Recording - December 2013 - 12

scream or try to use it to pick up drums or
a full-bore guitar cabinet (its SPL handling
tops out at about 110 dB), but by and
large it handles a variety of acoustic input
signals with grace, especially if you experiment and choose the right Recording
Mode beforehand.
What's a Recording Mode? Blue feels that
one of the scariest parts of novice recording
is the simple obstacle of "my voice/guitar/whatever doesn't sound right", without a
lot of knowledge of what "right" is. The three
Modes are designed to provide simple and
painless tweaks to recorded sound that give
you favorable results. They are:
Voice Mode: This mode is intended for
vocals and especially for voice-overs; to my
ears, it rolls off the highs somewhat and
provides a gentle proximity-effect-like boost
in the low mids. The result is a dramatic
change in the tone of the human voice. I
say "change" because it may or may not
be an improvement, depending on the

voice in question. In my case, it definitely
was! The nasal quality that is common in
my voice when recorded on most condenser mics was effectively tamed, and the
low mids developed a reassuring solidity
that married well with my singing. I also
noticed a small improvement in pop and
plosive sensitivity. I got the best results about
8 to 12 inches from the mic; closer positioning made the recording really boomy
from proximity effect.
Music Mode: This mode is intended for
musical instruments like guitars and winds,
and is meant to capture solo performances that will "float" above music beds
created (as they so often are in bedroom
studios) from virtual instruments and loop
libraries. Nessie accomplishes this with
what sounds like a significant bump in the
high mids and highs, to add presence, air,
and sparkle to recordings. You'll want to
experiment with positioning, as this Mode
does improve clarity and intelligibility but

can also heighten artifacts like pick noise
and string squeaks.
Raw Mode: This mode removes all the
internal processing and just leaves the
mic's response flat. In this Mode, Nessie is
a perfectly serviceable medium-diaphragm
cardioid condenser mic with no frills, capable of capturing a wide variety of sources
with clarity and honesty. Once again, you
can do basic tone control with positioning,
as the mic exhibits a marked proximity
effect inside about 8 inches.
In my tests on vocals, winds, and string
instruments, it was usually pretty easy
and straightforward to select a Mode
and position Nessie for musical and
pleasing results. Blue seems to have
accomplished its goal of a fear-free mic
for the beginner; if you're looking at getting started with solo recording, Nessie
can ease your way in and get you comfortable while yielding great-sounding
tracks.-MM

Eventide H9 Harmonizer Effects Processor
$499; www.eventide.com

Eventide is famous for its
Harmonizers, powerful rackmount
digital multieffects processors that
have been sprinkling magic dust on
recorded tracks for decades; in
recent years, the company has
branched out into the realm of guitar
effects processors, with a variety of
delay, modulation, and reverbbased stomp boxes that offer a lot of
the Harmonizer's power in a guitarist-friendly package. With the H9,
Eventide has made the algorithms
famous from its existing effects-pedal
lineup and combined them into a
universal effects processor that lets
users pick and choose how much of
each pedal they want.
The H9 is smaller than Eventide's
previous pedals because it doesn't offer their many knobs and realtime controls. Instead,
there's a large LED display, a turn/click encoder with an LED ring to quickly show parameter values at a glance, five buttons, and two footswitches, which offer everything from
full-on parameter programming and system setup to tempo tap, MIDI sync, and patch
saving/naming. You can program the front-panel encoder to give you one-touch access
to multiple scaled parameters at once using a function called HotKnob; this duplicates
the parameters controllable from an external expression pedal plugged into the H9.
(Speaking of plugging in, the H9 also has stereo 1/4" unbalanced inputs and outputs,
MIDI In and Out, USB, and a socket for an external power supply.)
With the manual open on your lap, you can learn to do everything the H9 can do
without ever leaving its front panel, but it's a very fiddly process; the better alternative is to do things in software, and Eventide makes it easy and elegant to do so.
When you buy the H9, you can also download a free computer program called H9
Control. It runs on a PC or Mac and can communicate with the H9 via a USB cable,
or on an iOS device with a connection via Bluetooth. H9 Control lets you edit all
parameters and presets on the H9 in a much handier manner than using the box's
built-in controls, with each pedal represented by a virtual front panel that mimics the
hardware. There are added control possibilities as well-for example, the iOS app
features a powerful XY pad that lets you manipulate pairs of parameters in real time.
H9 Control also lets you add to the pedal's capabilities by adding new pitch shifting, modulation, delay, or reverb algorithms from Eventide's extensive library.
Eventide's online store offers a total of 42 algorithms as of press time. There are
12

RECORDING December 2013

twelve from the Space pedal (reviewed July
2011), ten from the PitchFactor (November
2009), ten from the ModFactor and nine from
the TimeFactor (both reviewed November
2008), and a brand-new UltraTap algorithm
unique to the H9. Eventide fanatics will note
that this total is one short of "the whole nine
yards"-the Looper algorithm from the
TimeFactor is missing. But Eventide plans to
release new algorithms on an ongoing basis,
including a new Looper (scheduled for release
some time in the future) and a Resonator algorithm, featuring multitap delay, reverb, and
tunable resonance, that should be out by the
time you read this.

http://www.eventide.com

Recording - December 2013

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