Leap of faith

In an interesting turn of events, I’ve purchased something on faith rather than doing any proper research on it. Actually I didn’t really have a choice since the product’s “nature” to this day is hidden in total secrecy.

One of Neil Diamond’s guitarists Hadley (aka “Radley”) Hockensmith is selling units of his invention called the “Harmonic Converger.” It is a passive device that among other things, eliminates the “fizz” commonly present in digital modelers.

The official information page of the Harmonic Converger (which from this point on I will refer to as “HC”) can be found here

So I’ve purchased one – and thanks to Mara, I’ll [hopefully] be getting it at the end of May.

I’ve also taken the liberty of taking some select audio clips from the internet showcasing what the HC can do. Most (if not all) taken from a really old “HC Test Drive” page created by Radley and a couple of HC users down at Boss GT Central

Obviously the pedalboard being used was a Boss multi-effects processor – specifically, a GT8 like mine if I’m not mistaken.Oh before everything else. I’ve swapped the order of the comparisons of the clips. The original versions had the HC engaged… then bypassed. ¹ So you’re getting the sound directly from the effects processor I edited the sound files so it would play the other way around. So now the first half is with the HC bypassed and the second half repeats the phrase but now with the HC on. In that first part,

The reason for this is to eliminate possible psychological bias when listening. There’s no doubt that the phrases with the HC will sound better, so having them play before the bypassed versions might give the listener a sense that the stock sound of the GT-8 is much worse than it really is.

The GT-8 with it’s COSM processor already has less fizz than compared to the competition. ² Line 6 processors are notoriously known to have this fizz issue more apparent in their modelers. So when you listen, you can argue that the stock sounds on the GT-8 are pretty decent already. Then we’ll have the HC kicking in and let’s see if you still will have the same sentiment 🙂

In the first part of the A/B comparison, you can clearly hear the dreaded “fizz” everyone complains about in most digital effects processors.

The significance of the HC’s impact in this clip is that while it eliminates the fizz (and incidentally, colors the sound), it doesn’t “muddle” it. The clarity of the individual notes are retained even on a high-gain setting.

The next clip was a good demonstration on how the HC performed on the low-end. And when I say “low-end” I meant low/bass strings – where most heavy metal stuff “live” in. These strings are the most prone to “muddling” but you hear the HC perform beautifully.

Take notice on how the HC affected the sound. It still took out the fizz, but it was able to add more “bite.” No muddling as well, in fact I can say it more overall presence and definition.

The previous clips used patches without the HC in mind. Meaning they just created (or used a factory set patch) and sampled it, then engaged the HC. As such, should you have the sentiment that the HC might kill all possibilities of really crisp, high-gain cruch because of its seeming low-pass filtering properties, you couldn’t me more mistaken!

In that last clip, a patch was created for the HC from scratch. You can hear a much “brighter” sound – more bite, more high-gain goodness, but still without the “fizz.” This is the miracle that HC brings to the table. When you try mimicking heavy, high-gain sounds ³ The guitar sounds of Megadeth’s Youthanasia album comes to mind. on a digital effects processor, you end up having to live with the “fizz” that comes with upping the said values on your gear – you can come pretty close to their sound, only it will almost certainly have that “fizz” factor.

With the HC in your signal chain, you’ll been given more “slack” to work with, I’m pretty certain that with that very same patch used in the clip, you can still EQ it to give you more high-end. ⁴ Assuming your EQ comes AFTER the HC in the signal chain. But I’m assuming that it will still not have the fizz, because it was already eliminated by the HC.

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More Thoughts

Since Hadley is pretty secretive about his circuit ⁵ He can give Apple a run for their money in the “secrecy” department., it’s pretty much anyone’s guess what combination of “concepts” he used to achieve such an excellent tone-shaping algorithm.

There are two camps that react to the HC, one is the camp that reveres Hadley’s work, and another that thinks he’s exorbitantly overpricing his units. Basically, the second group’s argument is that for a passive device, there’s not much going on in that box that could possibly merit a $200-$300 price tag. It is to be noted though, that both sides do not deny that his units definitely improve your tone.

I for one, am with the first group – he’s a good guy, and I have faith in him.

For those people think his units are overvalued, and are up-in-arms about it, they’re forgetting some key things:

1. You don’t have to buy it if you don’t want it – there’s no reason why you should discredit the person while you’re at it.
2. Yes they are expensive, but they are hand made with love and care. ⁶ He can even build you a custom unit like he did with me. The labor hours, material used, and overall benefit already justifies the cost. If you want a cheap assembly line product that can achieve the same thing – then by all means, go look for one and buy it… if you can find one that is.
3. If it happens to be a ridiculously simple circuit to create, then why haven’t the big named effects companies created something similar yet? ⁷ Or incorporate such a “process” in their multi-effects boards. If it’s so trivial to come up with such an effective “process” ⁸ It IS a passive device after all right? then Hadley shouldn’t even be in business at this point – of course we all know that isn’t the case at all.

The inescapable truth is that whatever mojo he might’ve put in there, whether simple or complex – it makes your tone come alive, sound warmer, and sound better overall – just as advertised. The clips speak for themselves.

As a GT-8 user, there’s only so much you can do to eliminate the fizz on a stock unit when on a high-gain setting. You can try lessen the wetness or gain, but whatever the case may be, you almost always have to resort to EQ tricks to compensate. Take note that all this work was just to take out the fizz – what about further shaping your tone? ⁹ When the EQ has already been used most of the time.

The HC seems to do a lot of heavy lifting to improve your tone on high-gain settings – which allows you to be more liberal with your settings. You can choose a really aggressive high-gain setting without worrying about fizz at all, then you’ll still have the EQ available to you for further tone-shaping!

Parting Words

I will post an independent review of my HC once it gets here. I plan to try making it more comprehensive than the test drive in the sense that I will try my best to eliminate all possible subjective factors (which will be explained come the actual review).