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Harmonizer

A harmonizer is a type of pitch shifter that combines the transposed pitch with the original pitch to create a two or three note harmony. The Harmonizer plug-in can be used to change the pitch of an audio signal without affecting its duration. The plug-in can be used with complex polyphonic signals (i.e. not just voice for example) and allows pitch shifts upwards or downwards. Alternatively, it can be used as a high-quality pitch shifter when simply not including any dry signal.

Choosing the window size

Choosing the window size parameter is an important step to obtain good quality results. While the default value (1024) should work well for most content, tuning this parameter is essential for obtaining the best pitch shifting effect with as little artifacts as possible. While larger window size settings give better frequency resolution, they have less accurate time-domain resolution and thus result in more smearing of transients signal. The window size parameter is thus a compromise between time resolution and frequency resolution.

The ideal window size setting is dependent on audio content where signals with lots of transients (e.g. punches, drums, explosions,etc.) may benefit from smaller window size settings while harmonic signals with more stable frequency content (e.g. voices, musical instruments, etc.) may work best with larger window size parameter values which provide more accurate frequency resolution.

Harmonizer plug-in properties

The Harmonizer plug-in contains a series of properties, many of which can be edited in real-time and can be mapped to specific Game Parameters using RTPCs.

Interface Element

Description

Name

The name of the Effect instance.

Effect instances are a group of effect property settings. They can be one of two types: custom instances or ShareSets. Custom instances can be used by only one object, whereas ShareSets can be shared across several objects.

(Object Color)

Displays the object's color. Clicking the icon opens the color selector.

Select a color to apply it to the object. When you choose a color for an object, a palette icon appears on the selected square, as well as a yellow triangle in the lower-right corner, as shown.

To inherit the parent object's color, select the square at the far left of the color selector.

Inclusion

Determines whether the element is included in the SoundBanks when they are generated. When selected, the element is included. When unselected, the element is not included.

To optimize your sound design for each platform, you might want to exclude certain elements on certain platforms. By default, this check box applies across all platforms. Use the Link indicator to the left of the check box to unlink the element. Then you can customize the state of the check box per platform.

When this option is unselected, the property and behavior options in the editor become unavailable.

Default value: true

(Show references)

Indicates the number of elements in your project that contain direct references to the object. The icon is displayed in orange when references to the object exist, and in gray when no references exist.

Selecting the button opens the Reference View with the object's name in the References to: field.

Notes

Additional information about the Effect.

Metering

Indicates the name of the object currently being metered.

Allows you to browse for other objects to meter.

[Note]Note

The metering interface elements only appear in the Effect Editor for Effects that include VU meters.

Sets the display of the Effect Editor's selected tabs. By default, there is one panel displaying only one selected tab. You can, however, click a splitter button to split the panel into two, either side by side or one on top of the other, for two different tabs. The currently selected option is highlighted with a background color.

[Note]Note

You cannot display the same tab in both panels. If you select the tab that is currently displayed in the other panel, then the other panel will automatically display another tab.

Input

This parameter determines which channels will be processed by the harmonizer.

Values:

  • As Input: All input channels are processed (default).

  • Mono-Center: Only the center channel is processed. Mono signals are also processed.

  • Stereo: Only the front left and right speakers are processed.

  • L-R-C: All front speakers are processed, including center when present.

  • L-R-Ls-Rs: The front and rear stereo pairs are processed.

  • L-R-C-Ls-Rs: All full band channels are processed.

  • Left Only: Only the left channel is processed by the harmonizer. This mode is useful to reduce CPU usage when the Effect is inserted on busses and it can be assumed that the audio content routed to the Effect is mono sounds that do not use positioning or panning. The result of the harmonized left channel is applied to the wet path of both front left and front right channels. The dry paths preserve the original channel content however.

Default value: As Input

Process LFE

This parameter determines if the LFE channel will be processed by the harmonizer.

Default value: false

Window Size

Larger window size gives better frequency resolution but more smearing of transients. This parameter is thus a compromise between time resolution and frequency resolution. See section above for a more detailed discussion on how to choose the value for this parameter.

Default value: 1024

Range: 256 to 4096

Units: Sample frames

Delay Dry

Determines whether the dry signal should be delayed to preserve synchronization with the harmonized (wet path).

[Note]Note

This property has no effect when the harmonizer is used in an Auxiliary Bus. In this case, the dry signal is defined by the object sending to the Auxiliary Bus.

Default value: true

Harmonizer Voice Parameters

Voice Enable

Determines whether a given pitch voice is enabled.

[Note]Note

In order to avoid unnecessary artifacts and save resources, make sure you disable all voices that you don’t need (instead of using a zero pitch or a very low voice level for example).

Default value: false

Pitch Shift

The pitch is raised or lowered by the amount specified by this parameter (in cents). +1200 Cents is thus transposed an octave up and -1200 is an octave down.

Default value: 0

Range: -2400 to 2400

Units: cents

Voice Gain

The amount of gain applied to a given harmonized voice. Allows to set a balance between different harmonized voices.

Default value: 0

Range: -96 to 24

Units: dB

Voice Filter Parameters

Voice Filter Type

Determines the type of filtering that can be applied to the harmonized voice signal. The following filters are available:

  • None to disable the voice filter.

  • Low Pass to provide a fixed sloped attenuation of high frequencies from a specified frequency. Below this point the signal is almost unaffected but higher frequencies are progressively more attenuated past the cutoff frequency point.

  • High Pass to provide a fixed slope attenuation of low frequencies from a specified frequency. Above this point the signal is almost unaffected while lower frequencies are progressively more attenuated below the cutoff frequency point.

  • Band Pass to reject all frequencies around the specified center frequency. The range of frequencies around the center is controlled by the Q.

  • Notch to provide a fixed attenuation of a specified frequency range with a varying width. The range of frequencies around the center is controlled by the Q.

  • Low Shelf to provide gain/attenuation for a specified range of low frequencies. This curve type is also known as Bass Tone Control.

  • High Shelf to provide gain /attenuation for a specified range of high frequencies. This curve type is also known as Treble Tone Control.

  • Peaking to provide amplification/attenuation of a specified frequency range with a varying width. The range of frequencies around the peak is controlled by the Q.

Default value: None

Voice Filter Gain

The amount of the amplification of the harmonized voice signal for the selected frequency band. Increasing this value “boosts” the audio signal. Decreasing this value “cuts” or attenuates the audio signal.

[Note]Note

The Gain controls are not available when the Low Pass, High Pass, Notch, and Band Pass curves have been selected because these filter types have their passband normalized at 0 dB.

Default value: 0

Range: -24 to 24

Units: dB

Voice Filter Frequency

The portion of the frequency spectrum that will be affected by the gain.

Default value: 1000

Range: 20 to 20000

Units: Hz

Voice Filter Q Factor

The area around the center frequency that will be affected by the change in gain. A low Q value means that the bandwidth range will be wide, and conversely a high Q value means that the bandwidth range will be narrow.

This control is not available when the Low Pass, High Pass, Low Shelf, and High Shelf curves have been selected.

Default value: 1

Range: 0.1 to 20

Output Levels

Dry Level

Gain applied to unprocessed signal.

Default value: 0

Range: -96 to 24

Units: dB

Wet Level

Gain applied to harmonized voices signal.

Default value: 0

Range: -96 to 24

Units: dB

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