Eventide

116 Guitarist November 2009
£399
EffEcts
PhotograPhy by amanda thomas
T
he Pitchfactor is the third
in Eventide’s series of
stompboxes, following
the Timefactor and the
Modfactor, but it’s perhaps the
most anticipated of the three as,
historically, the company has
been best known for its
pitchshifting effects. Eventide
did, after all, trademark the
Harmonizer name with the
H910 unit back in the seventies,
and calling the Pitchfactor an
Eventide Harmonizer in a
pedal is probably no misnomer,
as the company says that it:
“includes Eventide’s best pitch-
changing effects from the past
36 years without compromising
quality or flexibility.”
So what do we get? Well, the
Pitchfactor offers 10 distinct
stereo or mono pitch and delay
effects, each with a capability
based on up to four voices of
diatonic pitchshifting and up to
1.5 seconds of stereo delay.
There are 100 factory presets
stored onboard in 50 banks, but
all can be overwritten with
your own edited sounds.
The layout of the Pitchfactor
follows that of its siblings –
powered from a supplied 9V
adaptor with mono or stereo
operation, the connections
switchable from guitar/amp
operation to line level. Three
footswitches take care of
everyday operation and work in
two modes – Play and Bank.
In Play mode the first
footswitch is the active/bypass
switch while the function of the
second, the Flex/Learn switch,
depends on the effect type. It
can variously set the key,
change the pitchshift by a set
amount, restart the arpeggiator
sequence or instigate infinite
repeat. Switch number three is
for Tap Tempo, but by holding it
down you can change modes.
Bank mode utilises the
Eventide Pitchfactor £399
Eventide’s famous Harmonizer appears at last in
stompbox form by Trevor Curwen
The Rivals
DigiTech offers specialist
harmony pedals. The
Harmony Man (£316)
generates harmonies based
on your chord progression
with four onboard memories.
The Whammy (£212) offers
control of pitch with an
expression pedal. The BOSS
PS-5 Super Shifter (£179),
is an intelligent pitchshifter
that can provide pitchshifting,
harmonies, detuning and
tremolo effects.
footswitches to access the
presets with the third switch
stepping sequentially up
through the banks, while the
other two select or bypass the
two presets that are stored in
the bank. In addition to the
onboard switches there are
sockets for adding an extra
GIT322.rev_eventide 116 8/10/09 11:59:20