Originally Posted by
GuitarGeek
Two completely different types of sounds. Without getting into how they work, the envelope filter is basically the "Bwaaaaaah" sound you hear on the bass on a lot of Tormato. Listen to the Grateful Dead song Estimated Prophet to hear the sound on guitar. Jerry Garcia plays a staccato guitar riff on the intro, so you get this tight "Bwop" sound on each note, but during the first verse he plays sustained chords, so as the volume of the guitars strings dies, the filter sweeps downward slowly, more of a "Bwaaaaaaaah" sound, much like you hear Squire do on the Silent Wings Of Freedom intro.
The Harmonizer was actually devised by a company called Eventide (other companies make them, but "Harmonizer" is trademarked by Eventide, so everyone else has to call them pitch transposers or pitch shifters). Basically it shifts the pitch of the incoming signal. I think the basic idea was for guitarists, let's say for instance, to recreate overdubbed guitar harmonies onstage. Of course, the "Harmonized" sound tends to be very unnatural sounding, so it sounds more like a guitar with a synth or something doing the harmony. During the 80's (and maybe even today), they were used a lot on TV and in movies sound effects departments to generate "Chipmunk" or "demon" voices (things that you used to have play with the tape speed to get).
Probably the most immediately recognizable use of a pitch transposer in music (technically it wasn't a Harmonizer) was Trevor Rabin's guitar solo on Owner Of A Lonely Heart. That sound was basically generated by setting the MXR Pitch Transposer to a fifth, and I think you have to turn the regeneration up a bit too. I think he said he also liked to set it for an octave up to get a pseudo-12 string guitar sound when they did And You And I live.
But back to how Squire used it: basically, instead of producing an immediately recognizable pitch change, he had it set up to shift just a few cents, which causes an effect similar to what we now call "chorusing". I think at the time maybe chorus pedals weren't available yet, who knows. But that basic sound became common place in music during the 80's, either from a Harmonizer or from a chorus pedal, that sort of shimmering sound, you hear it on guitars, bass, keyboards, etc.
Hell, I read once that a lot of singers would process their vocals through a pair of Harmonizers, in stereo, shifting one up just a little bit on one side of the stereo field, the other shifting down just a little bit on the other side of the stereo field, and the unprocessed voice straight up the middle. You add a little reverb and delay, and you get something that sounds more ethereal than just the vocalist's natural voice. It's very subtle but very effective. I believe I read once that Jon Anderson used to do this a lot.
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