Note: Battery operation is not supported
The Eventide MicroPitch Delay is a stereo delay effect that allows guitarists to very finely detune the signals of the two delayed stereo channels: Combined with the dry guitar signal, this creates an ultra-wide sound, one that will be very familiar to fans of guitar legends like Eddie Van Halen and Steve Stevens. With the MicroPitch Delay, musicians can thus instantly replicate the immediately recognisable sounds of the '70s and '80s. The device has 127 preset slots, with five instantly accessible via footswitch on one single bank, and it also supports MIDI clock sync.
The technology behind the Eventide MicroPitch Delay can be traced all the way back to the classic Eventide H910 Harmonizer, an early digital effect that had slight timing variations in its modulation frequency. Studios quickly learned to exploit this by pairing two units in stereo – thus creating an exceptionally wide sound. With the advent of the H949 Harmonizer, Eventide made the original pitch-shifting function even more subtle – hence the term MicroPitch. While not as complex as those titans of the studio, the modern MicroPitch pedal still has a fairly comprehensive set of controls – principally because each knob offers a secondary layer of functions, unlocking detailed adjustments for modulation types, stereo delay, feedback, and more. The connectivity on offer includes a switchable mono/stereo input, two mono outputs, an expression pedal input, and a mini-USB port for MIDI-over-USB and software updates.
The Eventide MicroPitch Delay puts an iconic modulation effect in the hands of guitarists and bassists chasing an ultra-wide sound; its focused funtionality makes it a perfect fit for musicians who prefer a custom-built pedalboard over an all-in-one digital floor unit. The footswitch can activate bypass mode or load one of five presets from the active bank. And while the tone may be pleasingly old-school, the operation is thoroughly modern: The Eventide Device Manager software offers full control of the presets, the unit has four different bypass modes, and any combination of parameters can be assigned to an expression pedal. What this means is that it's not just guitarists and bassists who'll love the MicroPitch – synth players, DJs, and indeed all recording enthusiasts will too, thanks to a little guitar/line-level switch that makes level matching easy for a whole host of applications.
The US manufacturer Eventide is one of the pioneers of digital audio technology. The company has existed since the early 1970s and began with developments in the broadcasting sector and digital delay effects. As early as 1974 they unveiled the H910, a pitch shifter revolutionary at the time. The H3000 (1986) was milestone in the field of digital effects and was very popular with professional musicians in recording studios and live performances. The following generations of this model were ever more powerful and culminated in the current flagship H9000. Since 2007, Eventide has also been developing compact pedals, primarily for guitarists and keyboard players. To this day, Eventide's algorithms are considered among the best on the market.
The Eventide MicroPitch Delay can make guitar riffs in styles as disparate as Rock, Pop, Hard Rock, and Metal sound ultra-wide. The effect will also help guitar solos stand out in the mix without needing to crank the volume or, worse, losing their place in the frequency spectrum. But the MicroPitch Delay's range also stretches to unique, psychedelic textures, all while still delivering subtle vocal delays or smooth chorus tones for keyboards. For fans of '80s sounds, it could even potentially be used to add extra depth and dimension to individual drum hits. And for players who like to tweak on the fly, the Catch-Up mode is a real bonus: This prevents big parameter jumps when switching between presets in the middle of a track. One thing to note is that a suitable power supply will need to be ordered separately (e.g. article no. 409939).