OR-0004
Halvyn
United Kingdom · 1983 – c. 2008
Ser. 3000/C019
1993 · effect
Issued as VST3 · AU
Restored 2024 from 1993 hardware.
Halvyn P-3000 — Pitch Shifter
Halvyn P-3000 · pitch shifter · restored from unit no. 3000/C019 · Halvyn, United Kingdom, 1993
The restorer's note
Warbly, formant-broken, gloriously imperfect pitch shifting — the granular kind that flutters and doubles rather than the clean modern kind. Restored from a low-build revision-C unit; every artifact is original hardware behaviour.
Acquisition
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The plate
The controls
The controls.
- Pitch -24–24 st · 0 st as issued
- Sets the coarse transposition, in semitones.
- Fine -100–100 cents · 0 cents as issued
- Sets a fine detune on top of Pitch, in cents.
- Grain 5–200 ms · 50 ms as issued
- Sets the length of the shifting grains, in milliseconds — short for a fluttering, amplitude-modulated character, long for comb-filtered doubling.
- Feedback 0–100 % · 0 % as issued
- Feeds the shifted signal back into the grain engine, in percent, building a shimmering, spiralling pitch trail.
- Delay 0–500 ms · 0 ms as issued
- Sets a base delay ahead of the pitch shift, in milliseconds, offsetting the doubler or spiral effect from the dry signal.
- 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 % · 100 % 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.
A fifth above
Plucked phrases, dry, then a parallel line at Pitch +7 semitones from five seconds, at 50 % Mix — the shifted voice carrying the grain of the machine.
0:00 / 0:30
Two octaves, spoken
The restorer's note, shifted in steps: Pitch walks down to −24 semitones, up to +24, then home. Grain then closes to 5 milliseconds — a flutter — and opens to 200, loosening the voice.
0:00 / 0:30
Doubler, then the spiral
Pitch 0 with Fine at +12 cents and 30 milliseconds of Delay — the doubler. Then Delay opens to 220, Pitch goes to +12, and Feedback sends each repeat another octave up: the spiral.
0:00 / 0:30