ANTARES Harmony Engine Evo Owner’s Manual

Vocal Modeling
Harmony Generator

Owner’s Manual

©2009 Antares Audio Technologies.
All rights reserved. Certified Isinglass-free.

™

All trademarks are property of their respective owners.
Antares Audio Technologies

231 Technology Circle, Scotts Valley, California 95066 USA
www.antarestech.com
Printed in USA Rev 1.0 PN P25032- 0109 -M01

The Obligatory Legal Mumbo-Jumbo

The Antares Harmony Engine Evo software
and this User’s Manual are protected by
copyright law. Making copies, adaptations,
or derivative works without the prior
written authorization of Antares Audio
Technologies, is prohibited by law and
constitutes a punishable violation of the law.

Antares Audio Technologies retains all
ownership rights to the Harmony Engine
Evo software and its documentation.
Use of Harmony Engine Evo is limited
by the following license agreement.

Please carefully read all the terms and
conditions of this license agreement. At
the time of installation of the Harmony
Engine Evo software you will be presented
with a copy of the agreement and asked
whether or not you agree to it. Continuing
with the installation process beyond that
point constitutes such agreement.

Harmony Engine Evo License Agreement

Antares Audio Technologies grants you a
non-transferable, non-exclusive license to use
Harmony Engine Evo under the terms and
conditions stated in this agreement. Use of
Harmony Engine Evo indicates your agreement
to the following terms and conditions.

License

You may:

1. Use Harmony Engine Evo on
only one computer at a time.

You may not:

1. Make copies of Harmony Engine Evo or of
the user manual in whole or in part except
as expressly provided for in this agreement.
Your right to copy Harmony Engine Evo
and the user manual is limited by copyright
law. Making copies, verbal or media
translations, adaptations, derivative works,
or telecommunication data transmission
of Harmony Engine Evo without prior
written authorization of Antares, is
prohibited by law and constitutes a
punishable violation of the law.

2. Make alteration or modifications
to Harmony Engine Evo (or any
copy) or disassemble or de- compile
Harmony Engine Evo (or any copy),
or attempt to discover the source
code of Harmony Engine Evo.

3. Sub-license, lease, lend, rent, or grant
other rights in all or any portion of Harmony
Engine Evo (or any copy) to others.

Term of the Agreement

This agreement is effective until terminated
by you or Antares. You may terminate the
agreement at any time by notifying Antares and
destroying all copies of the manual, and erasing
Harmony Engine Evo from all machine-readable
media, whether on-line or on archival copies.

In the event of breach of any of the terms of
this agreement, you shall pay the attorney’s
fees of Antares that are reasonably necessary
to enforce the agreement plus resulting
damages.

Limited Warranty And Disclaimer

HARMONY ENGINE EVO AND
ACCOMPANYING MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED
“AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANT Y OF ANY KIND,
EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILIT Y AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICUL AR PURPOSE.

Antares Audio Technologies does not warrant
that the functions contained in the program will
meet your requirements. The entire risk as to
the use, quality, and performance of Harmony
Engine Evo is with you.

SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW
LIMITATIONS ON HOW LONG AN IMPLIED
WARRANTY LASTS, SO THE ABOVE
LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
THIS WARRANTY GIVES YOU SPECIFIC
LEGAL RIGHTS. YOU MAY ALSO HAVE
OTHER RIGHTS WHICH VARY FROM
JURISDICTION TO JURISDICTION.

Limitation of Liability

IN NO EVENT WILL ANTARES BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOSS OF
DATA , LOST PROFITS OR OTHER SPECIAL,
INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INDIRECT
DAMAGES ARISING FROM THE USE OF
HARMONY ENGINE EVO OR ACCOMPANYING
MATERIALS. THIS LIMITATION WILL APPLY
EVEN IF ANTARES OR ITS AUTHORIZED AGENT
HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY
OF SUCH DAMAGE. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE
THAT THE LICENSE FEE REFLECTS THIS
ALLOCATION OF RISK. SOME JURISDICTIONS
DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION
OF LIABILIT Y FOR INCIDENTAL OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE
LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

Whew! Now that that’s over, let’s get on to the
good stuff.

Contents

Chapter 1 Getting Started

How to use this manual 3
Installing and Authorizing 4
Technical Support 4

Chapter 2 Introducing Harmony Engine Evo

What the heck is this thing? 5

Chapter 3 Harmony Engine Evo Controls

Controls 7
Setup 8
Original Input 10
Harmony Voices 12
Vibrato Controls 15
Humanization 16
Glid e 17
Freeze 17
CHOIR 18
Harmony Control 20
Harmony Presets 29
Voice Parameter Presets 31

Chapter 4 The Factory Presets

The Presets 33

Chapter 5 Tutorials

Stay By Me 40
Lift Us Away 41
Let You Know 43

Index 45

vi

Welcome!

On behalf of everyone at Antares Audio Technologies, we’d like to offer both our
thanks and congratulations on your decision to purchase Harmony Engine Evo, the
second generation of the quickest, easiest to use tool for realistic harmony creation.

Before you proceed any farther, we’d like to strongly encourage you to register
and authorize your copy of Harmony Engine Evo. (You can skip ahead to the Authorization and
Installation instructions on page 3. We’ll wait.)

As a Harmony Engine Evo owner, you are entitled to receive notification of any software upgrades,
technical support, and advance announcements of upcoming products. But we can’t send you stuff
unless we know who and where you are. So please, register.

With your purchase of Harmony Engine Evo, you have created a relationship with Antares which we
hope will be long and gratifying. Let us know what you think. You can count on us to listen.

Again, thanks.

The Whole Antares Crew

1

2

Chapter 1: Getting Started

3

How to use this manual

We know you’re probably

anxious to get some
harmony going. While we’ve designed the
Harmony Engine Evo interface to be largely
self-explanatory, Harmony Engine Evo
introduces some entirely new concepts to
the process of quickly and easily creating
realistic harmonies, so, to really get the most
out of Harmony Engine Evo, we strongly
encourage you to read this manual.

Of course, you’re welcome to just launch
your host and play around with Harmony
Engine Evo for a while, but to get a good
idea of Harmony Engine Evo’s capabilities
(and how to accomplish various basic tasks)
you should at least check out Chapter 4,
Factory Presets. We’ve included a variety of
presets that configure Harmony Engine Evo
to let you quickly and easily interact with its
various modes and functions. Then check out
Chapter 5, Tutorial Sessions, where you can
see (and hear) exactly how Harmony Engine
Evo was used to create some of the audio
demos on our web site and installation DVD
ROM. The demos’ composers have been
kind enough to allow us to include the actual
sessions for you to load into your host and
experiment with. Open them up. Check out
the Harmony Engine Evo settings. Tweak
some controls and see what happens.

Finally, when you’re ready to learn everything
Harmony Engine Evo can do, check out Chapter
3 for detailed descriptions of every function.

The contents of this manual

Chapter 1: Getting Started

The chapter you are reading.
Provides information on installing and
authorizing Harmony Engine Evo.

Chapter 2: Introducing Harmony Engine Evo

Provides a brief introduction to what Harmony
Engine Evo is all about and gives an overview
of Harmony Engine Evo’s key features.

Chapter 3: Harmony Engine Evo Controls

This chapter is reference information
for every control used in the
Harmony Engine Evo interface.

Chapter 4: The Factory Presets

Descriptions of the factory presets that
ship with Harmony Engine Evo.

Chapter 5: Tutorial Sessions

Describes the complete host sessions
provided as hands-on examples of
how Harmony Engine Evo is used.

4

Installing Harmony Engine Evo

Harmony Engine Evo is designed to function
as a plug-in in a wide variety of digital audio
applications. Please refer to your specific host
application’s user manual for more information
on installing and using plug-ins.

Authorizing Harmony Engine Evo

Authorization is the process by which Harmony
Engine Evo is allowed to run on your computer.
Detailed instructions covering the available
authorization options will be found in the file
“Authorization Read Me” which is included on
the installation CD ROM or with your software
download.

NOTE: When initially installed,

this software will run for ten
days without authorization.

So even if you can‘t authorize it right away you
can still use your software in the meantime.
(During this period, click the “Continue” button
whenever you are presented with the Trial
Period screen at launch.) But don’t procrastinate
too long. After those ten days are up you will no
longer be able to launch Harmony Engine Evo
until it’s authorized.

Technical Support

In the unlikely event that you experience a
problem using Harmony Engine Evo, try the
following:

1. Make sure you have the latest version of
the plug-in. You can download and install
the latest version of Harmony Engine Evo
from the following web page:

http://www.antarestech.com/download/

update.shtml

2. If you are having problems authorizing
your software, be sure that you have the
latest version of the PACE Interlok drivers.
You can download and install the latest
version for your operating system from the
following web page:

http://portal.knowledgebase.net/article.

asp?article=174703&p=5764

If your problem is not resolved after taking the
above actions, try the following:

1. Make another quick scan through this
manual. Who knows? You may have
stumbled onto some feature that you didn’t
notice the first time through.

2. Consult our searchable knowledgebase at:

http://www.antarestech.com/support/

index.html

3. Check our web page for tips, techniques, or
any late-breaking information:

http://www.antarestech.com

Chapter 2:
Introducing Harmony Engine Evo

5

What the heck is this
thing?

Harmony Engine Evo is
the second generation of our Harmony
Engine real-time harmony generating plug­in. Like its predecessor, Harmony Engine
Evo puts professional-quality vocal harmony
arrangements within reach of any songwriter,
producer, musician or engineer.

What’s new?

While clearly the most visible addition to
Harmony Engine Evo is the integration
of five channels of our unique CHOIR
Vocal Multiplier (and that is seriously
cool), the real story is tucked away
invisibly under the hood (so to speak).

During the development of Auto-Tune Evo,
the latest version of the worldwide standard
in professional pitch correction, Dr. Andy
went back to the proverbial drawing board to
create a seriously evolved voice processing
technology that takes advantage of the
hugely more powerful computers that are
now the norm for digital audio recording.

The result was Evo™ Voice Processing
Technology, setting a new standard for pitch
detection, pitch shifting, and throat modeling
that is substantially more accurate and reliable
over a much wider range of audio input quality.

Now we’ve turned our attention to
incorporating Evo Technology into Harmony
Engine. The result is an entirely new level of
sonic performance. With faster, more accurate
pitch detection, smoother, artifact-free pitch
shifting, and seamless, natural-sounding (if
you want it to be) throat modeling, Harmony
Engine Evo just works better. Leaving you
free to focus on creating your music.

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 Engine Evo, 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 Engine Evo 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, a flexible
real-time preset system for harmony and vocal
type, and five integrated channels of Antares’
unique CHOIR Vocal Multiplier, Harmony
Engine Evo provides incredibly easy-to-use
tools to quickly and easily produce virtually any
vocal arrangement you can imagine.

6

•

Key Harmony Engine Evo features include:

•

Four high-quality, formant-corrected harmony

voices featuring Evo™ Voice Processing
Technology providing independent vocal
character, vibrato, 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 Engine Evo 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 pre­recorded 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

Five integrated channels of our unique

CHOIR Vocal Multiplier, to let you turn the
input voice and/or each harmony voice into
2, 4, or 8 distinct individual unison voices,
each with its own pitch, timing and vibrato
variations. Perfect for creating entire choirs
out of a single vocal line.

•

Five-channel output capability (host

dependent) that lets you assign the original
input and each of the four harmony voices to
their own channels for further processing

Whether you’re an experienced vocal arranger,
a songwriter looking for that perfect backup
vocal, or a composer experimenting with
unique vocal effects, Harmony Engine Evo
gives you entirely new ways to create the
harmony parts you hear in your head. In fact,
experimenting with different harmonies is so
easy (and, dare we suggest, fun), you may find
yourself using Harmony Engine Evo to explore
harmonic alternatives you may have never
otherwise considered.

Harmony Engine Evo is, quite simply, the
quickest, easiest tool for flexible, realistic
harmony creation.

to quickly and intuitively set the pitch range
and harmony style of your vocal arrangement

•

Humanize functions that provide selectable

amounts of variation to each harmony voice
for realistic, natural sounding results

•

A Freeze function that allows a unique

variety of backup vocal effects by letting
you instantly freeze pitch and/or formant
articulation

•

A Harmony Preset matrix that lets you create

up to 15 complete harmony settings and
instantaneously recall them, in real time or
via automation

•

A Voice Parameter Preset matrix that lets you

create and instantly recall up to 6 different
“vocal groups”

Chapter 3: Harmony Engine Evo Controls

7

This chapter is a reference for all of the controls used in the Harmony Engine Evo interface.

Controls

Continuous controls in Harmony Engine Evo are
represented by virtual knobs or faders.

Knobs can be controlled by either vertical or
horizontal movement:

VERTICAL: Position the cursor over a knob,

press and hold the left mouse button (or
the only mouse button, if you’re using a
one-button mouse) and move the cursor
up to turn the knob clockwise or down
to turn the knob counterclockwise. The
current value of the knob’s parameter
appears in its associated numeric display.

HORIZONTAL: Position the cursor over

a knob, press and hold the left mouse
button and move the cursor to the right
to turn the knob clockwise or to the left
to turn the knob counterclockwise. The
current value of the knob’s parameter
appears in its associated numeric display.

For faders, simply click on the “thumb” of the
fader and move it to the desired setting.

Option (Mac)/Control (PC)-clicking a control
returns it to its default value.

8

NOTE: The specific modifier key may

vary from host to host (Steinberg

hosts on the Mac, for example, use
the Command (Apple) key instead of the Option
key). Refer to the Harmony Engine Evo Read
Me for details (or just try a few until you find the
one what works).

Setup

The functions described in this section are used
to tell Harmony Engine Evo things about the
source audio or otherwise affect the plug-in as
a whole.

Input Audio

For accurate harmony generation and best
modeling performance, Harmony Engine
Evo needs to be able to detect the pitch
of the original performance. To do that,
Harmony Engine Evo requires a clean,
pitched, monophonic signal. (In this context,
“clean” refers both to lack of noise and lack of
processing with effects like chorus, reverb, etc.)

NOTE: Keep in mind that the input

must not only be monophonic, but

actually a solo voice or instrument
(as opposed to a unison section). For example,
a group of singers singing the same note will
typically not be reliably tracked.

You can have problems with certain solo
voices and solo instruments as well. Consider,
for example, an exceptionally breathy voice,
or a track recorded in an unavoidably noisy
environment. The added noise is non-periodic
and Harmony Engine Evo will have difficulty
determining the pitch of the composite

(voice + noise) sound. Luckily, there is a
control (the Tracking control, discussed
later in this chapter) that will let Harmony
Engine Evo be a bit more casual about
what it considers “periodic.” Experimenting
with this setting will often allow Harmony
Engine Evo to track even noisy signals.

Routing

Harmony Engine Evo should typically be
instantiated as an insert effect on the track that
will supply the source audio. Harmony Engine
Evo can be instantiated on a mono or stereo
track, but since it processes only a single
channel of audio, if you instantiate it on a stereo
track, the two channels will be mixed together
before being processed.

Harmony Engine Evo’s output can be mono
or stereo (or, in some circumstances, five
channels — see below). Unless you have
some overriding reason for using a mono
output, we highly recommend using it in stereo
output mode, since in mono mode, all panning
controls are disabled. This prevents you from
positioning the harmony voices across the
stereo soundstage and dramatically impacts (in
a not-so-swell way) the overall effect.

Effects

The cleaner the input signal, the easier
Harmony Engine Evo’s task of reliably detecting
its pitch. For this reason, effects designed to
improve the quality of the input (e.g., de-essing,
noise reduction, etc.) should be applied to the
audio before it is input to Harmony Engine Evo.

NOTE: If you will be using both

de-essing and compression on

your vocal track, it has been our
experience that using the de-esser before
the compressor provides improved results in
Harmony Engine Evo.

As mentioned above, effects like chorus or
reverb can negatively affect Harmony Engine
Evo’s ability to reliably detect the pitch of the
input audio. As a result, you should not apply
these effects to the input audio before it is
routed into Harmony Engine Evo. Either apply
them to the Harmony Engine Evo output or,
if you only want them on the original audio,
apply them to a copy of the original audio on

9

another track and then mute the original input in
Harmony Engine Evo.

Five Channel Output

Depending on your host’s routing capabilities,
you may be able to use Harmony Engine
Evo in five channel output mode to send the
original input and the four harmony voices
to five separate channels for subsequent
individual processing. Unfortunately, the ability
and method of accomplishing this varies from
host to host and typically involves making non­standard use of a host’s 5.1 capabilities. Check
your host’s manual and the Harmony Engine
Evo Read Me for details.

NOTE: While it is our intention to

provide tips in our Knowledgebase on

using five channel output in the major
hosts that support it, your primary resource
should be a detailed knowledge of how routing
works in your host. In this case, your host’s
manual is your best friend.

ANOTHER NOTE: With the original

Harmony Engine, we felt that one

of the most useful (and dramatic)
reasons to use five channel output was to allow
you to use instances of CHOIR or DUO on each
of the individual channels. With the integration
of CHOIR into Harmony Engine Evo, it’s no
longer necessary to struggle with five channel
routing to get those effects, so it may well be
that you can just ignore this whole issue.

Set Input
Vocal
Range

As a result
of Antares’

research
into the unique characteristics of various types
of audio signals, Harmony Engine Evo offers a
selection of optimized processing algorithms
for the most common types of inputs. Choices
include Soprano Voice, Alto/Tenor Voice, Bass/
Baritone Voice and Instrument (a general
setting for anything that isn’t actually a vocal).
Matching the appropriate algorithm to the
input results in faster and more accurate pitch
detection and more accurate modeling.

To select vocal range, click on the Vocal Range
pop-up and then select the appropriate range
from the pop-up list.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We really can’t

stress this enough. Getting this

setting right is critical to getting the
best performance from Harmony Engine
Evo. Choosing the wrong Vocal Range (or
just forgetting to set it at all) will result in
compromised performance. Pay attention.

Model
Glottal

The glottal
waveform
is created

by the
vibration of a singer’s vocal chords. While
the glottal waveform is largely defined by
each singer’s individual anatomy, it is also
affected by the specific singing style of
a particular performance. For example,
singing softly results in a markedly different
glottal waveform than does belting a
song with great energy and volume.

The Model Glottal control lets you tell Harmony
Engine Evo what performance style you would
like to model. The options are soft, medium,
loud, and intense. (If you want to preserve the
stylistic character of the original vocal, start
with this control set to Medium.)

Despite the value names (soft, loud, etc.), these
settings result in only modest change to the
actual level of the signal (with the “intense”
setting providing the most gain). Its primary
purpose is to model the glottal waveform that
would result from the various styles of singing.
If you want to further adjust the levels, use
the individual Harmony Voice Gain controls
described below.

NOTE: The Model Glottal control

affects all of the harmony voices. To

define individual vocal characteristics
for each voice, use the Throat Length
controls described later in this chapter.

ANOTHER NOTE: The Model

Glottal control does not

affect the Original Input.