As a user of the Eventide Harmonizer PitchFactor and TimeFactor, I'll start with a general confidence-boosting congrats on making an excellent choice on effects gear. I'm no Brand fan, but I gotta say that in all my years, I've never found a thing I could criticize about any Eventide gear. Yes, their stuff is pricey, but the mystic alchemy they generate to creative ends makes them worth every hard-earned dollar.
I can empathize with your conundrum over how to get your head around the presets and effects controls. My first mistake was putting my Pitchfactor into my effects chain on my pedal board. With 100 presets, I was getting lost during gigs. So, I removed it from my pedal board and connected it directly through my recording PC Audiobox, then using the monitor speakers just to learn all I could and also experiment.
Fortunately, all Eventide gear comes with an array of Quick Reference Guides and Manuals on their web site. I downloaded all of this and printed out the quick reference guide as well as the pages that listed all the preset effects. Then, I went through each preset and numbered them 0-3 with 0 meaning I'd never use them, and 3 meaning a keeper as is. I cleared the ones marked zero for future preset locations, but before deleting them, I would try to tweak them to see if I could make them useful to my tastes. If not, then I marked it as a future "User Preset Location." All the others presets that had some redeeming qualities, I went through one-by-one and use the Quick Reference Card to experiment with the adjustments. I made myself comfortable at my PC recording desk with guitar in hand, and tinkered away. The more I explored with the settings and understood their functions, the more I found amazing sounds and effects. All the while, I made notes to the preset list I printed out so I could group them in a convenient way to gain access when gigging. Once I got it set up to my tastes, I added back to my pedal board. And I love it!
I hope I didn't loose you in that last paragraph, but it worked for my. Bottom line, the first place to start in go to the H9 Support Page and download all of the helpful manuals and such, then keep notes as you tinker with the presets. Seriously, they offer so much cool stuff and so many ways of tweaking effects, there's literally a learning curve to using it in a way to get everything out of all they offer in their gear.
I tried to keep it short and still ended up with a long write. Hope it helps. Good luck!
