ab PitchPad X

What it does

A pitch shifter driven from a pad rather than a knob. A centre dot sets the pitch of the whole signal across four octaves, and vertical movement shifts while horizontal movement pans. Splitting the dot gives left, mid and right poles that can be pitched separately, so one source becomes a spread chord. A tension control loosens the pitch tracking, with viscosity adding randomness, and the readout switches between semitones and cents.

In the demo

Jade sets it on a piano fed by Zoa, then a live vocal where she builds thirds, fifths and sevenths, then heavy drum patterns. She animates tension and the side poles from an external LFO over MIDI CC, and stacks it with ab Vortex for the darker soundscape work.

Worth knowing

It is DSP hungry, so several instances add up, and live monitoring carries latency. Recording the part first and processing after is the safer route.