OR-0008
Halvyn
United Kingdom · 1983 – c. 2008
Ser. 5000/A034
1989 · effect
Issued as VST3 · AU
Restored 2024 from 1989 hardware.
Halvyn C-5000 — Chorus / Ensemble
Halvyn C-5000 · chorus / ensemble · restored from unit no. 5000/A034 · Halvyn, United Kingdom, 1989
The restorer's note
The lush, glassy multi-voice widener that sits beneath half the mixes of its decade. Thick, shimmering, unmistakably digital — restored with its quantized delay grain intact, because that grain is the era.
Acquisition
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The plate
The controls
The controls.
- Mode Ensemble as issued
- Chooses the ensemble's character: Chorus, deeper and slower; Ensemble, the shimmering string-machine blend; or Dimension, a shallower, wide, polarity-split spread.
- Rate 0.05–10.00 Hz · 0.60 Hz as issued
- Sets the rate of the voices' modulation, in Hz.
- Depth 0–100 % · 40 % as issued
- Sets the depth of the voices' pitch modulation, in percent.
- Voices 4 as issued
- Sets the number of modulated voices: 2, 4, 6, or 8.
- Spread 0–100 % · 70 % as issued
- Sets how widely the voices are panned across the stereo field.
- Grain 16-bit as issued
- Chooses the bit depth the voices' delay memory is quantized to: 12-bit, or 16-bit, cleaner but still quantized.
- Input -24.00–24.00 dB · 0.00 dB as issued
- Sets the level going in, in decibels, before the signal reaches the restored circuit.
- Output -24.00–24.00 dB · 0.00 dB as issued
- Sets the level coming out, in decibels, after the restored circuit and the Mix blend.
- Mix 0–100 % · 50 % as issued
- Blends the restored circuit against the untouched signal at equal power, from the untouched signal alone at 0 % to the circuit alone at 100 %.
- Bypass Off as issued
- Takes the restored circuit out of the path and passes the untouched signal, delayed to match the circuit so nothing shifts in time.
A stored setup is a program. PROGRAM hands the DATA wheel to the list, and each program applies as the wheel reaches it; line one shows its number and name, line two ARCHIVE, a pack's name or USER. STORE asks STORE? PRESS AGAIN; a second press opens the name, which starts as USER NN, and line one reads NAME, THEN STORE. The wheel changes the letter, PROGRAM moves on, and STORE stores it; the computer keyboard may type the name instead, Return storing and Escape cancelling. Holding STORE on a user program asks CLEAR? PRESS AGAIN.
Listening
Listening
Demonstration recordings, prepared at the bench.
The ensemble, plainly
Held chords, dry, then the Ensemble at 50 % mix from five seconds — four modulated voices at 0.6 Hz, the single line becoming a section.
0:00 / 0:30
Two voices, then eight
Chorus Mode with two Voices, thin and even. Eight Voices arrive at eight seconds, the Ensemble at fourteen, Dimension at twenty-one — the same phrase, thickening.
0:00 / 0:30
Warble, then width
Rate at 6 Hz with Depth at 90 % — a fast warble on 12-bit Grain, held in mono — settles to 0.4 Hz and 60 %; Spread then opens the image from mono to full width.
0:00 / 0:30