My original concept for the Harmonizer was for a two-octave keyboard instrument, not a rack mount effects box. The stage was set for the development of an effects device that would forever change the world of music production: the Eventide Harmonizer®. Later, in 1974, Eventide introduced a pitch change option for its memory-based DDL1745M and, for the first time, recording engineers could accomplish pitch change without resorting to tape. Unlike mechanical recording, digital recording and playback can happen in ‘real time’ which Richard Factor demonstrated in the years prior to founding Eventide by building this prototype: The audio can be ‘played back’ (read from memory) at a different rate to achieve pitch change. As with most forms of audio capture, digital audio is ‘recorded’ at a fixed rate and stored as 1s and 0s in memory chips. This opened the door for digital pitch change, which initially, was only expensive. It was an appliqué for a standard tape deck around which one threaded the tape path. It had a quad tape head with four magnetic pickups 90 degrees apart. And the head rotated!īy selecting the rotation speed and the tape speed, it could increase pitch by keeping the tape speed constant. It could increase tempo by speeding up the tape and rotating the head in a direction contrary to the tape motion, thus keeping the pitch the same. Since head rotation and tape motion could be controlled separately, pitch and tempo could be adjusted separately. This device achieved little commercial success due to its high cost, mechanical complexity, and because it required constant maintenance. Alex Case describing George Martin’s crafty and effective ‘trick.’Ī short-lived intermediate between changing tape speed to change pitch and tempo, until then ineluctably entwined, was the Eltro Tempo Regulator. Here’s an excerpt from a Gear Club podcast with Prof. A classic example is the ‘piano’ solo on The Beatles’ “In My Life”. Tape-based pitch change also found utilitarian uses. The strange effect of pitch change was at the heart of most novelty hits of the 60s! “In My Life”
Novelty RecordsĪ few brave and wonderfully silly souls took the possibilities of tape-based pitch change to the extreme and had major radio hits! Case in point: The Chipmunks Christmas holiday smash, “Christmas Don’t be Late.” The song was sung at half-speed, then played back and re-recorded at double speed. Those of a certain age will also remember “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Haaa” by Napoleon XIV. Les Paul was first to use his tape recorders to punch in, double track, Varispeed (change pitch) and reverse audio.
Early adopters of tape machines, starting famously with Les Paul, began making dramatic use of pitch change to stand out. While pitch change is a natural consequence of recording audio, the use of pitch change as an effect wasn’t exploited until the introduction of magnetic tape. Tape-based Pitch Change: Les Paul, The Chipmunks & The Beatles In the 1890s, Emile Berliner invented the gramophone (phonograph), the vinyl disc was born, and pitch change became commonplace. One can imagine both the fun and consternation that resulted when hearing “Wow” and “Flutter” for the first time. In fact, the challenge became playing a recording at precisely the same rate that it was recorded to prevent pitch change. With the first audio recordings by Edison in 1877, a mechanically spinning wax cylinder, pitch change was inevitable.
Recording Sound: Edison, Berliner, Et Al. The Doppler Effect explained the sound of train whistles speeding past-possibly the first time humans became aware of pitch change (although some lucky human might have noticed the interesting effect on the sound of an arrow whistling past their ear). Just three years later, Buys Ballot, a Dutchman, demonstrated the Doppler Effect on sound waves by having six tubas play the same sustained note while perched on the front of a speeding locomotive. In 1842, Christian Doppler suggested that “the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer.” Doppler was thinking about star light, not sound, but a wave is a wave is a wave.