paulears Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 A couple of weeks ago, I saw a small band with a girl singer who was using a small pedal that did harmony vocals for her, and it sounded quite good. Later in the year, I'm doing a job with a girl singer for a few months, and making the money work is giving me a headache - I don't think we can even afford one girl singer as BVs - and she wants two! To be honest, the guys in the band will sing BVs, but one girl voice would make it work so much better. While I was hunting for a monitor, on the Thomann site, I bumped into harmonisers and did some research and decided after listening to a few demos, to buy one. I ordered a TC-Helicon Voiceworks, and I have to say I'm impressed. Just to test it out, I wired it to something recorded recently to see what it did to the singers voice. You drive the harmonies with MIDI from the keyboard, or line level audio if you want - and the unit has a line in for the sound of the singer, plus a nice XLR with phantom for a direct mic. I knocked up a demo and stuck it on youtube - the images just give you something to watch, they're not relevant to the audio.I mixed it with the harmonies quite high - so you can hear what they sound like. I'm pretty impressed with this gizmo - and this is just an unedited preset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FLkd_tFj3o&list=UUzGwhPgZ4jjc_vkxIVmbfTA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam.spoons Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 I've dabbled with vocal processors for a while now (TC VoiceLive, VL2, and Harmony G), never quite getting to the point of using them live other than for the odd open mic. They do sound very good and with a keys player controlling the harmonies they work well. But..... I'm a guitar player and the guitar control of the harmonies (even with the VL2) is pretty slow to track (not surprisingly TBF). To make it work you need to lead with the guitar not the voice (i.e. sing behind the rhythm/changes) or you get a distinct 'grace note' before the correct harmonies. It's fine on some things and maybe the newer VL3 has improved tracking but .... The VL2 does have stunning reverbs, a very nice preamp/eq section and some very useful fx (telephone/megaphone voice, ADT, etc.) so it does have it's uses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigYinUK Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 I've done PAs for a couple of bands with these. One *disadvantage* that I came across was that the bands insisted that they used the TC Helicon provided mic with it which was a vile thing that both sounded horrible and suffered from dreadful handling noise (including massive feedback through the stage/stand). Paul - Did you use any particular mic with it when you were experimenting? Regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted July 22, 2014 Author Share Posted July 22, 2014 This one's a rack mount and I tried a 58, and AKG and a decent large diaphragm condenser - the track was recorded with a 414, squirted in via the line input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S&L Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 a friend of mine travels as a solo acoustic act and uses one - the trick is to use it sparingly and to practice the settings before hand to get the mix of harmony and main vocal right - if you know what you are listening for you can tell it's not real but it sounds pleasant enough and can really help fill out with backing vocals, which being linked to an instrument are at least likely to be in tune! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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