Eventide has reimagined its H9 Harmonizer with a Gen 2 update that adds a lot more sounds and improves workflow for the high-powered multi-effects pedal.
The H9 Harmonizer has never lacked features, but this Gen 2 unit is one giant leap for the concept. We still have the same compact form factor that makes it so pedalboard-friendly. We now have all of the all of the algorithms from the H9 Max and H90, and under the hood there has been a power-up of full ARM processing, making what Eventide promises will be a faster, easier-to-use pedal.
All in, that’s what? Seventy-four algorithms, with the caveat of course that you can still only use one at a time. But when these sounds tend to combine elements from across the Eventide effects palette, there’s a lot of strange magic to apply to your sound.
There is a lot of sounds – especially for a pedal with just two footswitches, so Eventide has given us more than a thousand user presets to save them down too.
Some of Eventide’s algorithms will do something familiar to your electric guitar tone. You can use the H9 Gen 2 as a studio-quality delay pedal, with kinds of flavours on offer, including vintage tape echo style repeats, modulated delay, digital, multi-tap, reverse, and so on. It can be one super-powered reverb pedal, too, offering the holy trinity of spring, hall and plate plus a myriad of “otherworldly” options.
Some will do something familiar but still super-weird, such as the PitchFuzz algorithm that combines a fuzzstortion with three pitch shifters and two delays (and if this modern classic from 2017 is confusing it does come with 36 presets, most of which were designed by Eventide’s artist community).
And then there are the newer algorithms such as the Granular family of Cosmic Web, Glitch, GrainMod and Stutter – not to mention the vocal harmonization, guitar-to-synth sounds, looper and Eventide Harmonizer classics such as Crystals, which evokes the H3000 with its twin reverse pitch shifters, reverse delays and reverb for some outré sounds.
The next-gen H9 also has SIFT technology to render all those polyphonic algorithms (e.g. Polysynth, Polyphony, Polyflex, and Prism Shift) just as Eventide’s flagship unit.
Elsewhere, you’ve got all the I/O connections you’d expect. There is USB-C, MIDI, aux switch and expression pedal inputs for expanding its functionality – and Eventide says Bluetooth compatibility will be available in a future update. Indeed, expect this to be a multi-effects pedal that will be regularly updated by Eventide as new algorithms and features leave the R&D lab.
You will also notice that the enclosure has had a bit of a redesign, with the interface larger at 2.5”, with all the knobs and buttons you need to dial in the sounds available right there at your fingertips.
Pre-orders for the H9 Gen 2 are available now, with the pedal priced £/$599 and shipping on June 24. See Eventide for more details.
