Eventide Audio are a titan of the audio effects world, with a long and illustrious history making groundbreaking products. Their first commercial audio product was the PS101 Instant Phaser from 1971 and used by Led Zeppelin on ‘Kashmir’. Eventide is, of course, most known for the ‘Ultra Harmonizer’ range of effects units, such as the legendary H3000 from the late 1980s, an object of desire for many not just in the studio but also as the pride of place in many successful (and well-heeled) rock guitarists such as Steve Vai, Robert Fripp and Eddie Van Halen. For many, the H3000’s micro-shift effect is the sound of 80’s rock guitar.

Fast forward to today, and Eventide are, unlike many of its contemporaries, still making some of the best audio effects units possible. Their product range includes a range of guitar pedals, including the H9 and Timefactor pedals and a single rack-mounted multi-effects unit, the H9000. Eventide also has several audio effects plugins available individually, in bundles or as a complete set named the Anthology Bundle.

This article investigates the H9000 and the Anthology Bundle, comparing and contrasting the two approaches taken with the products and assessing their relative strengths.

Eventide Anthology XII Bundle

The Anthology bundle is one of the more accessible ways to experience the Eventide sound and workflow. I was an early adopter, first trialling Anthology I in 2005 and Eventide plugins have been central to my production and sound design since then. The current iteration of the Anthology bundle, Anthology XII comprises 33 separate plugins (see table below), which feature reverbs, delays, modulation effects, distortion, EQ, channel strip and of course, pitch/ harmonisation effects. For those not able to swing the $1999 needed to purchase all 33 plugins in the Anthology Bundle, Eventide has several smaller bundles available: Clockworks, H9 and Ultra Essentials. Alternatively, the Anthology bundle is also available as a subscription at $29.99 per month. Finally, plugins can be purchased individually.

Eventide H9000 Multi-FX Processor

This begs the question, if so much capacity is available in plugin form, what is a hardware effects unit, such as the H9000, actually for? You’d have to be crazy to spend thousands more on a hardware unit, right? Well, no, not quite.

Whilst many of the plugins in the Anthology XII bundle are also available in the H9000, the H9000 has considerably more algorithms than the Anthology XII bundle, about 1600 of them. So whilst the Anthology bundle has a few algorithms/plugins that the H9000 does not, the H9000 has hundred and hundreds not present in the Anthology bundle. Way too many to list here. And if those 1600 algorithms aren’t enough you can make your own using Eventide’s VSig editor. Oh, ok, so the H9000 is a better product than the Anthology bundle? Again, no, not really. They are entirely different products that share some of the same algorithms and can sometimes be used instead of the other.

The H9000 can be considered a rackmount effects computer rather than just an effects unit. The four quad-core ARM processors provide 16 DSP engines that allow 16 different effects to be run simultaneously, using any or all of the analogue, AES/EBU, S/PDIF (optical and coax) and USB IO present on the unit. My own H9000 has a Dante card which allows an additional 32 channels of IO, and should I want to I could expand the device further with Dante, MADI or Digilink option cards. 

Effects Routing

The architecture of the H9000 allows multiple algorithms to be chained (called FX chains in the operating system) to create multi-effects as simple or complex as you need them to be, where different effects can be used in series, parallel or a mixture of the two.

Whilst in a DAW it is possible to create FX chains using a mixture of channel inserts (series) and busses (parallel), they aren’t as immediately recallable. For instance, say you wish to create an effects chain where MicroPitch and Crystals plugins process the guitar in series and the 2016 Reverb in parallel.

This is pretty simple in both the DAW and the H9000. 

Here you would still need to save the channel and the bus as separate presets in Logic, but otherwise, the workflow is pretty much the same. 

But what if you wanted to have the guitar signal processed by MicroPitch and Crystals in series but the 2016 Reverb to receive a signal that had MicroPitch but not Crystals? That is pretty simple in the H9000, simply move the 2016 Reverb and reroute the cables. 

Performing the same operation in a DAW is a little more complex. First you would need to reassign the channel output to a bus that has Crystals plugin instantiated, as well as routing a send to a bus with the 2016 Reverb on it. Recall of this effects chain is more problematic too. You would have to save and recall three separate channel strips. 

Several third-party effects chain plugins exist, such as Waves Studio Rack and Blue Cat Patchwork, which enable you to host plugs and modify their routing configurations. Still, it would be nice if Eventide added a similar product to the Anthology bundle.

Eventide’s H9000 Editor, named ’Emote’, provides this functionality for the H9000 as a standalone application and as an AAX, AU and VST2/3 plugin. This is fantastic as it allows you to easily recall your H9000 patches and effects chains from within your working session. 

H9000: Workflow Caveats 

A couple of things to note about using the H9000 as an insert effects unit in a DAW. Firstly, kiss goodbye to offline bouncing. This might seem obvious and easily worked around; simply use the real-time bounce to finalise projects, and it is all fine, right?

Well, yes, but when you forget and use an offline bounce and then wonder why all your carefully constructed effects are somehow missing, you may sit and think for a moment…. and then remember. This might just trigger a feeling of annoyance at your abject stupidity, making you want to slap yourself. Ask me how I know.

Secondly, you need to be organised about how you save your patches.

Whilst the Emote plugin can recall settings to your H9000 when you load your DAW project, it is still a very good idea to be methodical with naming conventions for effects chains and sessions. I tend to name sessions after the individual DAW project name and then name effects chains after individual instruments or bus channels.

I’ve also found it helpful to save the session file to the root directory of the DAW’s project folder. The H9000 helpfully has the ability to save these also to USB.

Finally, the H9000 does generate a bit of noise from its internal fans. Initially, I installed it in the studio’s control room, and it isn’t so loud as to be entirely distracting, but I do think it is best suited to a machine room, which is where mine is located. Dante connectivity affords the most convenience; patch the H9000 to a pair of ethernet ports, and off you go. I also have an analogue tie line back to the patch bay for situations where I want to track through the H9000.

Sound

So, how do the two products differ in terms of sound? ’Quite similar’ but not ‘exactly the same’ would be a good description.

The above guitar patch was created in both the H9000 and using the Anthology bundle using the exact same settings. The Anthology bundle version using Logic Pro X (10.7.4) and its channels/ busses for routing between effects.

The H9000 session also uses Logic, where an IO plugin routes the signal out to the H9000 and back into the same channel, all over Dante with no analogue to digital conversion occurring.

To my ears the H9000 sounds a tad brighter, and the Crystals effect slightly more dominant, with the same settings, otherwise it is pretty close. 

But this artificially constructed test doesn’t particularly represent how I use the two products- in an actual session I’d never set two plugins the same and compare which one I liked more. I find myself reaching for the H9000 when I’m designing sounds where I want use algorithms that are not present in the Anthology bundle or I wish to perform signal routings that cannot easily be done in the workstation. Otherwise I tend to default to the Anthology bundle. If I was working in surround sound I’d also be looking at the H9000, as currently the Anthology bundle does not support surround sound formats. 

Conclusion

What I like about the Anthology bundle and the H9000 is how easy they are to use, despite being so capable. Given that the Anthology bundle was my gateway to buying the H9000, I would suggest that anyone not familiar with Eventide products start there. They can be demoed for 30 days before purchase. 

Adding an H9000, for me at least, was an important addition to the studio. I love this unit, and it is absolutely one of my desert island audio devices. I believe I’m not the only one to think so; I saw that Tom Holkenborg/Junkie XL retained an Eventide H9000R as the sole outboard effects unit in a recent studio redesign. This makes perfect sense to me, it is that good.

Eventide Anthology Bundle Pros

Eventide sound like a much cheaper entry point. Huge variety of plugins. Cons: Advanced routing of plugins may require 3rd party plugin.

Eventide H9000 Pros

Amazing sound, total flexibility, many more algorithms, and DAW recall. Cons: Fan noise, cost.