Time Fabric Pitch Programs for Z-DSP

This is a card for the Z-DSP module.

“It fucks with the fabric of time!”  Tony Visconti describing Pitch Shifting to Brian Eno and David Bowie in 1976. That not so subtle description does quite neatly sum up what the Pitch Shift programs on the ‘Time Fabric’ card do!

Pitch shifting in the Z-DSP uses a technique called ‘rotating tape head’ delay lines named after pioneering tape based experiments in Germany in the 1960s. The tape heads move at speeds independent of the tape playback path and two heads are crossfaded to make a continuous output.

This collection of Pitch Programs for the Tiptop Audio Z-DSP module use a pitch shifting algorithm much like the earliest digital pitch shifters released. Sounds similar to the Eventide H910, AMS 15-80 (with Pitch board) and Publison DHM 89 can be achieved. These programs are intended more for pure effects rather than the complex multiple harmony lines later devices and plugins became known for producing. Chords from single VCOs can easily be made using the ‘Interval’ programs on the card though.

With the use of a Z3000 to clock the Z-DSP a complete chaos of the delay lines and pitch shifting emerges, making great unexpected new sounds. Modulating the stereo pair of analog VC-Feedbacks animates the time and distance of the pitch shift opening up these algorithms for additional control from CV and audio signal alike.