Harmony Engine
Vocal Modeling Harmony Generator

Owners Manual

2007 Antares Audio Technologies. All rights reserved. Certified Isinglass-free. All trademarks are property of their respective owners. Antares Audio Technologies 231 Technology Circle, Scotts Valley, California 95066 USA www.antarestech.com Printed in USA Rev 1.0 PN P25035-0607-M01
The Obligatory Legal Mumbo-Jumbo
The Antares Harmony Engine software and this Users Manual are protected by copyright law. Making copies, adaptations, or derivative works without the prior written authorization of Antares Audio Technologies, is prohibited by law and constitutes a punishable violation of the law. Antares Audio Technologies retains all ownership rights to the Harmony Engine software and its documentation. Use of Harmony Engine is limited by the following license agreement. Please carefully read all the terms and conditions of this license agreement. At the time of installation of the Harmony Engine software you will be presented with a copy of the agreement and asked whether or not you agree to it. Continuing with the installation process beyond that point constitutes such agreement.
Harmony Engine License Agreement Antares Audio Technologies grants you a non-transferable, non-exclusive license to use Harmony Engine under the terms and conditions stated in this agreement. Use of Harmony Engine indicates your agreement to the following terms and conditions. License You may: 1 . Use Harmony Engine on only one computer at a time. Authorization requires an USB iLok Smart Key which must be purchased separately. You may not: 1 . Make copies of Harmony Engine or of the user manual in whole or in part except as expressly provided for in this agreement. Your right to copy Harmony Engine and the user manual is limited by copyright law. Making copies, verbal or media translations, adaptations, derivative works, or telecommunication data transmission of Harmony Engine without prior written authorization of Antares, is prohibited by law and constitutes a punishable violation of the law. 2 . Make alteration or modifications to Harmony Engine (or any copy) or disassemble or de-compile Harmony Engine (or any copy), or attempt to discover the source code of Harmony Engine. 3 . Sub-license, lease, lend, rent, or grant other rights in all or any portion of Harmony Engine (or any copy) to others.
Term of the Agreement This agreement is effective until terminated by you or Antares. You may terminate the agreement at any time by notifying Antares and destroying all copies of the manual, and erasing Harmony Engine from all machine-readable media, whether on-line or on archival copies. In the event of breach of any of the terms of this agreement, you shall pay the attorneys fees of Antares that are reasonably necessary to enforce the agreement plus resulting damages. Product Installation and Required Activation There are technological measures in the Harmony Engine that are designed to prevent unlicensed or illegal use of the Software. You agree that Antares Audio Technologies may use these measures to protect Antares Audio Technologies against software piracy. Limited Warranty And Disclaimer Harmony Engine AND ACCOMPANYING
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The Contents Of This Manual
Chapter 1: Getting Started The chapter you are reading. Provides information on installing and authorizing Harmony Engine. Chapter 2: Introducing Harmony Engine Provides a brief introduction to what Harmony Engine is all about and gives an overview of Harmony Engines key features. Chapter 3: Harmony Engine Controls This chapter is reference information for every control used in the Harmony Engine interface. Chapter 4: Factory Presets Descriptions of the factory presets that ship with Harmony Engine.
Installing Harmony Engine
Harmony Engine is designed to function as a plug-in in a wide variety of digital audio applications. Please refer to your specific host applications user manual for more information on installing and using plug-ins.
Authorizing Harmony Engine
Authorization is the process by which Harmony Engine is allowed to run on your computer. Detailed instructions covering the available authorization options will be found in the file Authorization Read Me which is included on the installation CD ROM or with your software download.
NOTE: When initially installed, this software will run for ten days without authorization.
So even if you cant authorize it right away you can still use your software in the meantime. (During this period, click the Continue button whenever you are presented with the Trial Period screen at launch.) But dont procrastinate too long. After those ten days are up you will no longer be able to launch Harmony Engine until its authorized.

Technical Support

In the unlikely event that you experience a problem using Harmony Engine, try the following: 1.Make sure you have the latest version of the software. You can download and install the latest version of the software from the following web page: http://www.antarestech.com/download/ update.shtml 2.If you are having problems authorizing your software, be sure that you have the latest version of the PACE Interlok drivers. You can download and install the latest version for your operating system from the following web page: http://www.antarestech.com/drivers If your problem is not resolved after taking the above actions, try the following: 1.Make another quick scan through this manual. Who knows? You may have stumbled onto some feature that you didnt notice the first time through. 2.Check our web page for tips, techniques, or any late-breaking information: http://www.antarestech.com 3.Consult our searchable knowledgebase at: http://www.antarestech.com/support/ index.html 4.Call your local Antares dealer.
Chapter 2: Introducing Harmony Engine

Note: While it is our intention to provide tips in our Knowledgebase on using five channel output in the major hosts that support it, your primary resource should be a detailed knowledge of how routing works in your host. In this case, your hosts manual is your best friend. Tip: If your host supports five channel
The functions described in this section are used to tell Harmony Engine things about the source audio or otherwise affect the plugin as a whole. Input Audio For accurate harmony generation and best modeling performance, Harmony Engine needs to be able to detect the pitch of the original performance. To do that, Harmony Engine requires a clean, pitched, monophonic signal. (In this context, clean refers both to lack of noise and lack of processing with effects like chorus, reverb, etc.)
Note: Keep in mind that the input must not only be monophonic, but actually a solo voice or instrument (as opposed to a unison section). For example, a group of singers singing the same note will typically not be reliably tracked.
You can have problems with certain solo voices and solo instruments as well. Consider, for example, an exceptionally breathy voice, or a track recorded in an unavoidably noisy environment. The added noise is non-periodic and Harmony Engine will have difficulty determining the pitch of the composite (voice + noise) sound. Luckily, there is a control (the Tracking control, discussed in Chapter 3) that will let Harmony Engine be a bit more casual about what it considers periodic. Experimenting with this setting will often allow Harmony Engine to track even moderately noisy signals.
output mode, try processing each output with an instance of AVOX CHOIR. Instant giant choral group!
Effects The cleaner the input signal, the easier Harmony Engines task of reliably detecting its pitch. For this reason, effects designed to improve the quality of the input
(e.g., de-essing, noise reduction, etc.) should be applied to the audio before it is input to Harmony Engine.

The default setting for De-Noise is On. Click the De-Noise button to toggle its state.
Mute Engaging Mute mode causes the original input signal to be muted from the output. When the Mute button is blue, Mute mode in engaged. Click the button to toggle its state.
Note: If both the Input Channels Solo and Mute buttons are pressed, Solo takes precedence. However, if Solo is then disengaged, the original input will then be muted. Another Note: Moving a channels Gain slider to its minimum setting also results in completely muting its output.
If you are working with a clean, well-isolated solo signal you can typically set the Tracking control to 25 and forget it (hence, thats the default value). If, on the other hand, your signal is noisy or not well-isolated (as might be more common in a live performance situation or a track with headphone bleed) or you are dealing with a particularly breathy or guttural voice, it may be necessary to adjust the tracking for best performance. Interestingly (to us, anyway), during the development of Harmony Engine we discovered that (unlike Auto-Tune, where we can usually predict with pretty fair accuracy what kind of Tracking adjustments a signal will require) it was almost impossible to predict, just from listening, what setting would work best. This led to our choice of labels for the extremes of the controls range. As the labels imply, there is no hard and fast rule for what settings will work well with what kinds of input. If youre having a problem (such as octave errors or loss of pitch tracking), experiment until you get the best result. cause tracking problems is excessive sibilance and/or other unpitched articulations. De-essing (prior to compression) can often alleviate these problems.
Important Note: Like the Vocal Range setting, getting this setting right is critical for best performance. If you are experiencing problems, these are the controls to adjust. (Even, if in the case of the Vocal Range, it means trying a wrong one. Whatever works.) A Tip: One of the things that can
Pan Sets the original inputs location in the stereo spectrum when its output is not muted and Harmony Engine is assigned to a stereo output. If Harmony Engine is not assigned to a stereo track, this control will be disabled. Command (Mac)/Control (PC) click the control to reset it to its default value of 0 (center). Tracking As previously mentioned, for best performance, Harmony Engine requires a clean, pitched monophonic signal. Specifically, in order to accurately identify the pitch of the input, Harmony Engine requires a periodically repeating waveform, characteristic of a voice or solo instrument. The Tracking control determines how much variation is allowed in the incoming waveform for Harmony Engine to still consider it periodic.

Humanization

The functions in the Humanize section are designed to allow you to add a selectable amount of random variation to each harmony voice as well as deciding how much (if any) of the original inputs vibrato and pitch gestures will be present in the harmony voices. Each of these controls affect all active harmony voices. However, they affect each harmony voice individually (i.e., if you set a certain range of pitch variation, the actual amount of variation will be a bit different for each active harmony voice). Experiment with different combinations of the Pitch and Timing controls. They can create dramatically different vocal ensembles. With Timing Variation at its minimum and substantial Pitch Variation, you have a vocal group thats rhythmically tight but a bit loose with intonation. Conversely, reversing those settings gives you a group thats solidly in tune, but rhythmically loose. There are, of course, many variations in between. Match the performance style to the style of your music. Naturalize This control selects the amount of the original inputs vibrato and pitch gestures that will be present in the harmony voices. If the original input contains natural vibrato and you are planning to use the harmony voices Vibrato controls to add programmable vibrato to the harmony parts, this control should usually be set to 0 to minimize the amount of the original vibrato in the harmony voices.
Note: In Fixed Interval mode (only), the harmony voices will always parallel all of the original inputs vibrato and pitch gestures. Setting the Naturalize function above 0 in that case will actually accentuate (i.e., expand the range of) the vibrato and gestures.
The range of the control is from 0 (no input vibrato or pitch gestures) to a maximum of 100 (harmony voices duplicate the input vibrato and/or pitch gestures - except in Fixed Interval mode as mentioned above). The default Naturalize value is 0. Option (Mac)/ Control (PC)-clicking the knob returns it to that value. Pitch Variation The Pitch Variation control lets you select the amount of random variation in pitch applied to each harmony voice. The higher the value, the larger the maximum amount of allowable variation in each voice. As mentioned above, the actual amount of pitch variation will be different (and continuously variable) for each active harmony voice.

The range of the control is from 0 (no pitch variation) to a maximum of 100. The default Pitch Variation value is 30. Option (Mac)/Control (PC)-clicking the knob returns it to that value. Timing Variation The Timing Variation control lets you select the amount of random variation in timing applied to each harmony voice. The higher the value, the larger the maximum amount of allowable timing variation. As mentioned above, the actual amount of timing variation will be different (and continuously variable) for each active harmony voice. Harmony Engines timing variation is completely independent of pitch variation. The range of the control is from 0 (no timing variation) to a maximum of 100. The default Timing Variation value is 50. Option (Mac)/Control (PC)-clicking the knob returns it to that value.
The Glide function allows you to control the speed at which harmony voices transition from note to note during legato phrasing. Transition Rate This control lets you set a selectable amount of glide (or, for those who grew up with synthesizers, portamento) between overlapping note transitions. The control reads out in milliseconds and represents the time it takes to get halfway to the destination pitch.
Note: Glide only takes effect when successive notes overlap or butt up against each other. If there is any silence between two notes (even a few milliseconds worth), no glide will be applied.
The range of the control is from 0 milliseconds (essentially instant transitions) to a maximum of 1000 milliseconds. The default Transition Rate is 125 milliseconds. Option (Mac)/Control (PC)-clicking the knob returns it to that value.
Formant + Pitch Click the Formant + Pitch button to engage the Formant + Pitch Freeze function. The button will turn blue to indicate the function is active and both the harmony voices formants and articulation and their current harmony pitches will be frozen at the instant the button is clicked. Click the button again to disengage the function and return the channels to normal This is useful for, among other things, having the harmony voices hold a chord while the original input continues with the melody over it.
Important Note: In both Freeze modes, there must be audio present in the original input and harmony sounding in at least one harmony voice at the moment the Freeze function is engaged. If not, all harmony output will be muted until the function is disengaged, giving the impression that Harmony Engine is somehow broken. Be careful.

Important Note: In MIDI Omni mode, there is no way to guarantee that a particular note will be assigned to a particular harmony voice channel. While Harmony Engine does its best to assign the lowest note to the highest numbered active channel, depending on your fingering, that may not always be possible. Setting different harmony voices to different Gain, Pan, and/ or Throat Length settings will almost certainly result in harmony lines jumping from timbre to timbre, which may or may not be acceptable. As a result, this mode is most useful (or, at least, most predictable) when all active harmony voices are set to the same settings.
About Routing MIDI to Harmony Engine In order to use the MIDI Harmony Control modes described above, you must be able to route MIDI data to Harmony Engine. The method of routing MIDI to a plug-in varies pretty dramatically (both in technique and ease) among various hosts. If you are unsure how to do it in your particular host, you should refer to your hosts manual for instructions. In addition, check the Read Me that accompanies Harmony Engine for a guide to a few of the more obscure routing schemes. Finally, you can open one of the Tutorial Sessions described in Chapter 5 and simply observe how it is done.
MIDI Channels Mode When MIDI Channels mode is selected, Velocity Sensitivity is active and all other section controls and the Interval popups in the individual harmony voice channels are disabled. This is the mode to use when you want to have absolute control over every note of your harmony arrangement. In MIDI Channels mode, channels 1-4 of the MIDI bus assigned to Harmony Engine are routed to the matching numbered harmony voice channels. Its main purpose is for executing harmony arrangements where you can be assured that individual harmony lines will always be realized by the desired harmony voice.
In normal operation, a button with a preset assigned to it is blue and displays the first five or six characters of the presets name. A button with no preset assigned to it is gray and displays no text.
Note: If you assign a preset to a button without entering a name for it in the Name field, youll end up with a blue button (indicating that it has an assigned preset) that displays no text (since it has no name). In general, unless you have a really good memory, this is a bad idea. Dont do it.

When you click a button with a preset assigned, the presets full name will appear in the Harmony Preset Name field and the various harmony controls will be set to their preset values. To assign a new preset to a button:

Harmony Presets

The Harmony Preset system allows you to assign combinations of harmony control settings to each of 15 buttons for instant recall, either manually or via automation. It is a powerful tool, both for ease of creating vocal arrangements and as a creative tool for quickly and easily experimenting with a variety of harmonic approaches. Particularly in Chord Degrees or Chord Name modes, assign a variety of chords to the preset buttons and, with just a few clicks, audition your vocal with an almost limitless combination of harmonic structures. Heres how it works: Harmony Presets store the value of the following controls: Harmony Source Inversion Key/Root Register Scale Spread Chord MIDI Velocity Sensitivity Harmony Channel Intervals (fixed) Harmony Channel Intervals (scale) Note that not all of the above controls are available in every mode. When assigning a Harmony Preset to a button, only those controls that are active in the selected Harmony mode are remembered.
1.Set the controls listed above as desired. 2.Click in the Name field below the Harmony Preset buttons and type a name for the preset. Remember, the first 5 or 6 characters will be displayed on the button, so try to pick something that will remind you what each preset is about. 3.Click the Preset Assign button. The button will flash red and all of the Harmony Preset buttons will turn blue. 4.Click on the Harmony Preset button to which you want to assign the preset. The Assign button will stop flashing and all unassigned Preset buttons will once again turn gray. The selected button will remain blue and its preset name text will be displayed. If you assign the new preset to a button that already has a preset assigned to it, the new preset will overwrite the old one. If you click the Assign button and then realize that you forgot to type a name for your preset, you can still click the name field and type a name before clicking a preset button to assign the preset.

If you click the Assign button and then, for some reason, change your mind, simply click it again to exit Assign mode. To edit an existing preset: 1.Click the existing presets button to call up its control settings and place its name in the Name field. 2.Edit the controls as desired. 3.Click the Assign button and then the presets button. The updated values will be recorded and the presets name will remain the same. Optionally, you can modify the preset name (which will already be in the Name field) before assigning the edited preset to the button. To create a new preset based on an existing preset: 1.Click the existing presets button to call up its control settings and place its name in the Name field. 2.Edit the controls as desired. 3.Click in the Name field and type a name for the new preset. 4.Click the Assign button and then the preset button to which you want to assign the new preset. name of the new preset before assigning it to a button. Otherwise you end up with two identically named presets with different control values. Not good.
A Tip: Dont forget to change the
To delete an existing preset: 1.Click Preset Delete button 2.Click the button whose preset you want to delete. The selected preset will be erased and its button will return to the gray unassigned state.
Important Note: Harmony Presets are local to the instance of Harmony Engine in which they are created. If you want to share a set of Harmony Presets among various instances of Harmony Engine, save the plug-in state as a preset in your host so that it can then be recalled as a starting point in any instance of Harmony Engine.
When you click a button with a preset assigned, the presets full name will appear in the Name field and the harmony voice parameters will be set to their preset values. Assigning and deleting Voice Parameter Presets works exactly like the Harmony Presets described above, with the obvious exception that you will be working with the six Voice Parameter Preset buttons and their associated Name field.

Voice Parameter Presets

The Voice Parameter Preset system allows you to assign combinations of voice parameter settings to each of 6 buttons for instant recall, either manually or via automation. This makes it easy to instantly change the timbre and configuration of your vocal group at any point in your song. Voice Parameter Presets store the values of the following controls: Naturalize Pitch Variation Timing Variation Glide Transition Rate Original Input: Solo Mute Tracking Gain Pan Harmony Channels 1-4: Solo Mute Gain Throat Length Pan Vibrato Rate Onset Delay Pitch Amount Amplitude Amount In normal operation, a button with a preset assigned to it is blue and displays the first 5 or six characters of the presets name. A button with no preset assigned to it is gray and displays no text.

Chapter 4: Factory Presets
This chapter provides brief descriptions of the factory presets that ship with Harmony Engine. Since it is extremely unlikely that any factory preset will be immediately useful for any of your personal projects, we have designed the presets to demonstrate various ways of using Harmony Engine. Simply start with a vocal track whose key and chord progression you know and run through the presets while reading their descriptions below.
Important Note: Unlike synth presets, which will always sound the same for all users, the Harmony Engine presets are heavily dependent on the vocal tracks that you use them on. Consequently, they serve primarily as starting points for various general usages, with the expectation that you will tweak them to work best with your particular track.

Chord Degrees 1

This preset provides the root version all of the available chord degrees on the Harmony Preset buttons, as well as the first inversion of the keys root chord. The Register and Spread controls are set for fairly wide, mid-range harmonies. The Voice Parameter Presets provide the following choices: No Variation: default Throat Lengths and all Humanization settings at 0 Varied: Various amounts of Naturalize, Pitch and Timing Variation and modified Throat Lengths Vibrato: Similar to Varied, but with the addition of slightly different vibratos to each voice Things to try: Play your vocal track and manually click the appropriate chord degree button at each chord change in your song. Experiment with different chord degrees. Does you melody work with any alternate harmonizations? Use your hosts automation system to record the Harmony Preset buttons and automate chord degree changes. Try changing the Register and Spread settings. Listen to the effect of various ranges and chord spacings.
Specifically, they all contain the default settings for the Tracking and Vocal Range controls. Before auditioning presets, you must set each of those controls to reflect your actual track. Also, although the presets were designed with vocal tracks in mind, feel free to experiment with any preset on any source track. There are no rules.
In experimenting with the presets below, it is important to keep the following points in mind: The presets that use Scale Interval or Chord Degrees mode are programmed with the Key set to C Major or G Major. Unless your composition is actually in C or G Major, you must first change the Key and Scale to the correct settings for your composition. Due to the differences in the way various hosts deal with routing MIDI to plug-ins, we have not included any presets that use the various MIDI modes. To experiment with the MIDI modes, use the Tutorial Sessions described in Chapter 5.
Pick a part of your vocal where the chord remains unchanged for a measure or two. Click the Formant Only Freeze button at the beginning of that phrase and listen to the result. Then start again and click the Formant + Pitch Freeze button at the same point and note the difference. In both cases, click the respective buttons again at the end of the phrase to return to normal harmonization. Click the different Voice Parameter Preset buttons to hear their differences. Try modifying one or more of the voice parameters and save your new version onto one of the unassigned Voice Parameter buttons.

Cool Chords 1

This preset (along with the following Cool Chords presets) can be thought of as a sort of harmonic toy-box. It uses Chord Name mode to give you a variety of chords in a variety of ranges to try with your melody track. In this preset, four chords are provided, each in a low, medium and high voicing. The Voice Parameter Presets provide the following choices: No Variation: Default Throat Lengths and all Humanization settings at 0 Vibrato: Various amounts of Naturalize, Pitch and Timing Variation and modified Throat Lengths with the addition of slightly different vibratos to each voice Low2Hi: Throat Lengths optimized for a low input voice that is generally being shifted up (e.g., the original input is a baritone and the harmony voices are in the tenor and alto range). Hi2Low: Throat Lengths optimized for a high input voice that is generally being shifted down (e.g., the original input is a soprano and the harmony voices are in the alto, tenor, or even bass range). Things to try: Just play with the various chords and voicings with your input voice. Do they work? If the key of the original input is totally incompatible with the chords, mute the original input and listen to just the harmony voices. Since Chord Name mode always generates the correct harmony notes regardless of the input pitch, you can create an entirely re-harmonized version of your input. Add three new chords of your choice to the three unassigned Harmony Preset buttons. Customize some (or all) of the Voice Parameters and save them to the unassigned buttons. Play with the Freeze buttons as described above. Check out their effects when you have complete control of the harmonization.

Chord Degrees 2

This preset is similar to Chord Degrees 1 above, but instead of including all of the degrees on the Harmony Preset buttons, it includes the more commonly used degrees along with a variety of inversions of some of the degrees. The Register and Spread controls are set for fairly wide, mid-range harmonies. The Voice Parameter Presets provide the following choices: No Variation: default Throat Lengths and all Humanization settings at 0 Varied: Various amounts of Naturalize, Pitch and Timing Variation and modified Throat Lengths Vibrato: Similar to Varied, but with the addition of slightly different vibratos to each voice Things to try: Pretty much the same things as listed in Chord Degrees 1 above.
Since all of the Cool Chords presets operate on basically the same principle, we will just describe their differences below:

Dissonance

This preset uses Fixed Interval mode to provide three different special effects. In each case, the original input is muted. diss 1: Four harmony voices at half-tone intervals two octaves below the input. diss 2: Four harmony voices at half-tone intervals two octaves above the input. diss 3: Four harmony voices at half-tone intervals clustered around the input. The two Voice Parameter Presets demonstrate pan control, offering a contrast between all voices panned center and the spread across the stereo soundstage. Things to try: Unmute the original input. Try modifying individual voice intervals Add various amounts of vibrato to one or more of the harmony voices. Experiment with various Glide settings. Try various combinations of Humanize settings.

Lift Us Away (gerry bassermann)
This country-tinged song features two vocalists, a male and a female, each processed with an instance of Harmony Engine. Between the two parts, gerry uses three different Harmony Control modes as follows: Male Singer The male singers performance is split into three distinct sections: In the first section, the harmonic structure is relatively simple, allowing four harmony voices to be generated using Scale Interval mode in G Major. The selected intervals are 8vb, -4th, +3rd, and 8va.
Note: Because the Key and Scale are not stored in the Harmony Presets when using Scale Interval mode (see Chapter 3 for the explanation of why it works that way), in addition to automating the Scale Interval Harmony Preset, gerry also uses automation to set the Key and Scale popups to G Major at the beginning of the song.
Leading into the second section, gerry automates Harmony Engines Bypass function to make the lead-in a solo. Since the second section consists of a more complex harmonic progression than the first, gerry automates a change to Chord Name mode and uses automated Harmony Presets to follow the progression with the Register and Spread controls set to a mid-range voicing. The third section returns once again to Scale Interval mode and the Key of G Major. Female Singer All harmonies for the female singer are generated using MIDI Channel mode. (In most hosts you should be able to examine the MIDI tracks in edit view.)
Notice how the number of female harmony voices changes at various places in the song. In MIDI Channel mode, a harmony voice is only active when MIDI data is present on its channel, so its easy to have a duet in one section and four part harmony in the next (or even from note to note). Things to try: Select different intervals in the male singers Scale Intervals sections.
Try different Register and Spread settings during the males Chord Name section. Experiment with the Freeze functions. Try Formant Only during the male singers second section. Try Formant Only or Formant + Pitch at various places in the females sections. Modify the MIDI data and listen to the result.
Let You Know (Erik D and Stacey Dawn)
In this tasty bit of techno from Erik D and Stacey Dawn, the lead vocal and various vocal effects are split onto four separate tracks, each with its own instance of Harmony Engine, allowing the various parts to overlap each other. Heres whats there: The first track, intermittent Yeahs, uses Harmony Engine set to Scale Interval mode in C Major to create a single harmony part a 5th above the original vocal. All Humanize functions are set to 0. The next track consists of heavily processed repetitive Yeahs used as accents. For this track, Harmony Engine is also set to Scale Interval mode in C Major, but in this case four harmony voices are generated, two voices a 3rd above the original and 2 more a 5th above. Each pair are panned apart form each other and all of the Humanize functions are set to moderate amounts.

NOTE: When initially installed, this software will run for ten days without authorization.
So even if you cant authorize it right away you can still use your software in the meantime. (During this period, click the Continue button whenever you are presented with the Trial Period screen at launch.) But dont procrastinate too long. After those ten days are up you will no longer be able to launch Harmony Engine Evo until its authorized.
Chapter 2: Introducing Harmony Engine Evo
Harmony Engine Evo is the second generation of our Harmony Engine real-time harmony generating plugin. Like its predecessor, Harmony Engine Evo puts professional-quality vocal harmony arrangements within reach of any songwriter, producer, musician or engineer.

Whats it do?

Traditionally, harmony tools offer two basic operating modes: On one hand are fully automatic modes based on either parallel or smart scale-based intervals. These are relatively easy to set up, but offer very little in the way of creative control. On the other hand (assuming organisms with two hands) are MIDI modes that provide control of each individual note of each individual harmony voice. While these techniques offer absolute control, they also demand that you be skilled in the intricacies of vocal arranging (as well as having the time and patience to enter every note into a MIDI track, hardly a trivial undertaking). With Harmony Engine Evo, we set ourselves the task of creating a tool that would let anyone who could hear the harmonies they wanted in their mind quickly and easily create those harmonies in a song or other project. While Harmony Engine Evo offers all of the traditional harmony generation methods, it adds a variety of new operating paradigms that allow you to approach the harmony generation process from a purely musical point of view.

Whats new?

While clearly the most visible addition to Harmony Engine Evo is the integration of five channels of our unique CHOIR Vocal Multiplier (and that is seriously cool), the real story is tucked away invisibly under the hood (so to speak). During the development of Auto-Tune Evo, the latest version of the worldwide standard in professional pitch correction, Dr. Andy went back to the proverbial drawing board to create a seriously evolved voice processing technology that takes advantage of the hugely more powerful computers that are now the norm for digital audio recording. The result was Evo Voice Processing Technology, setting a new standard for pitch detection, pitch shifting, and throat modeling that is substantially more accurate and reliable over a much wider range of audio input quality. Now weve turned our attention to incorporating Evo Technology into Harmony Engine. The result is an entirely new level of sonic performance. With faster, more accurate pitch detection, smoother, artifact-free pitch shifting, and seamless, natural-sounding (if you want it to be) throat modeling, Harmony Engine Evo just works better. Leaving you free to focus on creating your music.

Whats it got?

With four independent harmony voices utilizing our advanced Evo Voice Processing Technology, a variety of powerful harmony generating modes, humanization features for natural sounding performances, a flexible real-time preset system for harmony and vocal type, and five integrated channels of Antares unique CHOIR Vocal Multiplier, Harmony Engine Evo provides incredibly easy-to-use tools to quickly and easily produce virtually any vocal arrangement you can imagine.
Key Harmony Engine Evo features include: Four high-quality, formant-corrected harmony voices featuring Evo Voice Processing Technology providing independent vocal character, vibrato, and pan settings Antares Throat Modeling technology that lets you process each harmony voice through a physical model of the human vocal tract A variety of innovative Harmony Control modes, from fully automatic to individual control of every note: Fixed or Scale Intervals: Simply set the key and harmony voice intervals and let Harmony Engine Evo do the rest Scale Degree or Chord Name: Define your harmony chord-by-chord, complete with inversions and variable vocal ranges Chord by MIDI: Define your harmony in real time via a MIDI controller or prerecorded MIDI track MIDI Omni: Directly play the four harmony voices as if they were voices of a synth or sampler. MIDI Channel: Use four separate MIDI channels for absolute control over each note of your vocal arrangement
Five integrated channels of our unique CHOIR Vocal Multiplier, to let you turn the input voice and/or each harmony voice into 2, 4, or 8 distinct individual unison voices, each with its own pitch, timing and vibrato variations. Perfect for creating entire choirs out of a single vocal line. Five-channel output capability (host dependent) that lets you assign the original input and each of the four harmony voices to their own channels for further processing Whether youre an experienced vocal arranger, a songwriter looking for that perfect backup vocal, or a composer experimenting with unique vocal effects, Harmony Engine Evo gives you entirely new ways to create the harmony parts you hear in your head. In fact, experimenting with different harmonies is so easy (and, dare we suggest, fun), you may find yourself using Harmony Engine Evo to explore harmonic alternatives you may have never otherwise considered. Harmony Engine Evo is, quite simply, the quickest, easiest tool for flexible, realistic harmony creation.
Spread and Register controls that allow you to quickly and intuitively set the pitch range and harmony style of your vocal arrangement Humanize functions that provide selectable amounts of variation to each harmony voice for realistic, natural sounding results A Freeze function that allows a unique variety of backup vocal effects by letting you instantly freeze pitch and/or formant articulation A Harmony Preset matrix that lets you create up to 15 complete harmony settings and instantaneously recall them, in real time or via automation A Voice Parameter Preset matrix that lets you create and instantly recall up to 6 different vocal groups

Chapter 3: Harmony Engine Evo Controls
This chapter is a reference for all of the controls used in the Harmony Engine Evo interface.

Controls

Continuous controls in Harmony Engine Evo are represented by virtual knobs or faders. Knobs can be controlled by either vertical or horizontal movement:
VERTICAL: Position the cursor over a knob, press and hold the left mouse button (or the only mouse button, if youre using a one-button mouse) and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn the knob counterclockwise. The current value of the knobs parameter appears in its associated numeric display. HORIZONTAL: Position the cursor over
a knob, press and hold the left mouse button and move the cursor to the right to turn the knob clockwise or to the left to turn the knob counterclockwise. The current value of the knobs parameter appears in its associated numeric display.
For faders, simply click on the thumb of the fader and move it to the desired setting. Option (Mac)/Control (PC)-clicking a control returns it to its default value.
vary from host to host (Steinberg hosts on the Mac, for example, use the Command (Apple) key instead of the Option key). Refer to the Harmony Engine Evo Read Me for details (or just try a few until you find the one what works).
Note: The specific modifier key may
(voice + noise) sound. Luckily, there is a control (the Tracking control, discussed later in this chapter) that will let Harmony Engine Evo be a bit more casual about what it considers periodic. Experimenting with this setting will often allow Harmony Engine Evo to track even noisy signals. Routing Harmony Engine Evo should typically be instantiated as an insert effect on the track that will supply the source audio. Harmony Engine Evo can be instantiated on a mono or stereo track, but since it processes only a single channel of audio, if you instantiate it on a stereo track, the two channels will be mixed together before being processed. Harmony Engine Evos output can be mono or stereo (or, in some circumstances, five channels see below). Unless you have some overriding reason for using a mono output, we highly recommend using it in stereo output mode, since in mono mode, all panning controls are disabled. This prevents you from positioning the harmony voices across the stereo soundstage and dramatically impacts (in a not-so-swell way) the overall effect. Effects The cleaner the input signal, the easier Harmony Engine Evos task of reliably detecting its pitch. For this reason, effects designed to improve the quality of the input (e.g., de-essing, noise reduction, etc.) should be applied to the audio before it is input to Harmony Engine Evo. de-essing and compression on your vocal track, it has been our experience that using the de-esser before the compressor provides improved results in Harmony Engine Evo. As mentioned above, effects like chorus or reverb can negatively affect Harmony Engine Evos ability to reliably detect the pitch of the input audio. As a result, you should not apply these effects to the input audio before it is routed into Harmony Engine Evo. Either apply them to the Harmony Engine Evo output or, if you only want them on the original audio, apply them to a copy of the original audio on

Note: If both the Input Channels Solo and Mute buttons are pressed, Solo takes preference. However, if Solo is then disengaged, the original input will then be muted. Another Note: Moving a
If you are working with a clean, well-isolated solo signal you can typically set the Tracking control to 25 and forget it (hence, thats the default value). If, on the other hand, your signal is noisy or not well-isolated (as might be more common in a live performance situation or a track with headphone bleed) or you are dealing with a particularly breathy or guttural voice, it may be necessary to adjust the tracking for best performance. Interestingly (to us, anyway), during the development of Harmony Engine Evo we discovered that (unlike Auto-Tune, where we can usually predict with pretty fair accuracy what kind of Tracking adjustments a signal will require) it was almost impossible to predict, just from listening, what setting would work best. This led to our choice of labels for the extremes of the controls range. As the labels imply, there is no hard and fast rule for what settings will work well with what kinds of input. If youre having a problem (such as octave errors or loss of pitch tracking), experiment until you get the best result.
A Tip: One of the things that can cause tracking problems is excessive sibilance and/or other unpitched articulations. De-essing (prior to compression) can often alleviate these problems.
channels Gain slider to its minimum setting also results in completely muting its output.
Pan Sets the original inputs location in the stereo spectrum when its output is not muted and Harmony Engine Evo is assigned to a stereo output. If Harmony Engine Evo is not assigned to a stereo track, this control will be disabled. Command (Mac)/Control (PC) click the control to reset it to its default value of 0 (center).
Note: See the CHOIR section below for a discussion of how the CHOIR Stereo Spread control interacts with the Input Voice Pan control.
Tracking As previously mentioned, for best performance, Harmony Engine Evo requires a clean, pitched monophonic signal. Specifically, in order to accurately identify the pitch of the input, Harmony Engine Evo requires a periodically repeating waveform, characteristic of a voice or solo instrument. The Tracking control determines how much variation is allowed in the incoming waveform for Harmony Engine Evo to still consider it periodic.
Range setting, getting this setting right is critical for best performance. If you are experiencing problems, these are the controls to adjust. (Even, if in the case of the Vocal Range, it means trying a wrong one. Whatever works.)

The default Vibrato Rate values are slightly different for each Harmony Voice channel as follows: Channel 1: 6.2 Hz Channel 2: 5.8 Hz Channel 3: 5.4 Hz Channel 4: 5.0 Hz
Option (Mac)/Control (PC)-clicking a fader returns it to its default value. Vibrato Onset Delay This control sets the onset delay of the vibrato for its Harmony Voice. The control reads out in milliseconds such that there is no vibrato for the selected time and then there is a transition to full vibrato over the selected time. Huh? you might be asking. Understandable. Heres an example: If you select 750 (i.e., 750 milliseconds), for the first 750 ms after the onset of a note, there will be no vibrato. Over the next 750 ms, the vibrato will transition from none to the full amounts set in the Amount controls below. Therefore, a setting of 750 results in a total of 1500 ms (i.e., a second and a half) from note onset to full vibrato amounts. The default Onset Delay values are slightly different for each Harmony Voice channel as follows: Channel 1: 20 Channel 2: 30 Channel 3: 40 Channel 4: 50

Vibrato Controls

The following four controls are used to add an independently programmable vibrato to each Harmony Voice. In using these controls, its useful to consider the following principles:
If the Input Audio does not contain its own natural vibrato, you can feel free to do pretty much whatever you want with the Vibrato controls. If the Input Audio does contain its own natural vibrato and the Humanize control has been set to allow it to be present in the Harmony Voices (or you are using Fixed Interval mode), using the Vibrato controls may cause interference between the natural and programmed vibratos, with unnaturalsounding results. This is not to say that this cant be an interesting effect, only that it is unlikely to sound realistic. If the Input Audio contains its own natural vibrato and the Humanize control is set to 0 (preventing the pitch component of the natural vibrato from being present in the Harmony Voices), any loudness component of the natural vibrato will still be present in the Harmony Voices. Depending on the amount of loudness variation, there might still be interference with programmed vibrato. However, unless the loudness variation is fairly extreme, it is unlikely to be a problem. Vibrato Rate This control sets the rate of the vibrato (in Hz) for its Harmony Voice. The range is from 1.0 Hz to 9.0 Hz.
Option (Mac)/Control (PC)-clicking a fader returns it to its default value. Vibrato Pitch Amount This control sets the depth of the pitch modulation for its voice. The range is from 0 (no pitch variation) to a maximum of 100. The default Pitch Amount value is 0 (i.e., no pitch vibrato). Option (Mac)/Control (PC)clicking the fader returns it to that value. Vibrato Amplitude Amount This control sets the amount of loudness variation for its voice. The range is from 0 (no variation) to a maximum of 100. The default Amplitude Amount value is 0 (i.e., no loudness variation). Option (Mac)/Control (PC)-clicking the fader returns it to that value.

original Harmony Engine, when you were using Scale Interval mode in combination with the Harmony Preset buttons described below, the settings of the Key/Root and Scale popups were not stored with button presets. THIS FUNCTION HAS BEEN CHANGED in Harmony Engine Evo. The settings of the Key/Root and Scale popups ARE now stored with button presets. If you have existing sessions using Harmony Engine that depend on the old functionality, you may have to modify your button presets and/or any host automation of the Key/Root and Scale popups. is particularly important that the original input be properly in tune before being input to Harmony Engine Evo. If the original falls between scale notes, you can get annoying results as the harmony voice flips back and forth between two adjacent harmony notes. If in doubt, pitch correct the original using Auto-Tune Evo first.
Note: In Scale Interval mode, it
VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: In the
move apart or together in response to your adjustments. Here are some example settings: Wide harmony:
Register and Spread The Register and Spread controls are used together with their associated graphic display to define the general range and closeness of the harmony notes in Chord Degrees, Chord Name, and Chord via MIDI modes. They provide an amazingly easy and intuitive method of arranging your harmonies in almost any desired style. Since they function identically in all three modes, well describe their use here and then just reference them in the individual mode descriptions that follow. Register The Register control sets the general range of the lowest generated harmony note, with the leftmost setting being the lowest and the rightmost setting the highest. As you move the control, you will see the lower boundary of the graphic range display change in response. If you adjust this control while a chord is sounding (not recommended during a real performance, but instructive for understanding what its doing), you will hear the lowest note of the chord move up or down by octaves in response to your adjustments. Spread The Spread control sets the closeness of the generated harmony notes. Lower settings result in the harmony notes being spaced tightly together, while higher settings result in the harmony notes being spaced progressively farther apart. As you move the Spread control, you will see the upper boundary of the graphic range display change in response. If you adjust this control while a chord is sounding (again, for instructive purposes), you will hear all but the lowest note of the chord

On MIDI notes appearing on an assigned MIDI channel. These notes are treated as if they were a chord (regardless if they actually are an official chord or not) and are re-voiced by the settings of the Register and Spread controls such that the lowest note played will always be the lowest pitched note and will be assigned to the highest numbered active harmony voice. The MIDI notes can, of course, be played in real time from a controller or recorded into a MIDI track that is then routed to Harmony Engine Evo. in the currently On MIDI notes, Harmony Engine Evo will re-voice the harmony based on the Register and Spread controls. If the MIDI data has notes that start or end at slightly different times, each such change will cause the harmony to be re-voiced, potentially shifting existing notes one or more octaves and resulting in unwanted changes. If youre playing the chords manually, play precisely. If youre creating a MIDI track, ensure that all notes of a chord start at exactly the same time.
Note: Each time there is a change
Note: There are only four available
harmony voices, so limit your MIDI input to no more than four notes at a time.
Another Note: Keep in mind that you are not actually playing the harmony channels in this mode (thats what MIDI Omni mode is for), but simply defining the notes that make up the chord that the Register and Spread controls will voice.
MIDI Omni Mode When MIDI Omni mode is selected, the MIDI Velocity control is enabled, while all other section controls and the Interval popups in the individual harmony voice channels are disabled. In MIDI Omni mode, you are in fact directly playing the harmony channels (again, either live from a controller or via a pre-recoded MIDI track). The MIDI Velocity Sensitivity control can be used to scale the MIDI velocity messages assigned to harmony channel levels. With this control set to 0, MIDI velocity will be ignored and the channel levels will be defined entirely by the Channel Gain settings. As you increase the value of this control, MIDI velocity will have progressively more effect on the channel levels. are only four available harmony voices, so limit your MIDI input to no more than four notes at a time. Thats easy to do when creating a MIDI track, but if youre playing a controller live, watch out for sloppy fingering, as having five or more notes playing at once will result in voice stealing that may or may not be objectionable.

If you click the Assign button and then realize that you forgot to type a name for your preset, you can still click the name field and type a name before clicking a preset button to assign the preset. If you click the Assign button and then, for some reason, change your mind, simply click it again to exit Assign mode. To edit an existing preset: 1.Click the existing presets button to call up its parameters and place its name in the Name field. 2.Edit the parameters as desired. 3.Click the Assign button and then the presets button. The updated values will be recorded and the presets name will remain the same. Optionally, you can modify the preset name (which will already be in the Name field) before assigning the edited preset to the button. To create a new preset based on an existing preset: 1.Click the existing presets button to call up its parameters and place its name in the Name field. 2.Edit the parameters as desired. 3.Click in the Name field and type a name for the new preset. 4.Click the Assign button and then the preset button to which you want to assign the new preset. name of the new preset before assigning it to a button. Otherwise you end up with two identically named presets with different control values. Not good.
To delete an existing preset: 1.Click Presets Delete button 2.Click the button whose preset you want to delete. The selected preset will be erased and its button will return to the gray unassigned state. Presets are local to the instance of Harmony Engine Evo in which they are created. If you want to share a set of Harmony Presets among various instances of Harmony Engine Evo, save the plug-in state as a preset in your host so that it can then be recalled as a starting point in any instance of Harmony Engine Evo.
Important Note: Voice Parameter
Chapter 4: Factory Presets
This chapter provides brief descriptions of the factory presets that ship with Harmony Engine Evo. Since it is extremely unlikely that any factory preset will be immediately useful for any of your personal projects, we have designed the presets to demonstrate various ways of using Harmony Engine Evo. Simply start with a vocal track whose key and chord progression you know and run through the presets while reading their descriptions below. presets, which will always sound the same for all users, the Harmony Engine Evo presets are heavily dependent on the vocal tracks that you use them on. Consequently, they serve primarily as starting points for various general usages, with the expectation that you will tweak them to work best with your particular track. Specifically, they all contain the default settings for the Tracking and Vocal Range controls. After calling up a preset, you must set each of those controls to reflect your actual track. Also, although the presets were designed with vocal tracks in mind, feel free to experiment with any preset on any source track. There are no rules.

Important Note: Unlike synth
In experimenting with the presets below, it is important to keep the following points in mind:
The presets that use Scale Interval or Chord Degrees mode are programmed with the Harmony Preset buttons Key and Scale parameters set to C Major. Unless your composition is actually in C Major, you must first change the various preset buttons Key and Scale to the correct settings for your composition. Due to the differences in the way various hosts deal with routing MIDI to plug-ins, we have not included any presets that use the various MIDI modes. To experiment with the MIDI modes, use the Tutorial Sessions described in Chapter 5.

Chord Degrees 1

This preset provides the root version of all of the available chord degrees on the Harmony Preset buttons, as well as the first inversion of the keys root chord. The Register and Spread controls are set for fairly wide, mid-range harmonies. The Voice Parameter Presets provide the following choices: No Variation: default Throat Lengths and all Humanization settings at 0 Varied: Various amounts of Naturalize, Pitch and Timing Variation and modified Throat Lengths Vibrato: Similar to Varied, but with the addition of slightly different vibratos to each voice Things to try: Play your vocal track and manually click the appropriate chord degree button at each chord change in your song. Experiment with different chord degrees. Does you melody work with any alternate harmonizations? Use your hosts automation system to record the Harmony Preset buttons and automate chord degree changes. Try changing the Register and Spread settings. Listen to the effect of various ranges and chord spacings. Pick a part of your vocal where the chord remains unchanged for a measure or two. Click the Formant Only Freeze button at the beginning of that phrase and listen to the result. Then start again and click the Formant + Pitch Freeze button at the same point and note the difference. In both cases, click the respective buttons again at the end of the phrase to return to normal harmonization. Click the different Voice Parameter Preset buttons to hear their differences. Try modifying one or more of the voice parameters and save your new version onto one of the unassigned Voice Parameter buttons. Apply CHOIR to one or more of your vocal parts.

Chord Degrees 2

This preset is similar to Chord Degrees above, but instead of including all of the degrees on the Harmony Preset buttons, it includes the more commonly used degrees along with a variety of inversions of some of the degrees. The Register and Spread controls are set for fairly wide, mid-range harmonies. The Voice Parameter Presets provide the following choices: No Variation: default Throat Lengths and all Humanization settings at 0 Varied: Various amounts of Naturalize, Pitch and Timing Variation and modified Throat Lengths Vibrato: Similar to Varied, but with the addition of slightly different vibratos to each voice Things to try: Pretty much the same things as listed in Chord Degrees above.

Cool Chords 1

This preset (along with the following Cool Chords presets) can be thought of as a sort of harmonic toy-box. It uses Chord Name mode to give you a variety of chords in a variety of ranges to try with your melody track. In this preset, four chords are provided, each in a low, medium and high voicing. The Voice Parameter Presets provide the following choices: No Variation: default Throat Lengths and all Humanization settings at 0 Vibrato: Various amounts of Naturalize, Pitch and Timing Variation and modified Throat Lengths with the addition of slightly different vibratos to each voice Low2Hi: Throat Lengths optimized for a low input voice that is generally being shifted up (e.g., the original input is a baritone and the harmony voices are in the tenor and alto range).
Hi2Low: Throat Lengths optimized for a high input voice that is generally being shifted down (e.g., the original input is a soprano and the harmony voices are in the alto, tenor, or even bass range). Things to try: Just play with the various chords and voicings with your input voice. Do they work? If the key of the original input is totally incompatible with the chords, mute the original input and listen to just the harmony voices. Since Chord Name mode always generates the correct harmony notes regardless of the input pitch, you can create an entirely re-harmonized version of your input. Add three new chords of your choice to the three unassigned Harmony Preset buttons. Customize some (or all) of the Voice Parameters and save them to the unassigned buttons. Play with the Freeze buttons as described above. Check out their effects when you have complete control of the harmonization. Try CHOIR on one or more of the voices. Since all of the Cool Chords presets operate on basically the same principle, we will just describe their differences below:

Cool Chords 4

Six chords, each with a mid register and low register version. Voice Parameter Presets include the standard No Variation, Varied, and Vibrato settings.

Cool Chords 5

Ten different chords, all in a relatively wide mid-range voicing. Voice Parameter Presets the same as Cool Chords 4. Things to try: Add up to five additional chords (or inversions) of your choice to the unassigned Harmony Preset buttons. Change the Register and/or Spread and/or Inversion of the supplied chords and resave the new versions to the same (or a different) button.

Dissonance

This preset uses Fixed Interval mode to provide three different special effects. In each case, the original input is muted. diss 1: Four harmony voices at half-tone intervals two octaves below the input. diss 2: Four harmony voices at half-tone intervals two octaves above the input. diss 3: Four harmony voices at half-tone intervals clustered around the input. The two Voice Parameter Presets demonstrate pan control, offering a contrast between all voices panned center and the spread across the stereo soundstage. Things to try: Unmute the original input. Try modifying individual voice intervals Add various amounts of vibrato to one or more of the harmony voices. Experiment with various Glide settings. Try various combinations of Humanize settings. Try CHOIR.

Cool Chords 2

In this preset, weve provided five chords, each in a low, medium and high voicing. The Voice Parameter Presets provide a No Variation version, along with Low, Medium, and High settings that are optimized for those voicing ranges. Things to try: Create harmonizations that are entirely in the Low, Medium or High registers. Select various Voice Parameter Presets, both matching and non-matching ranges.

Cool Chords 3

Same as Cool Chords 2, but with a different set of chords.
This preset uses Scale Interval Mode to provide one harmony voice at a variety of intervals. (Dont forget to change the presets buttons Key and Scale settings to match your track.) Choices include: 5th up or down 4th up or down 3rd up or down Octave up or down Harmony Channel 1 is used for all presets. The other channels are muted. The Voice Parameter Presets provide a No Variation version, along with Low and High versions, which add Humanization and Throat Length modifications that accentuate the formant changes associated with shifting up or down. Things to try: Add vibrato to the harmony voice. Try different values of Glide. Unmute one or more of the other channels and experiment with different intervals.

This preset demonstrates how the Harmony Presets and the Voice Parameter Presets can be used together to create variously-sized vocal groups. Using Scale Interval mode (dont forget to change the Key and Scale popups to match your track), this preset provides four variations of four harmony voices and two variations of two harmony voices. Up1, Down1, Up2 and Down2 are the four voice presets and are designed to be used with the Voice Parameter presets No Variation, Up and Down. The Harmony Presets TrioUp and TrioDown are designed to be used with the Voice Parameter presets TrioUp and TrioDown. The Harmony Presets define the proper intervals, while the Voice Parameter presets define the Trio by muting harmony channel 3 and 4.

Humanize Fun

This preset is designed to demonstrate the variety of effects available from the Humanize functions, as well show how different Harmony Control modes can be combined in a single preset. The Voice Parameter presets include one preset with no Humanize functions and five additional presets with various combinations of the three Humanize functions (their names make their settings pretty obvious, but you can also just watch the controls as you select each preset). Up in the Harmony Presets section, you will see that four different harmony modes are represented. The top three buttons are chords in Chord Name mode. The next 6 are chords in Chord Degrees mode (be sure to set the Key and Scale as necessary). Finally there is a preset in Scale Interval mode (again, set the Key and Scale) and another in Fixed Interval mode.

Fixed Intervals

This preset lets you explore the effect of using various parallel intervals in Fixed Interval mode. Other than unison and octaves, this is not something you would typically use in conventional diatonic music, but as this preset will show, it can be useful as an effect in sound design. Things to try: Explore other combinations of parallel intervals.
The point of this is that different parts of a particular project may work best with different harmony modes. For example, Scale Interval mode might work great for an entire song except for one phrase in the bridge where the harmony moves away from the basic scale. In that case, you can have the primary preset be in Scale Interval mode, but still include a few Harmony Presets that specifically define the errant chords in Chord Name mode. Things to try: Experiment with the various combinations of Harmony Control modes and Humanize presets. If your track needs some chords that dont work well in Scale Interval mode, add them to the unused Harmony Presets buttons and try switching back and forth between the modes as necessary.

Vocal Multiplier

This preset uses Fixed Interval mode and Voice Parameter presets to thicken the original input with one, two, three or four unison voices. In each case the active voices pan settings are adjusted for best effect for that number of voices. Things to try: Experiment with different amounts of vibrato on one or more voices. Click the Formant + Pitch Freeze button to hold the harmony voices in a drone while the original voice continues. Click it again to release the freeze and return to regular doubling. Try different Humanize settings.

You Can Believe

This preset creates the infamous Auto-Tune Vocal Effect (i.e., the T-Pain/Cher-style effect) on Harmony Channel 1. A couple of things to keep in mind:

Vibratos

This preset demonstrates the use of the Vibrato controls to create special effects. It includes one Harmony Preset that features amplitudeonly vibrato (more accurately tremolo) and another that features extreme pitch variation. In each case the original input is muted and the presets impose their effects on a D7 chord. Things to try: Adjust the various channels vibrato settings. Unmute the original input. Change Harmony mode to Scale Interval or Chord Degrees and see how the effects work in the context of a song. Experiment with the Humanize functions (which are turned off by default in this preset).
The preset uses Scale Interval mode, so you will need to set the correct Key and Scale for your track. Getting this effect requires the right combination of vocal track style and selected scale. If it isnt giving you the effect you want, try a different key or a different scale (or both). And remember that some vocals are just not candidates for the effect under any circumstances. Things to try: Try unmuting one or more of the other three harmony channels and setting various intervals. The results will be highly dependent on your track and the selected Key and Scale, but you might end up with something pretty cool. Then again, you might not.
Chapter 5: Tutorial Sessions
As mentioned in Chapter 1, the composers who produced some of the Harmony Engine Evo demo compositions have been kind enough to allow us to include the actual sessions for you to load into your host and experiment with. In each case, weve provided versions of each demo for a number of the most popular host applications. To keep the sessions to manageable size, all accompaniment tracks have been mixed to a single stereo track. Any pre-processing of the vocal tracks (compression, EQ, etc.) was pre-rendered to the tracks. For any post-processing of the vocal track and/or Harmony Engine Evo output (delay, chorus, reverb, etc.), we asked the composers to limit themselves to generic effects that came standard with their hosts (so that they could be easily replicated in other hosts).
The method of routing MIDI to a plug-in differs pretty dramatically (both in technique and ease) among the various hosts. For that reason, the sessions that use Harmony Engine Evos MIDI modes are supplied with all MIDI routings in place. Just press Play and everything should just work.
Note: If you plan to use Harmony Engines MIDI modes, but youre not familiar with your hosts MIDI routing scheme, examining the sessions that use MIDI can be instructive. Even easier, you can use those sessions as templates. Simply make a copy of a session, delete the existing audio and MIDI data and replace them with your own.