Eventide H9000 - $7000 (yikes)

[gsilbers]

I didnt pay attention that much to eventide hardware until i saw this andrew huang video below.
Mostly the price $7000

Seems like a bit much but there isnt a lot of examples or videos. Its mostly guitar players using it for ambience stuff that doesnt
get to more than a pedalboard with astrymon and other common fx... sort of level.
The ultra harmonizer was huge back in the 90s when rock music was big so im guessing thats the connection of the current users who buy it. (?)

Im sure its a beast, but does anyone use it and find it that it excels at sound design.? At least any more than plugins available?

Looking at the software controller (emote), it almost looks like plogue bidule with a lot of eventide plugins.
The algorithms seem diferent in name and more generic if that makes sense. (delay ping pong4 etc). instead of the ones we know from the plugins (ultratap)/

Click to read more...

 

[John Longley]

I probably wouldn't buy one to do the pitch shifted snare trick LOL

 

[charlieclouser]

I have one. It is absolutely bonkers. I usually use it with a single ADAT port so I have 4x stereo i/o from my DAW. But there's plenty of analog i/o and footpedal inputs, etc. Emote works so well that I could have just gotten the blank front panel unit (H9000r).

It's roughly equivalent to sixteen H3000 units at once. Four chains, each of which has four fx blocks, and each block contains an algorithm that's more or less equivalent to an entire H3000 algorithm. If you want, all that power can be applied to a single i/o pair, or you can use it as four stereo fx units, each with a four-way stack of fx.

I also have all the Eventide plugins, as well as an H9 Max on my pedalboard, but you'd spend a life-age of the earth to patch and route things trying to simulate what the H9000 does with the flick of a finger. You can individually store routings, fx chains, individual fx blocks, parameters for each fx within an algorithm, controller assignments, blah blah blah. Emote can operate as a standalone app or as a plugin, and it can push settings to the unit when you load a project in your DAW or not, as you wish. Mapping MIDI CC from your DAW to any parameter takes one second. They have left no stone unturned.

It's not for everyone, and if all you want is reverb for your strings stem, get a Bricasti. But the combinations of fx they've put together as presets, and the ease with which you can flip through four-way fx in each of the four fx chains is just nuts.

It can be a time suck, but it doesn't have to be. Sound quality is of the absolute highest order. Depth, width, space, girth - you won't find another unit that beats it. Popular opinion is that the reverbs are not up to the standard of realism you find in a Bricasti, but I don't care. It does not do convolution reverbs, it's all algorithmic reverbs in there.

I did A/B a few of the algorithms against the plugin versions (like Crush Station) and they are broadly similar, but the H9000 seems to sound.... better somehow. And of course a single plugin is but one-sixteenth of what the H9000 is doing at rest.

Some folks wax nostalgic for the crusty sound of the A>D and D>A of the original H3000, which this unit does not have. But I don't mind because I'm using it via digital i/o anyway.

There are expansion cards available for Dante, MADI, and direct HDX interface emulation. Stock it comes with 2x analog XLR, 8x analog DB25, 2x AES XLR, 8x AES DB25, 2x S/PDIF, 8x ADAT, blah blah blah. A buddy is using the HDX card and his HDX rig sees it as an interface no problem. It's also a 16x16 USB audio interface, so you could even use it as your only piece of hardware and connect powered monitors directly to it (in 7.1 surround!).

It's not cheap, but it literally has no competition. It is the most (only?) high-end outboard fx unit made.

Worth $7k? That is for the gods to decide.

 

[tmhuud]

It’s fantastic. Sheer # of Presets is a great time saver. I can’t think of anything else to compare it to off hand.

 

[ReleaseCandidate]

. Its mostly guitar players using it for ambience stuff that doesnt
get to more than a pedalboard with astrymon and other common fx... sort of level.
The ultra harmonizer was huge back in the 90s when rock music was big so im guessing thats the connection of the current users who buy it. (?)

Yes, Eventide Harmonizer and a Lexicon reverb were _the_ FX back in the days, all bands that got big used them (Metallica). That's why I (as a guitarist) also ended up buying an MPX 1.
And I can't understand the fuss about that nowadays

 

[gsilbers]

I have one. It is absolutely bonkers. I usually use it with a single ADAT port so I have 4x stereo i/o from my DAW. But there's plenty of analog i/o and footpedal inputs, etc. Emote works so well that I could have just gotten the blank front panel unit (H9000r).

It's roughly equivalent to sixteen H3000 units at once. Four chains, each of which has four fx blocks, and each block contains an algorithm that's more or less equivalent to an entire H3000 algorithm. If you want, all that power can be applied to a single i/o pair, or you can use it as four stereo fx units, each with a four-way stack of fx.

I also have all the Eventide plugins, as well as an H9 Max on my pedalboard, but you'd spend a life-age of the earth to patch and route things trying to simulate what the H9000 does with the flick of a finger. You can individually store routings, fx chains, individual fx blocks, parameters for each fx within an algorithm, controller assignments, blah blah blah. Emote can operate as a standalone app or as a plugin, and it can push settings to the unit when you load a project in your DAW or not, as you wish. Mapping MIDI CC from your DAW to any parameter takes one second. They have left no stone unturned.

It's not for everyone, and if all you want is reverb for your strings stem, get a Bricasti. But the combinations of fx they've put together as presets, and the ease with which you can flip through four-way fx in each of the four fx chains is just nuts.

It can be a time suck, but it doesn't have to be. Sound quality is of the absolute highest order. Depth, width, space, girth - you won't find another unit that beats it. Popular opinion is that the reverbs are not up to the standard of realism you find in a Bricasti, but I don't care. It does not do convolution reverbs, it's all algorithmic reverbs in there.

I did A/B a few of the algorithms against the plugin versions (like Crush Station) and they are broadly similar, but the H9000 seems to sound.... better somehow. And of course a single plugin is but one-sixteenth of what the H9000 is doing at rest.

Some folks wax nostalgic for the crusty sound of the A>D and D>A of the original H3000, which this unit does not have. But I don't mind because I'm using it via digital i/o anyway.

There are expansion cards available for Dante, MADI, and direct HDX interface emulation. Stock it comes with 2x analog XLR, 8x analog DB25, 2x AES XLR, 8x AES DB25, 2x S/PDIF, 8x ADAT, blah blah blah. A buddy is using the HDX card and his HDX rig sees it as an interface no problem. It's also a 16x16 USB audio interface, so you could even use it as your only piece of hardware and connect powered monitors directly to it (in 7.1 surround!).

It's not cheap, but it literally has no competition. It is the most (only?) high-end outboard fx unit made.

Worth $7k? That is for the gods to decide.

I guess it’s just the lack of demos.

With a $7k device it’s another story reviewing wise so it’s kinda hard to gauge how to use it, or the potential, the difference between older models and plugins besides some text info.

most demos I see seems to be pad guitars and that’s about it. Like the demo below.There is one video from Richard Devine but just talks about it, that’s one I would of loved to hear how he uses it.

also it’s lack of integration ala virusti/overbrige is a minor gripe but I might be expecting too much


How do you use it? For ambience?
And since u mentioned the h3000 is that an alternative with less power at $2k only? The info says the h9k has new algos but not that many.
I like the idea of emote integration to tweak.

 

[charlieclouser]

Emote communicates with the H9000 not by USB but via WiFi. They give you a little WiFi dongle which you plug into one of the many USB ports on the H9000 and you're in. I believe you can also use a wired Ethernet connection for Emote but I haven't tried it. I also have a Virus TI and the TI part never worked consistently. The only way I got it to work (for about five minutes at a time) was to place it next to the computer and use a three-foot high quality USB cable with ferrite beads on both ends, and even then it would drop off all the time, so I just gave up and use it as a normal hardware synth. In remote panel mode it does make a good CC controller for soft synths, so there's that...

I use the H9000 for turning synth and guitar sounds into massive clouds of down-pitched crusty sound, with distortions like Crush Station and weird EQ's somewhere in the chain, and for weird percussion loop processing like downpitch+blurring+crust that can turn a pointy little percussion loop into a smudged version of "we will rock you" stadium stomps.

For sure there are far too many demos with someone playing guitar through pitch+delay "crystallizer" effects that give results that plugins or an H9 could probably do, but I guess people get fascinated with that stuff. I am usually more interested in pitch shifting things downward, and the H9000 does this very smoothly and with less glitching or stuttering than other methods.

I had of course used H3000 + DSP4000 units over the years as they were always present in the racks at studios, but I actually never owned one myself. Didn't need to since they were everywhere (there were four of the various models at the NIN studio in New Orleans), and the old VSIG editor was a nightmare, just a hailstorm of hair-thin black+white cables on the screen that looked like an old-school MAX patch. With only one or two algorithms running at once I wasn't ready to throw down $2k-$4k on one of the older units, not even the H8000. To my ears I could get most of what they did with plugins like SoundToys.

A good friend who's a devotee of old-school big-dollar gear (he has 480's, AMS's, M6000's, PCM42's, PCM70's, etc.) does session work for people like Thomas Newman and all he brings is his laptop, a bass, a DI, a pair of 1081's, and an H9000 - and the sounds he gets are... well, Newman-esque. So he convinced me to take the plunge and I'm glad I did. I don't use it all the time but when I get desperate to hear something I haven't heard before it's just the ticket.

But I admit that I bought it partly out of boredom with my other processing gear, most of which is sub-$500 stuff. I do love my EHX Freeze, SuperEgo, and POG, my Strymon stuff, etc. but like most plugins that stuff is all single-action units - they do interesting things but you can get to the bottom of them very quickly. That's kind of a good thing in terms of time-suckage, but it means you have a big-ass pedal board with a bunch of units that each do one thing, and patching up complex chains for experimentation gets tiring, even on my rig where every single thing is mounted and powered and routed to a patch bay. And you can't save setups.

So the H9000 is definitely king of the mountain by a huge margin, but if I was forced to choose between the H9000 and my entire pedalboard, I'd keep the pedalboard. But that's three 48-point 1/4" patch bays, ten snakes as thick as garden hoses, eight VoodooLabs power supplies, and 40 (!!!) individual boxes, some of which do things that are pretty unique (EHX SuperEgo for instance). And that pedalboard was actually much more expensive than the H9000 when all is said and done.

But for instant gratification and a staged build-out, a few EXH pedals and a Strymon Night Sky would probably be a better start for many folks.

 

[Technostica]

Thanks @charlieclouser.
As someone who has recently invested in external gear to experience the different workflow I find it interesting to read about gear like this.
I just bought a H9 Max and it's great to have that power in a pedal even if you need an iPad to get the most from it.
It still means I can dive into crazy effects without a PC or pedal board.
I also received a Vox MV50 Boutique today, so that's another part of the puzzle for creating a system I can use without a PC or even speakers.
I read about the H9000 only in the last week and it warms my heart that gear like this is being made.

 

[charlieclouser]

it warms my heart that gear like this is being made.

Interestingly, since Eventide's other half makes logging recorders used in 911 call centers as well as aviation instrumentation, they are considered an "essential business" during pandemic times. So they've stayed up and running throughout. Not sure which half of the business subsidizes the other, but they are one of the only firms still waving the high-dollar audio flag, and they have a legacy of knowledge and experience that newcomers to the field will never comprehend. They did invent digital audio effects as we know it, and for decades they were the only firm making "magical mystery boxes" so I got big love for them like I do for Bob Moog, Dave Smith, and Dave Rossum.

 

[Greg]

I have one. It is absolutely bonkers.

Hey Charlie, Im really curious as to how the Black hole & AMS RMX Chorus presets compare to the H8000fw model if you happen to have owned that one previously? I use my h8000 exclusively for those 2 presets on my analog synths 90% of the time. I heard some other folks claim they like the h8000fw black hole quite a bit more? Thx!

 

[charlieclouser]

No I never owned an H-8000fw unit. My big-racks buddy did - it was his religion for a long time - but when the 9k came out he jumped in and did his shootouts (he actually helped beta test the unit and the preset library) and it passed his golden-ears tests with flying colors. So, for whatever that's worth, Mr. Snooty gave it his seal of approval. Although he still has his 8k, he's all 9k all the time now.

And I haven't really compared the Black Hole in the 9k to the plugin other than to say, "Oh, the 9k has Black Hole. Cool."

Public opinion from long-time Eventide users is that the 9k sounds different to all that came before, even with the same algorithms loaded. Maybe it's due to the higher-spec A>D and D>A, maybe it's the ARM architecture vs the old (Motorola?) DSP, but apparently there was a continuity of sound character from the original H-3000 all the way through the H-8000fw that changed abruptly (but subtly) with the 9k. For the better? For the worse? Who can say (forum posters, that's who!). But for me that wasn't the issue - workflow and ergonomics brought me to the 9k and I'm fine with whatever differences exist on the molecular level.

I do know that Eventide spent years and countless man-hours getting everything from the earlier H series into the new architecture of the 9k - algorithms, presets, everything - and the release of the 9k was delayed for years while they kept tweaking and trying to get it right. It was a herculean task for sure, and they didn't skimp or cut corners at all.

For guys with a long history with the H series, like Chris Lord-Alge or mixers who just leave MicroPitch strapped across FX Send #3 or whatever, I can understand that they'd be upset if the 9k was one-zillionth bit different. Fortunately there's H-3000's littering the streets at around $1,500. Not like they're rare or anything.

 

[Virtuoso]

I've been talking myself in and out of buying one of these for months, but I'm in a YOLO mood this week so I've finally decided to go for it tomorrow!

@charlieclouser - if you see this, could I pick your brain for a sec?

- Can you now route the output of an FX Chain into another, thereby extending the 4 algo limit to potentially 16?
- How bad is the fan noise in a rack?
- Any reason I should think twice before disappearing down this rabbit hole?

 

[charlieclouser]

I've been talking myself in and out of buying one of these for months, but I'm in a YOLO mood this week so I've finally decided to go for it tomorrow!

@charlieclouser - if you see this, could I pick your brain for a sec?

- Can you now route the output of an FX Chain into another, thereby extending the 4 algo limit to potentially 16?

I don't think the current version supports this, but I have mine hooked up via ADAT to my DAW (Logic), so each stereo pair of the ADAT stream appears to Logic as a stereo i/o insert, so if I wanted to do that I'd insert four instances of the i/o plugin in series. My brain still thinks of the four FX Chains in the h9000 as four separate, four-block, stereo i/o units. So it's basically like having sixteen h-3000's, hard-wired as four sets of four h-3000's. Crazy!

- How bad is the fan noise in a rack?

My h9000 is still sitting on top of the rack just under my R speaker, and I need to put my head next to the unit to hear the fan. But since the eMote plugin is so great I'll be mounting the h9000 near the bottom of a rack that's further away. As slick as the front panel controls and color screen are, the eMote plugin works great and I rarely swivel my chair over to fiddle with the hardware. I suppose I could have bought the h9000-r (blank front panel unit) but I wanted to preserve the ability to use and edit it standalone.

- Any reason I should think twice before disappearing down this rabbit hole?

Cons: It IS very expensive. And some of the newest algorithms (like CrushStation) have recently come out as standalone plugins, but I can't imagine that they all will. It does require a bunch of i/o from your DAW to gain full use of all the FX Chains and have full flexibility of routing. Running FX Chains in series internally, and internally mixing the outputs of multiple FX Chains to a single pair of outputs are not currently possible (I think), but Eventide are not clear whether this will or won't be possible in some future update. There is currently no sampling. And I wish it had the old "clacky" rectangular H-3000 style buttons and big heavy knob for nostalgia's sake!

Pros: It sounds great. eMote works great. The library of presets is ridiculous. They have left so stone unturned in terms of i/o options, with USB / WiFi / MIDI / AES / SPDIF / Analog / ADAT / Dante / PT interface emulation / etc. - pretty much the only jacks it doesn't have are Thunderbolt and FireWire.

It is a rabbit-hole though. It's easy to get lost in the preset library, starting out looking for an interesting pitch-shifted reverb for an ambient guitar track and winding up with a percolating noise-percussion part. But it really is the flagship fx processor of the entire pro audio industry. Nothing else comes close. That said, for the money you could buy a LOT of Strymon and EHX pedals!

 

[Virtuoso]

I don't think the current version supports this, but I have mine hooked up via ADAT to my DAW (Logic), so each stereo pair of the ADAT stream appears to Logic as a stereo i/o insert

That's interesting - any reason you use ADAT instead of USB? As I understand it, USB gives you 16in/out.

It's really difficult to find good information about these! I spoke to a LA-based 'expert' ("Nobody knows this unit better than me" etc) yesterday about the internal series FX Chain routing and his vague answer was "Hey man, there's nothing this box cant do!"

 

[gsilbers]

That's interesting - any reason you use ADAT instead of USB? As I understand it, USB gives you 16in/out.

It's really difficult to find good information about these! I spoke to a LA-based 'expert' ("Nobody knows this unit better than me" etc) yesterday about the internal series FX Chain routing and his vague answer was "Hey man, there's nothing this box cant do!"

Yep, in general eventide seems to be using more old skool methods to selling these. "Talk to your local dealer", and "here have a panphlet" and "well, just trust us". Some word of mouth. Just like in the 90s. Maybe fill out a credit plan payment with a down payment that you sign in an 80s bland office desk and beige walls lol.
I would not think other wise except that in the plugin world they are making a killing. So many videos, ads, information everywhere, affiliate links, super sales etc etc. Almost everyone knows or has the black hole plugin and are very aware of eventide. but other than a few big name pop music engineers and artists who seem to use these as either a guitar ambience pad for intros or as a delay or a couple of presets for mixing pop, it hard to know exactly its potential. The only semi decent example is that of andrew scrolling through presets using a drum loop as the source. And somewhere in that video he says 1600 algorithms (!!!!!... ) And imaging what charlie says.
Thats about it. for 7k?!

again, Im sure its a beast but its now only a faith based processor with that marketing plan.

if you DO get it, make some videos !!

 

[Virtuoso]

if you DO get it, make some videos !!

You can count on that. It won't be hard to improve on what's already out there! :D

You would expect (given the complexity of the unit) lots of in-depth online tutorials, but there's hardly anything. Several of the youtube videos are just a guy playing shoegazing ambient pads with a guitar, which is ironic given that it doesn't have an instrument level input or seemingly the ability to chain more than 4 FX internally. Or a guy with a guitar in a large well-equipped studio, recording it on a phone!

Edit: Order placed! Down the rabbit hole I go...

 

[charlieclouser]

That's interesting - any reason you use ADAT instead of USB? As I understand it, USB gives you 16in/out.

Yes, USB will give you 16 in/out - when you use the USB connection to connect the h9000 as an audio interface to your DAW computer. It is not the case that the h9000 will connect via USB to your DAW machine, and those 16 i/o then appear alongside whatever other audio interface you have set up for your DAW (unless you use MacOS "Aggregate Audio Interface" function in CoreAudio). It is also not the case that the USB connection will somehow stream audio from a plugin instantiation of eMote to the h9000 and back.

Unless you're using Aggregate Interfaces / Dante / or PT Interface emulation, all audio routing to / from the h9000 must be done via your primary audio interface and whatever facilities it has. If you have a Focusrite Scarlet 2x2 interface then you ain't connectin' nothin'.

Since I have a MOTU 112d + 1248 setup, I have tons of ADAT ports sitting unused, and it's quick to grab a pair of Toslink cables and set up an ADAT port as four stereo pairs to + from the h9000.

That said, when connected to the DAW machine via USB, the h9000 can function as an audio interface, either as a part of an Aggregate Interface, or as the only audio interface on the DAW machine - that's when the 16 i/o might be useful. Although it would perhaps be less than elegant, you could connect the h9000 to the DAW via USB, then connect speakers (up to 7.1) to any analog or digital outputs on the h9000, plug mic preamps etc. to the analog inputs, stick a few digital devices to the AES + S/PDIF + ADAT ports, and use the h9000's internal routing to get all the signals going where they want to go. It is truly nuts.

Each of the expansion card slots, which can hold Dante, MADI, and PT HDX Interface Emulation cards, can access 32 channels EACH, for a grand total of 128 channels of i/o (32 on each slot plus 32 on the back panel). BUT. Each of the four DSP engines can only access 32 channels at a time. Exactly what other restrictions may exist in a fully bricked-out unit are a mystery to me since I have no expansion cards installed.

It's really difficult to find good information about these! I spoke to a LA-based 'expert' ("Nobody knows this unit better than me" etc) yesterday about the internal series FX Chain routing and his vague answer was "Hey man, there's nothing this box cant do!"

I think the LA-based expert is smoking the good shit. The issue about routing FX Chains into each other in series internally still exists, according to the FAQs on the Eventide site:

(broken link removed)
A:
You currently cannot route the output of one FX Chain into the input of another FX Chain. We are planning on adding this as a feature in a future update.

.... and....

(broken link removed)
A:
The current software release does not provide for mixing the outputs of FX Chains. As a result, two or more FX Chain outputs cannot be combined internally. You’d have to route the outputs to an external mixer. We are considering adding mixing functionality in a future release but that project is not scheduled.

So.... yeaaahhhh NO. Not currently. That is why I was just configuring the unit as four stereo i/o inserts, one for each FX Chain, and routing + mixing in the DAW. That's also why a single ADAT port is fine for me at the moment, since that's four stereo i/o pairs and is a neat match for the current configuration of the machine.

 

[Virtuoso]

Thanks Charlie - I really appreciate getting some accurate info! I spoke to 6 dealers today and none really seemed to know the unit. I'm up for the challenge though - a pandemic seems like the perfect time to get stuck in. I might even read the manual!

 

[Nathanael Iversen]

I think people use the H9000 in very many different ways. I use it as a big box of network attached multi-effect processors. Reverbs, delays, chorus, etc. But I know there are guitarists that use it for sound-design primarily, which is not something I presently do, even though it is great at it. Its such a deep piece of gear that I think the reasons for using it vary widely. It can "be" almost anything, so I think most of us put it to use for what we purchased it for, and then it is just a daily reliable tool. Its kind of like a console. Outside of a certain glamour from the high purchase price, once you have one, it's just a tool, and part of the charm is just that it delivers a certain excellence dependably. I own other reverbs and plugins. These sounds just come in that particular box. I think by the time one owns an H9000, it isn't one's first reverb or fancy FX processor. And so my "workflow" is kind of "I use it like other reverb/chorus/delay/whatevers". But maybe a sound-designer style user of the box would have a very different story. There are some very wild algorithms.

I'll get no awards for radical creativity with it. I don't program vsig or anything like that. But if I'm tracking drums, its in the monitor path. If I'm working on my synths, it's the primary reverb/spatialization. If I'm mixing, it is providing parts of my standard template FX starting points. I like Eventide reverbs. I've picked them out as favorites in several blind "taste tests" that mix hardware and software verbs. (I also like the Bricasti, but haven't bought it yet). Part of it for me was getting access to Eventide's best algorithms in a hardware package that was network attached. The Max pedals are cool, but not even close to as functional for my room. Part of the flexibility I get from changing presets and going from tracking patching to mix patching into the DAW is what I find valuable about it.

Mine sits in a rack out of reach across the studio, connected to the Dante network and just does what it says on the tin. I find that incredibly useful, but it may fall short of "interesting". In my world, it's a standard studio tool - but one that has a certain high-quality sound. And at the end of the day, isn't that what one pays for with high-end processors?

I find the emote software to be highly useful and it is my standard interface to the H9000. It is much faster to use than the front panel.

 

[Nathanael Iversen]

I will also say that since it is connected on the Dante network, it essentially presents as an external plugin in Nuendo. This means that it functions like a giant box of DSP to offload the DAW. By putting most of my reverbs on it, my CPU utilization went down 25% in the main template.