User Manual

11
Mute
Engaging Mute Mode causes the
original input signal to be muted from
the output.
When the Mute button is
blue, Mute Mode in engaged. Click
the button to toggle its state.
NOTE: If both the Input Channel’s
Solo and Mute buttons are
pressed, Solo takes preference.
However, if Solo is then disengaged,
the original input will then be muted.
ANOTHER NOTE: Moving a
channel’s Gain slider to its
minimum setting also results in
completely muting its output.
Pan
Sets the
original input’s
location in
the stereo
spectrum
when its output is not muted and Harmony
Engine Evo is assigned to a stereo output.
If Harmony Engine Evo is not assigned to a
stereo track, this control will be disabled.
Command (Mac)/Control (PC) click the control
to reset it to its default value of 0 (center).
NOTE: See the CHOIR section below
for a discussion of how the CHOIR
Stereo Spread control interacts with
the Input Voice Pan control.
Tracking
As previously mentioned, for
best performance, Harmony
Engine Evo requires a clean,
pitched monophonic signal.
Specifically, in order to
accurately identify the pitch
of the input, Harmony Engine
Evo requires a periodically
repeating waveform,
characteristic of a voice or solo
instrument. The Tracking control determines
how much variation is allowed in the incoming
waveform for Harmony Engine Evo to still
consider it periodic.
If you are working with a clean, well-isolated
solo signal you can typically set the Tracking
control to 25 and forget it (hence, that’s the
default value).
If, on the other hand, your signal is noisy or
not well-isolated (as might be more common
in a live performance situation or a track with
headphone bleed) or you are dealing with a
particularly breathy or guttural voice, it may
be necessary to adjust the tracking for best
performance.
Interestingly (to us, anyway), during the
development of Harmony Engine Evo we
discovered that (unlike Auto-Tune, where we
can usually predict with pretty fair accuracy
what kind of Tracking adjustments a signal will
require) it was almost impossible to predict, just
from listening, what setting would work best.
This led to our choice of labels for the extremes
of the control’s range.
As the labels imply, there is no hard and fast
rule for what settings will work well with what
kinds of input. If you’re having a problem (such
as octave errors or loss of pitch tracking),
experiment until you get the best result.
A TIP: One of the things that can
cause tracking problems is excessive
sibilance and/or other unpitched
articulations. De-essing (prior to compression)
can often alleviate these problems.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Like the Vocal
Range setting, getting this setting
right is critical for best performance.
If you are experiencing problems, these are the
controls to adjust. (Even, if in the case of the
Vocal Range, it means trying a “wrong” one.
Whatever works.)