Another H9 Freeze Thread

BlackHole & ModEchoVerb have complex routings, with many effect types inline.  They tend to deconstruct the frozen signal over time.  I would think that DualVerb & Hall might preserve a ‘clean freeze’ longer, but again, filters in the feedback path can accumulate their effect, too.

I have a number of settings on this forum that you can try.  Here’s are the results of a “brock freeze” search (some might not apply here):

https://www.eventideaudio.com/forum/node/search/brock%20freeze

Eventide staff uploaded a bunch of these for me in the Preset Sharing section.  Otherwise, the screenshots in the search results should be easy enough to reproduce.

https://www.eventideaudio.com/presetsharing

You got me thinking about how I would go about it from scratch.

I’d start with some neutral settings, like those in the image below:

MIX – 50/50.  Great place to adjust the overall frozen signal level when it’s latched, while playing over it with your dry signal. Along with DECAY and SIZE, this will become your base freeze tone.  All three interact, and will benefit from some slight tweaks.

DECAY – Any H9/SPACE freeze is going to ‘capture’ what’s inside the reverb buffer, at any given moment.  I use an initial setting of ~1 second.  That smoothes the transitions between unfrozen and frozen.  It can be less, but your ‘capture’ method will have to be fast.  More DECAY time is safer as a capture source, but then the reverb component becomes easily detectable.  Adjust DECAY up & down to taste.

A static FREEZE setting alone captures nothing.  Capturing a low level DECAY signal results in a low level frozen signal.  You have to select some method to snap into FREEZE on the DECAY parameter, from your initial setting.  It can be an expression pedal, an aux switch ‘mapped’ to the expression pedal, direct DECAY parameter control via MIDI or Aux Switch, HotSwitch mapping, …  For illustration, I have both the expression pedal and HotSwitch bound to the DECAY parameter.

SIZE – A value of 0 is a smaller HALL: bright, with a lot of early reflection.  100 blooms more slowly, into a huge HALL.  I compromised with 50 as a more ‘natural’ reproduction.  Again, part of the ‘base tone’, so adjust it from 50 for your preferred capture source.  If you adjust SIZE while the frozen signal is latched, it will bend the apparent pitch of the freeze.  Not what you’re after here, but a nice effect on its own.

LOW-LEVEL, HIGH-LEVEL, MID-LEVEL – At this point, I’d latch a frozen signal.  Use these three parameters to EQ that frozen signal.  LOW-LEVEL centers at 300 Hz.  HIGH-LEVEL at 1500 Hz., and MID-LEVEL covers that critical area in-between.  You may find that the cleanest tone comes from all three values at 0.  Or, treat it as a 3-band EQ to emphasize certain frequency ranges.

LOW DECAY, HIGH DECAY – These are going to be the multipliers for your EQ section setup, and main DECAY parameter value.  I’d consider them advanced effects beyond the scope here, or an additional section for apparent equalization.  FREEZE values in these controls can be pushed into unnatural effects.

MOD-LEVEL – There’s already a bit of ‘modulation’ in the frozen signal, due to the way it’s captured from the DECAY.  This parameter will definitely contribute to frozen signal distintergation, even at low values.  That said, I really like the way the random modulation tears up a frozen capture (for unique effects).