Pitch Magpie

Wonky delay-based pitch shifter with integrated vibrato and filter

Background

For the past couple years, we’ve been trying to make a delay-based pitch shifter that sounds good. It hasn’t been easy. There’s a reason that most pitch shifters have switched to FFT-based algorithms: latency. There’s a reason the monophonic Whammy is more popular than the delay-based PS3. Usually, to make a delay-based shifter sound decent, you need to use long delay times, which creates some serious latency. That’s fine for organ type effects, but it can be pretty limiting. In contrast, reduce that latency too much and you’ve got a metallic ring mod, especially on the lowest string of the guitar. But with some tweaking and some crossfade tricks, we think we’ve found the perfect middle ground. And although there’s still a tiny bit of lag, you probably won’t care once you add the filters or vibrato haha!

Why filters and vibrato? Well, when we’ve used those old delay-based shifters, we always thought they sounded best when combined with other pedals — especially for creating special effects! So we though: what if those effects were combined with the shifter? Not just slapped on after the pitch shifting circuit, but actually integrated into the circuit, so that turning up the feedback (“overtone”) effects the filter or the vibrato too. The results were even better than we hoped! Sure, it’s nice that the pedal can double as a random chorus or a modulated highpass with the pitch shifter section disabled. But turn on the pitch shifter, and the resonance of the filter and the overtones of the pitch shifter start to interact as you turn up the feedback. And if you set the shifter near minimum with high feedback, you get all sorts of comb filter effects. With just a few knobs, the possibilities are really surprising!

https://thekingofgear.com/pitchmagpie