Soundtoys MicroShift User's Guide

MicroShift

Classic Stereo Widening

User’s Guide

Version 5 : For Mac and Windows

CONTENTS (continued)

CONTENTS

THE BASICS / Pg. 3

About MicroShift .......................................................................................... pg. 4

THE MICROSHIFT CONTROL PANEL / Pg. 5

Mix ...................................................................................................................pg. 5

Detune ............................................................................................................pg. 5

Delay ...............................................................................................................pg. 5

Focus ............................................................................................................... pg. 5

Style I .............................................................................................................. pg. 6

Style II ............................................................................................................. pg. 6

Style III ............................................................................................................ pg. 6

PhaseMistress — Version 5

MicroShift — Version 5

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION / Pg. 7

Support / Contact ......................................................................................... pg. 7

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2

THE BASICS

MicroShift — Version 5

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Figure 1: The MicroShift Control Panel

3

THE BASICS - ABOUT MICROSHIFT

MicroShift — Version 5

Microshift brings us back to the early days of pitch-shifting, and in

fact our very own early days working at Eventide.* In those days, we

(Ken and Bob) were asked to create a stereo harmonizer, what would

eventually become the H3000 Multi-Effects Processor. The H3000

became an absolute effects monster, with dozens of effects algorithms

and hundreds of presets. The hard work paid off, and today you’ll be

hard pressed to find a studio or venue that doesn’t include a H3000 (or

later variant) in the rack.

As cool as all that was, the thing is, when we would walk up to a rack

with an H3000 in it, it was almost always set up for only small pitch

shifts to thicken and widen background vocals or instrumentation. The

idea behind this trick is fairly simple; dial in a few cents up on the left,

and a few down on the right, add a dash of delay, and voila - instant fat

stereo sound! Of course, it’s been used on lots of other things but that’s

really where the whole thing got started. Micro pitch-shifting is still a

vital part of most mix engineers “bag of tricks” a couple of decades or

so later, especially on guitars get crazy wide walls of sound. For this

reason, vintage pitch-shifters like the H3000 as well as the Eventide

H910(x2), and AMS DMX 15-80 are still in demand. In fact, some of the

earliest plug-ins we developed, SoundBlender and PurePitch, were

designed to bring this trick into the burgeoning digital domain.

FOCUS knob, letting you push and widen specific ranges without

affecting the rest of the track. It’s amazing for adding “shimmer” to a

vocal, or “air” to a guitar. You can control the amount of detune and/

or delay, and there’s even a mix knob let you tweak the effect to fit just

right in the mix.

With three pitch-shift modes, MicroShift combines the classic sound of

hardware coupled with advanced new features, all in a very intuitive and

easy to use plug-in. MicroShift is the go-to tool for making things wider

and bigger in your own virtual effects rack.

Simply put, MicroShift makes it W I D E . Be it vocals, synths, guitars,

backing vocals or whatever you choose to run through it, MicroShift

uses this classic studio trick to spread out, thicken up, or give a new

space to any track you hit with it. MicroShift takes the idea of making

“wider” even further than the original hardware could with the new

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**Note: Eventide, Harmonizer, and H3000 are all trademarks of

Eventide Inc. AMS is a trademark of AMS Neve Ltd. These are mentioned

for historical purposes only. AMS and Eventide in no way endorse this

product, and are not associated or affiliated with Soundtoys.

4

THE MICROSHIFT CONTROL PANEL

MicroShift — Version 5

Figure 2: MicroShift’s Main GUI

MIX

The Mix control determines the balance between the dry (unprocessed)

and wet (processed) sounds in MicroShift. For the clearest, widest

sound, 100 percent wet is the way to go. For a thicker, more chorused

sound, you can use the Mix control to blend in the original dry signal

with the pitch shifted and delayed effect.

DETUNE

Detune increases or decreases the amount of micro pitch-shifting that

is happening with any of the three styles. Because the pitch shifting for

each style is continually time varying, this control is in units of percent.

At 50%, the amount of detuning is halved. At 200%, the amount of

detuning is doubled.

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DELAY

The Delay control increases or decreases the amount of delay that is

happening with any of the three styles. Because the delay for each style

is continually time varying, this control is in units of percent. At 50%,

the amount of delay is halved. At 200%, the amount of delay is doubled.

FOCUS

The Focus knob controls the crossover point of a 2-band crossover filter,

applying the affected signal only to the high band. While very source

dependent, it’s useful for widening mid and high frequency content

without making the low end sound loose or muddy. It defaults to 20 Hz,

but can go all the way up to 10 kHz.

5

THE MICROSHIFT CONTROL PANEL

STYLE I

Modeled on preset #231 from the H3000. We’ve pretty closely matched

the delay and pitch variation (which isn’t exactly what the front panel

on the hardware displays, interestingly enough), and even emulated the

sound of the analog saturation present in the original hardware.

STYLE II

Modeled on preset #519 from the H3000, which was based on a

different pitch shifting algorithm. This has a slightly different sound

than Style I due to different amounts of delay variation and a different

frequency response.

MicroShift — Version 5

STYLE III

Modeled on a favorite setting from another vintage hardware unit,

the AMS/Neve DMX 15-80. This style has much wider delay variation,

different saturation characteristics, and a different, harder, ‘de-glitching’

circuit.

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6

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

MicroShift — Version 5

SUPPORT INFORMATION

Now that you’ve taken the time to learn all about MicroShift, have fun,
experiment, and make greatness! If our plug-ins helped you take your
production to the next level, let us know, we’d love to hear from you
and what you were able to create with our software.

If along the way however you should run into any hiccups or anything
unexpected, we offer free technical support for all registered users.

Our FAQ contains many helpful answers. you can find it at:

http://support.soundtoys.com

If you need further support you can find our Customer Support
contact form at:

https://www.soundtoys.com/forms/support

You can also reach our support staff by e-mail at:

[e-mail]

If neither of those options work for you, our office can be reached via

telephone at:

1-800-COOL-EFX

Please have the following information available to help assist our
support team:

• The product version and serial number

• The version number of your audio system (e.g ProTools

11.2.1, Cubase 8.0.5, Logic 10.2.0, Cakewalk Sonar X3)

• Your interface/hardware (e.g. Mbox Pro, Apogee Quartet,
RME Fireface, etc.)

• Your computer and operating system info (e.g. MacPro OS X

10.9.5, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, etc.)

• A detailed description of the problem

CORPORATE CONTACT

Soundtoys, Inc.

PO Box 528

Burlington, VT 05402

Phone: [phone]

Fax: [phone]

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MicroShift — Version 5

Wave Mechanics, Soundtoys, Crystallizer, EchoBoy, FilterFreak, PhaseMistress, PitchDoctor,
PurePitch, SoundBlender, Speed, Decapitator, PanMan, Tremolator, Devil-Loc, Radiator,
MicroShift, PrimalTap, and their respective logos are all trademarks of Soundtoys, Inc.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners, which are in no way
associated or affiliated with Soundtoys. These trademarks are used only for historical
reference or to identify products whose sounds or tone were studied in the development
of our plug-ins.

© 2015 Soundtoys Inc. All rights reserved.