The H3000 is a very complicated, extremely digital device. It uses three DSP processors and a lot of high-speed circuitry. Although there is nothing but common sense to try to stop you from troubleshooting the digital circuitry, please accept our assurance that it is very unlikely that anyone other than a very experienced technician who has worked on these units for many weeks with factory training will likely diagnose and repair subtle defects. Few people with these qualifications are found other than at Eventide. That being said, only a modest percentage of defects fall into this category. The majority of problems are mechanical ones, having to do with connectors rather than defective components. Other user-fixable problems typically involve the audio inputs and outputs.
The H3000 Factory combines the pitch, delay, modulation, and filtering that made the original H3000 Ultra-Harmonizer a studio legend. Over 450 presets including over 100 new artist presets and over 100 original presets from the H3000. Mod Factory (incorporated in Eventide H3000 Factory plugin) ValhallaShimmer doesn't really map to any of these - it is closer to the Black Hole algorithm w/added pitch shifting. The H3000 had Crystal Echoes for a shimmer-type sound, but it is different than the early 80s Eno/Lanois shimmer - it is much closer to the late 80s 'All I Want Is You.
Symptoms that are frequently caused by user-repairable problems
The following symptoms usually indicate a power connector problem - they typically occur anytime from turn-on to a few minutes later:
- The display backlight varies in intensity or flickers
- The bypass relay clicks without command or sporadically
- The display 'freezes' or flashes odd messages in non-English characters
What to do: Scrutinize all the internal power connectors for tightness, cleanliness, discoloration, or other problems. Tighten, reseat, clean, repair, or replace as indicated.
The display indicates, or you believe that the unit's memory and/or presets have been corrupted.
What to do: Reset the H3000 OS and presets:
- Depress and hold the FUNCTION key while you switch on power.
- Release the FUNCTION key.
- When the H3000 displays 'REMOVE ALL PRESETS?,' press the 'YES' softkey
- When the H3000 displays 'RESET THE OPERATING SYSTEM?,' press the 'YES' softkey.
Eventide H3000 Factory
The following symptoms may indicate other loose connections, typically EPROM chips not reliably in their sockets:
- Some presets work, some don't
- Some presets are missing
What to do: Reseat any socketed components, especially the EPROMs. Exercise (remove and replace) other internal connectorized circuits.
The following symptoms may indicate defective in/out circuitry. This typically occurs due to previous bad connections to the outside world on which high voltages accidentally were present.
- One input (or output) works, one doesn't
- One output is very distorted or has a DC bias, the other is fine
- Other connections (e.g., MIDI) are intermittent or defective while the unit seems to be otherwise OK
Eventide H3000 Plugin
What to do: Carefully look around the connector in question for burnt or cracked components or, in some cases, broken or charred PC traces. Replace or repair as indicated.
Intermittent problems that seem to be related to temperature, e.g., 'dies or gets noisy after being on for an hour,' are frequently caused by thermally intermittent components. Although these are very difficult to find (for us, too) by normal electronic troubleshooting procedures, there is a simple approach that sometimes can pinpoint the component. There are 'freezing sprays' available from many manufacturers that can be used tocool individual components. By judicious use of these products you can frequently isolate a bad component.