Eventide H910 Harmonizer

The Eventide H910 Harmonizer was an early digital effects unit released in 1975 by Eventide Clock works. It featured a pitch shifter, feedback and delay functions. The possibilities this device brought were exploited in the work of many famous artists by the likes of AC/DC, David Bowie, Queen and Frank Zappa (to name a few).

Peter Gabriel and the Eventide H910
Peter Gabriel appears to have used the Eventide H910 Harmonizer since as early as around 1977. It is seen in this photo of Peter recording at home, as well as this photo from Peter's first solo tour. By that point it was presumably for processing keyboard sounds.

However, the Harmonizer would soon be used a lot for processing Peter Gabriel's voice on a few of his early solo efforts. Robert Fripp seemingly introduced this technique when he was producing "Scratch". He liked feeding Peter's voice through the Harmonizer to create a double-tracking effect, rather than sticking to Peter's natural voice. The vocals on the record in some places have a stereo spectrum (while the Harmonizer is normally mono); thus the Harmonizer signal was probably recorded to a separate track on the multitrack (or patched into another channel in the console). And then it was blended in with the original voice in the mix but shafted at a slightly higher level. It produced a very dry-sounding "2D" effect, which suited the overall cold feel of the album.

Peter himself later latched onto this new vocal sound, using it on his voice on the next album Melt (alongside an AMS delay/harmonizer for stereo chorus effects in places). Engineer Hugh Padgham remembered Peter felt "naked" without it. On Security as well, David Lord always had the Harmonizer on Peter's voice while tracking vocals (at least for monitoring purposes). Although in the end most of the Harmonizer was ditched in the final mixes as Peter was becoming more comfortable with his natural voice. The Eventide remained in his studio racks at Ashcombe (and later Real World), although Peter later preferred the AMS for more subtle effects.

In terms of live use, the Eventide Harmonizer was part of Peter's stage rig on the Melt and Security tours.

Larry Fast also used the Harmonizer (one that belonged to the studio, and later his own) to treat his synthesizers on the Melt and Security album and tours for both albums - for instance, the detuning of synths on "Biko".

Phil Collins and Eventide H910
Engineer Hugh Padgham employed the Harmonizer for a subtle chorusing/delay effect on Phil Collins' voice during the early 1980s; mainly on his early solo efforts Face Value and Hello, I Must Be Going albums, coupled with an Allen & Heath Mini Limiter for attack. He later preferred using the AMS for Phil's voice, perhaps as it had less crude of a sound.