Toy of the Month: EventideH8000FW
For the last five or so years, I've pretty much abandoned using computers for making sound. I use them to 'record', and 'convert', but that's about it. It's mainly because they're so unreliable. They also run out of horsepower too fast.
So instead I've depended upon other electronic gizmos, most without CPU's. Occasionally, something with a CPU comes along that's not a full-fledged computer that is interesting.
The most recent gizmo is the Eventide H8000FW. It processes audio signals and makes them, hopefully, more interesting. It has two digital signal processors and a whole pile of audio I/O: something like 20 AES/EBU, 4 Analog I/O, SPDIF, ADAT, and 16 channels of Firewire IO. It can act as a sound card too. Here's what it looks like:
UI is okay -- I didn't need the manual for a few days
Check out all the inputs! It's even got MIDI, and Pedals, Relay controls, Serial, Firewire, AES/EBU, ...!
What does it sound like? Well, pretty good. It's got like 1800 presets. I haven't even bothered to make my own, but when I do, it'll be in a visual modular environment that looks like this:
What's it sound like? Well, it's hooked up to Radio Modular, but you don't have A/B ability. Here's a nice MP3 from the Eventide site:
1 --- h8kdemo.mp3 - a really nice demo that covers a lot of ground
2 --- fuzzpitch.mp3 - nice guitar effect
Fun!
