Which is the BEST Pitchshifter to use - For Guitar Drop Tunings

⚫ Patreon: / garyhiebner
🔵 Website: garyhiebner.com
In this video I explore 3 different software pitch shifters ad how well they work get pitch dropping the guitar signal.
Helix Native:
line6.com/helix/helixnative.html
Overloud TH-U
overloud.com/products/th-u-full
PitchProof
aegeanmusic.com/pitchproof-specs
0:10 - Introduction
1:24 - Plugins Used
2:38 - Drop D - Original Audio
3:15 - Drop G - Pitched down -7 semitones
4:11 - PitchProof - Single Notes
4:25 - TH-U - Singles Notes
4:42 - Helix Native - Single Notes
6:01 - PitchProof - Chords
6:30 - TH-U - Chords
7:01 - Helix Native - Chords
8:07 - Dropped by -12 Semitones to D1
9:19 - 7-string in Drop F
9:30 - -7 Semitones to A#0
10:19 - 7-string down to D1
10:50 - Thanks for Watching!
🔴 Guitars and Tunings Used:
Dogiel Custom Guitar - The Witch 001 - Drop D
Squire Stagemaster 7 with 28-inch Baritone Neck Conversion - Drop F
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[@apothecide.1]

If you pre EQ and compress your 28" drop F DI before the pitch shifter, you can actually get away with pitch shifting down a full octave with clarity

[@GaryHiebner]

Man, that is some great advice. Will try it out next time.

[@brngylni]

Can you please explain it a bit more?

[@jack-zc9lb]

@@brngylni if you identify the frequencies that make the sound you get out of the pitch shifted result muddy or lacking in note clarity, you can EQ those freqs to be less prevalent before the DI even hits the pitch shifter, therefore making the end result more bright and clear. as for compression I assume the benefit of that would be that the signal is more consistent and the pitch shifter would then have an easier time reading it, but that's probably not completely necessary.

[@potestudio]

so imagine you do that with helix too, maybe works much better than actualy they do too, and still keep better i think (pre eq its necessary anyways) and give some octaves with a pos eq

[@apothecide.1]

@@jack-zc9lb i should have clarified by saying "upward compression" after EQ helps the pitch shifted DI should clearer and more defined when it hits the amp

[@TorqueBow]

I honestly love how casual and informative your channel is, it feels like I’m learning from a friend! You deserve wayyyyy more views, my guy

[@GaryHiebner]

Thanks. Thats exactly what I'm going for with the channel. Casual and informative. Glad you're enjoying the content. If you know of others that will like the videos, share it with them. Cheers!

[@brunoguitardreamer]

You just said all that I was about to comment, word by word. Haha Awesome channel!

[@resonanceau433]

Thanks for sharing this info. Really useful tools

[@joeysimoneau]

Great video man!

[@everlymarshall9179]

Thank you soo much! This helps a lot!

[@INeverWanted2010]

Thanks for this comparison.

[@thomasduhanez9271]

Thanks a lot, it saved me a lot of research for a cover I'm trying to do without detuning a ridiculous amount!

[@GaryHiebner]

Great. Glad the video helped

[@dio1304]

Nice, now I can use my guitar + pitchproof to create some nice distorted lo-fi bass, especially on chords

[@KaiDown]

Oh man, Pitch proof really struggled on this one. TH-U was a little better, but Helix stole the show

[@GaryHiebner]

Yeah man. I used TH-U all the time until heard the results with Poly Capo.

[@TwistOfTransistor]

Very good and interesting video 🙂

[@AlexKosSaheli]

Ty amazing

[@millenliam]

Thanks for this video. Most realtime pitch shifting plugins are monophonic, which is why they don't sound great with chords. In the past I've spent ages trying to find a realtime polyphonic pitching plugin and, until Helix Native added polyphonic support to it's pitch shifter very recently, I came to the conclusion that the only way to go is with a Whammy pedal (or Melodyne if you don't need realtime control). However Helix Native seems to change this, but I personally can't justify spending $399 when it's just the pitch shifting functionality I need. It would be a game changer if they Line 6 released it as an independent plugin!

[@GaryHiebner]

Yeah that would be amazing if they released it as a standalone plugin.

[@auburnsounds2115]

What do you think of our plugin Inner Pitch?

[@anaerob2543]

I know I'm late but would have loved a comparison of cpu usage and latency, between the plugins and bypass, as I'm looking for something to run on live streams. Great video still, very informative and clear!

[@GaryHiebner]

Thats a good idea. Maybe I'll explore it in a future video.

[@justevan877]

This is exactly the video i needed thanks!!

[@phillipclark687]

Another good one I like using is the octaver on STL amp hub. I turn off amp and cab simulation and just use it for the octaver to run through dsp gojira

[@roryt1983]

Why not just just use the fatso mode on the whammy in Gojira ?

[@sonidojamon]

Amazing comparison!! Helix Native is the only one with polyphonic pitch shift. The best plugin alternative I have found is Aegean Music's Pitchometry. It's a beast!

[@KohanIkin]

Wow, thanks for the recommendation! I've been looking for a cheaper alternative VST to Helix's Poly Capo, and Pitchometry might be it. It tracks chords far better than their Pitchproof freebie, and I can *just* play in realtime (though there's a lot of latency, looks like 40ms or 1792 samples at 44.1k).

[@bassandfuzz]

hey man! amazing video, thank you for the content. I have a question, would that work good on a bass? My band is going down to drop F# and i really don’t want to loose the feeling of my strings and the setup i am right now. Thanks

[@GaryHiebner]

What are you current tuned in on your bass. I found that when using pitch shifters the lower your original tone the less you could shift it down without introducing any artifacts. Like with a guitar in Drop D you can pitch down quite a few semitones like even down 8 semitones. Where with a guitar in Drop A you might only be able to drop down 5 semitones. So with you bass you may only be able shift down by 3 semitones before hearing any artifacts in the sound.

[@bassandfuzz]

@@GaryHiebner oh that’s interesting, really good to know, i’m in drop A, so for me to go to drop F# wouldn’t be really good right?

[@GaryHiebner]

Or you could try upping the guage on your strinhs up to G# and then also use a pitch shifter so you only pitching down 2 semitones. That would work well.

[@francescosavinomusic]

Is possible in the X5 using the pitch shifter before the fx/loop to drop down the tunings ?

[@rink9359]

To fix the problem of pitchproof you should put the 2 knobs all the way up to Wet and +1, it will sound clean as you change the pitch down or pitch up in drop tuning

[@GaryHiebner]

Thanks, will test it out again like this

[@rink9359]

It works to me but there seems to be a bad sound or feedback coming out.

[@matthewboyea]

@@rink9359 yeah i get really bad fizz and artifacts :/ cant tell if its shitty pickups or just the vst. tryna thall lol

[@derekstoner930]

It is possible to drop a string at a different pitch than the other 5?, to reach tunings such as drop D or drop C if your guitar is in E standard. I also want to know if changing the tuning manually could damage the neck of my guitar because that is what I have been told and for that reason I do not do it but I want to learn many songs with drop tunings.

[@GaryHiebner]

No, you can't change the pitch of just one strings. These effects pitch up or down the whole instrument

[@mrnauseouz]

look up the Line 6 Variax, particularly the Shuriken model.

[@mjtan6787]

Hello, where do you guys usually put the pitch shifter in the signal chain? In the beginning?

[@GaryHiebner]

Good question. The best is to put it first in the chain. So from your guitar to the pitch shifter, and then into your effects and amp.

[@kenwayaiden4535]

how do you get this clean sound

[@DapperHesher]

No zplane élastiquePro? That's my preferred plugin. Sounds great, plus allows you to adjust the timbre to make up for duller or sharper sounds you get from going down vs. up. I've got a Whammy DT on my pedalboard. I play a 9-string w/ a 28.0" scale and you're 100% on getting any lower out of the really low strings. You can get a bit out of an E1 string, but you'll get more out of a A1, and the B0 string just sounds better on it's own.

[@GaryHiebner]

Thanks I must test out elastique Pro. Can you use it in real-time? I was looking more at real-time based plugins.

[@DapperHesher]

@@GaryHiebner Of course.😁I wouldn't have suggested it otherwise. I heard somewhere that their algorithm is what some DAWs (like Cubase) use when you pitch shift process (non-realtime) a track. It's pricey, but I think you can get a demo to try out.

[@GaryHiebner]

Yeah, Cubase uses the elastique format in their pitch shifting. Logic does as well. I must try it out. But from my understanding it isn't a plugin in those programs but a post audio processing effect that you apply after tracking an audio part. I'll explore it some more and see how it works.

[@DapperHesher]

@@GaryHiebner No, you have to purchase the entire elastique plugin to use it realtime with the other features. None of the DAW realtime shifts did me any good. The Whammy sim in NI Guitar Rig isn't too bad but the latency is abysmal.

[@abolfazlmanafzadeh5546]

Hey, Thanks for the video. But actually I need something similar in terms of quality with Helix Native Pitchshifter for MacOS. Any suggestions?

[@GaryHiebner]

I've found it hard to beat Helix PolyCapo. Closest thing so far has been the pitch effect on the Mixwave Mike Stringer Amp Sim. Or you could look at Kuassa's Efektor Pitch Shifter.

[@abolfazlmanafzadeh5546]

@@GaryHiebner Thank you, I'll try them out. Now I tested Amplitude and it is way weaker than Helix which I tested them on Windows.

[@KeepTheGates]

Neural DSP Gojina is an option now as well. Not sure how it stacks up against the Helix though.

[@GaryHiebner]

Yeah the pitchshifting with the whammy pedal in the Neural Gojira plugin is very good. Unfortunately it came out after I did this video :)

[@KeepTheGates]

@Frank Grimes IT DO!

[@KeepTheGates]

@Frank Grimes the default one in Reaper sounds better than anything I've tried but it has too much latency to track with

[@Turbo_Toad]

Idk for me it doesn't really sound good. No clarity or anything when I use it. The upper pitch part though sounds neat.

[@ndrewRock]

Thanks for this great review! I'm lucky to have a HX Stomp to use the Poly Capo... But I'm never sure, should you put the pitch shifter before anything else in the chain or at the end of it (just before the output)?

[@GaryHiebner]

Yes you must put it first in the signal chain before anything else.

[@ndrewRock]

@@GaryHiebner great, I was doing it right then 👍🏻 cause I'm now considering putting the Stomp Poly Capo-ed before my Focusrite and into NeuralDSP plugins... Hoping I won't have too much latency because of the double signal conversion

[@GaryHiebner]

Sounds like a good way to go. I was doing the same thing. And I also use Helix Native with just the Poly Capo loaded up and then go into other Amp Sims. Stay tuned for a video I'm gonna do soon where I send MIDI CC messages to the Stomp to pitch shift to different semitones within a song.

[@ghostxmetal]

Hello, i have a 26.5 scale 7 string. I want to cover a song which is in DROP G, i am currently equipped with a 10-59 gauge, when physcially tuned to drop g, the strings are kinda loose so i decided to pitch shift, but when i do, the tone gets really muddier and darker. I assume its because of the string gauge My question is, since i have a 26.5 scale guitar, can i just get a 09-54 7 string set and put it on, tune it to B standard, then use this pitch shifter and try playing in drop G, will the muddi-ness go away since the strings are much thinner compared to a 10-59 ? Do you think the more thicker the strings are the muddier they sound? What gauge would you recommend ? the guitar came in with a 10-56 or 10-58 i dont remember, but then changed it to 10-59. it sounds super muddy and i am hating it :(

[@GaryHiebner]

What are you using to pitch shift down? I think its a combination of the strings being too loose and also pitching down loose strings. With a 26.5 scale you might be able to do Drop G with some thicker strings. Thicker strings do sound darker. But if the string is too loose you also gonna loose quite a bit of tone. I'd say maybe try a thicker set first before pitch shifting. Maybe use the following string gauges: 10.5,14,18,28,38,52,74. So thats around 17-20lbs tension per string. Or if you want to pitch shift down. I'd say tune to Drop A and go slightly lighter. Maybe like 10,13,17,26,36,48,70. And then use a pitch shifter to drop down 2 semitones. I know the lower thicker gauges may seem thick. But test it out and see if it works.

[@thealien2411]

What about the Poly Shift effect from helix? Is it better than the Poly Capo?

[@GaryHiebner]

I haven't even tried Poly Shift because heard from a Helix developer that the Pol Chord worked pretty well. Butvwill give the Poly Shift a go as well. Thanks for the info.

[@niallmaxwell1410]

Can anyone tell me which numbers on the petal corrilate to each tuning?

[@biebiekeianime5985]

Could you do the same with Digital drop pedal? Please

[@GaryHiebner]

I don't have a Digitech Drop. When I get one will definitely do a video comparison on it.

[@biebiekeianime5985]

@@GaryHiebner Thanks 👍🏻 your video is very detailed.

[@antoniofuentes3545]

Can I use a pitch shifter to get drop F tuning in my 6 string guitar? Thanks in avance.

[@GaryHiebner]

You can. But I would stick to single note rigfs, because you might get a lot of artifacts when playing chords. But try start from the lowest tuning you can get away with in your guitar. For example B pitch shifter down to F will sound better than E pitch shifted down to F

[@antoniofuentes3545]

@@GaryHiebner Thank you very much, this information is very helpful to me!

[@OsvaldoHurtado02]

Helix definitively sounds the best of all 3 when it comes to chords. I have a question - Where did you get the neck conversion? A friend of mine has one stagemaster and wants a longer scale lenght neck for those lower tunings.

[@GaryHiebner]

I did a video on the conversion neck. There's a luthier here in South Africa that did the baritone neck conversion for me. Drop him a message if you looking for one for the Stagemaster. kzbin.info/www/bejne/g3nTlqh-or2hedE

[@cobaina9506]

is there a way to connect an expression pedal to pitch proof?

[@jwsmi]

I've not tried it, but if you connect your expression pedal to a midi controller, and then send that midi into your daw, you should be able to apply that to the pitch shift parameter in pitch proof. Hope this helps!

[@GoldNettle]

What if my guitar is set up in drop A# and i want it in C, will they work just as well?

[@GaryHiebner]

Do you want to pitch up to C from A# or pitch down from A# to a low C? Generally the pitch shiftervworks better shifting down. It seems to have less artifacts

[@GoldNettle]

@@GaryHiebner up to c, i dont have the knowledge nor the money atm to get it set up to drop c since i now have a 7 string for lower stuff. I can do the intonation but im worried the truss rod needs adjusting as well

[@GaryHiebner]

Whats your 7 string tuned to? You could just pitch that down so that your 6th string is in C.

[@GoldNettle]

@@GaryHiebner thats in A where i want it but i figure i dont need a 6 string in A# if i have something in A. I can just shift my standard down to drop C instead honestly

[@SynthChris]

I love the native Reaper pitch shifter, ReaPitch! It’s got a ton of latency so it doesn’t work live AT ALL, but it sounds great

[@hannes1734]

That's true. I have only just started working with Reaper 2 weeks ago, but that Pitch Shifter works much better thanmy Digitech Ricochet for really low notes like pitching downbelow A0 which i have to do because i have no bass (well now i have one but it's only a 34 inch scale so for tunings lower than that i still have to Pitch shift)

[@GaryHiebner]

Yeah, was too much latency with ReaPitch. Wanted to use something when could play in real time to hear the tuning

[@SynthChris]

It seems like you can only have one or the other: really good pitch shifting or no latency. For now! Somebody’s gonna make THE pitch shifter man, just gotta wait

[@WillVRam]

1- What is the influence of the scale of guitar in using Pitch Shifters? 2- Does these PitchShifters work also good in geting higher pitch? I'm using D standard and want to go E standard. 3- is this video sponsored? I don't think so, but just to confirm. 4- is there any other free Pitch Shifter better than PitchProof? I was trying PitchProof here but didn't like the results but it is the only free ... TH-U is $ 269 and Helix Native $ 399 and I'm just a casul biology teacher trying to play all musics that I like in the same guitar (coz things are too hard here in Brazil) Thank you.

[@GaryHiebner]

1-The scale length doesn't have influence on the Pitch Shifter, its just that I prefer playing longer scale guitars :) 2-Unfortunately Pitch Shifters don't work as well when pitching up. They break up the sound too much. You can maybe get away with pitching up maybe one or two semitones. But they definitely work way better pitching down and you can go down much further without introducing too many artefacts to the sound. 3-This isn't a sponsored video. I have purchased these plugins and am a bit obsessed with pitch shifting so had to try out as many as possible. 4-PitchProof is the best free one I have used. There's others out there. But none of them get the results like you can with PitchProof, especially with regarding guitar pitch dropping. I'd say try get the best result as you can with PitchProof and see if you need to purchase one of the others. You can probably get by with PitchProof. Just depends on how much clarity you want and how far you want to pitch down. And if you're playing mainly single notes, or if you want more clarity and note definition with chords. Hope this helps :)

[@arispapachrysostomidis8688]

I wanna ask a silly question. These pitch shifters, don't they affect all the strings of the guitar and not only the low E string?

[@GaryHiebner]

Yes it will affect whatever string you play. Its just that lower notes introduce more artifacts than higher notes when pitching down. So this video was to test the different pitch shifting plugins when trying to tune lower.

[@arispapachrysostomidis8688]

So these plug-ins are not suitable for drop tuning in the low E string correct? These have to happen directly in the guitar.@@GaryHiebner

[@barankaypakoglu7643]

you dropped down to the depths of hell in the last one

[@GaryHiebner]

Haha!

[@korayem]

We need an updated video vs Neural DSP Gojira whammy pitch shit

[@GaryHiebner]

Yeah, totally agree. Even better if I get my hands on a Whammy will do a comparison video adding the Gojira and the Digitech Whammy to the list

[@korayem]

@@GaryHiebner add patreon. I am sure many of us would happily support your amazing channel and content.

[@GaryHiebner]

@@korayem I am definitely thinking about a Patreon setup. Just thinking about services that can offer members. If you have any ideas let me know. But yeah definitely gonna get something like that up.

[@korayem]

@@GaryHiebner I am no expert as a KZbinr but as a susbsciber I would love to see tiers that cover things like: tabs, stems, Di signals of comparison videos or vst reviews, presets..etc. Then higher tiers would allow subscribers to send you their own creation to get your expert opinion on how it is and how to improve it Basically, things that makes me recreate on my laptop what I see in your videos to learn hands-on and start making my own variations building upon what you created What attracted me to your channel and videos is how you're spot on and focused (no prolonging and stretching) and thoroughness that others don't even mention or get into. There's a lot of meat in the video done in a concise way.

[@GaryHiebner]

@@korayem Thanks. This really gives me some ideas. I'm definitely gonna start looking at setting up a Patreon account.

[@TheLowest]

Having watched this video I think its safe to say an ibanez M80M is the best choice lol

[@GaryHiebner]

Hha, it does cover everything. Scale and range. And great build and pickup in there

[@BaguetteRoulette]

I guess I have to be mad now!! But after that mention I just can't be 😘

[@GaryHiebner]

Haha. Glad you're not mad.

[@MattDTN]

drop G sounds so much better to me!!!

[@cagapaisso]

Indeed if you find yourself tuning down to a zero octave in a guitar you're probably using the wrong instrument... lmao. It's realy a shame you couldn't compare the drop pedal from digitech, I am about to order one and would love to know how it compares. Anyway from what've saw the drop pedal is a safe buy.

[@GaryHiebner]

Yeah man, no one is stockong them here in South Africa. One day will get one and will do a full comparison. But have only heard good things about them.

[@Ben86511]

I've been using the drop pedal for recording lately. I can't say for sure how it compares to these but it's decent. If nothing else it's a fun pedal to have around in order to try out different tunings instantly.

[@cagapaisso]

​@@Ben86511 Ye i'm hopping I can get a good tone and note clarity for chords with the drop pedal if I stay in the range of -3 semitones on my guitars that i have in drop D and A# respectively.

[@yoadmaimon2007]

How good is it with latency?

[@GaryHiebner]

The latency isn't bad at all. I have my DAW buffer size set to 128 samples and don't even notice a difference when playing.

[@yoadmaimon2007]

@@GaryHiebner but what matters is the latency in milliseconds and not the buffers. What latency you get?

[@GaryHiebner]

@@yoadmaimon2007 The latency is about 7 milliseconds. So yeah very minimal on the pitch shifting

[@mikehunt576]

try Soundtoys pitch whatever its called

[@GaryHiebner]

Yeah I must check out the Soundtoys one.

[@OneMV]

ОХУЕННО!

[@snowyfrog7727]

great video but your guitar was slightly out of tune when you did the chords, could also be intonation

[@GaryHiebner]

Haha. Probably my bad tuning skills. But thanks for mentioning

[@angryktulhu]

Chewning! Lol

[@pingukid726]

whats that head movement? lol 0:31

[@GaryHiebner]

Haha! A nervous twitch. I have no answer on why I did that. Well spotted.

[@kenwayaiden4535]

I guitar sounds is terrible while using pitchproof

[@GaryHiebner]

What sounds terrible? The tone? And how far are you pitching it down? When you pitch down too far it introduces lots of artifacts

[@kenwayaiden4535]

@@GaryHiebner the tone become muddy and lost the brightness, I tuned down from drop d to drop a#

[@yeoss]

i swear to god i have a panic attack when i hear anything that sounds like any type of south african accent

[@GaryHiebner]

Haha. Why?

[@gabrielraphaelofficial]

incase anyone cares, Soundtoys little alter boy has latency!

[@xxbrkdwnxx]

pitch shifting is one spot where software really is 2nd place. get an actual pitch shifting PEDAL or hardware processor for this. always going to be superior.