal channels to an Alesis ADAT analog-to-digital converter, which is I/O connected to the H800FW with optical cabling.  The output is returned to the board to 4 separate channels (also via 1/4").  We are processing 4 separate mic signals

I was mistaken about our signal strength… it has actuallly been quite weak.  We've re-routed through an aux send and found some more gain… getting solid 4's at least now.

All of the songs, except one, were set for the correct root and scale… we fixed the setting on the incorrectly labeled tune.  For some reason, though, we had the "QUANT" value set at 200% for every song….I suspect that this was a large contributor to our problem.  We reset this to zero to test the theory, and the deuning effect went away.  Cautiously, we edged back to 100%, we fairly satisfied with that sound, then reset to that value for all of the songs.

That effectively consumed all of the time we had today.  We'll play a full volume set on Sunday, and I'll report back on our progress.

     I still can't get past the fact that we HAD a great sound, that went bad after many weeks of consistency.  At no time did we knowingly change any of the settings.  Quite odd.

(BTW… I believe we are using preset # 5528)

Grumpy

[IDeangelis]

 See the importance od user provided details?

 You are using your unit via ADAT I/O. That means your levels should be higher than they are. My previous explanation of levels and LED monitoring is relevant to analog input usage. When using digital connectionsyou have to refer to lLED in a more traditional way; try to light them up as many as you can, short of the top one.

So 4 LEDs are not enough.

Preset 5528 has common M_xxx parameters that influence all voices. Try using #5510 4_DiatonicShift.

Be aware of the panning structure as these are QUAD audio setups presets:

X pan is front L/R panning

Y pan is front/rear panning, typical of a 4 speaker "surround" setup

If you are working in a stereo setup, use X panning as you like (any setting between -100 to 100%) and keep Y pan on 100 % steady.

best

I 

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