User Manual

5
Chapter 2: Introducing Harmony EFX
What the heck is this
thing?
Harmony EFX is an extremely
affordable and easy-to-use version of our
Harmony Engine Evo real-time harmony
generating plug-in. Based on exactly the
same Evo™ Voice Processing Technology
that powers its big brother, Harmony EFX
puts professional-quality vocal harmony
arrangements within reach of any songwriter,
producer, musician or engineer.
What’s it do?
Traditionally, harmony tools offer two basic
operating modes:
On one hand are fully automatic modes based
on either parallel or “smart” scale-based
intervals. These are relatively easy to set
up, but offer very little in the way of creative
control.
On the other hand (assuming organisms with
two hands) are MIDI modes that provide
control of each individual note of each individual
harmony voice. While these techniques offer
absolute control, they also demand that you be
skilled in the intricacies of vocal arranging (as
well as having the time and patience to enter
every note into a MIDI track, hardly a trivial
undertaking).
With Harmony EFX, we set ourselves the task
of creating a tool that would let anyone who
could hear the harmonies they wanted in their
mind quickly and easily create those harmonies
in a song or other project. While Harmony EFX
offers all of the traditional harmony generation
methods, it adds a variety of new operating
paradigms that allow you to approach the
harmony generation process from a purely
musical point of view.
What’s it got?
With four independent harmony voices
utilizing our advanced Evo™ Voice Processing
Technology, a variety of powerful harmony
generating modes, humanization features for
natural sounding performances, and a flexible
real-time harmony preset system, Harmony
EFX provides incredibly easy-to-use tools to
quickly and easily produce virtually any vocal
arrangement you can imagine.
Key Harmony EFX features include:
•
Four high-quality, formant-corrected harmony
voices featuring Evo™ Voice Processing
Technology with independent vocal character
and pan settings
•
Antares Throat Modeling technology that lets
you process each harmony voice through a
physical model of the human vocal tract
•
A variety of innovative Harmony Control
modes, from fully automatic to individual
control of every note:
Fixed or Scale Intervals: Simply set the
key and harmony voice intervals and let
Harmony EFX do the rest
Scale Degree or Chord Name: Define
your harmony chord-by-chord, complete
with inversions and variable vocal ranges
Chord by MIDI: Define your harmony
in real time via a MIDI controller or pre-
recorded MIDI track
MIDI Omni: Directly “play” the four
harmony voices as if they were voices of
a synth or sampler.
MIDI Channel: Use four separate MIDI
channels for absolute control over each
note of your vocal arrangement
•
Spread and Register controls that allow you
to quickly and intuitively set the pitch range
and harmony style of your vocal arrangement