Vocal Harmony Pedal that works for bassist.

[Kurtis Marleau]

So my bass rig is down for a few years. Currently running a GK MB500 with a GK CX210 cab, effects board, and an Ibanez SR500.
In my band I sing and play bass. It's no easy task and recently there have been two issues that have come up at practice.
1. My vocals aren't loud enough. The short solution is we need more PA speakers.
2. I want harmonies but my band mates can't sing/are not comfortable singing.

So I started doing some research on some pedals I saw on Youtube from NAMM 2014. One of the big one's being the Digitech live harmony pedal.
The issue I've noticed with these pedals is that they need to be plugged into a chords instrument. Bass is not a chords instrument and I'm worried about how well it would track with said effects pedals.
We're only a trio. (Progressive rock/ambient kinda tunes) Our guitarist isn't always playing chords.

Long story short. I want harmonies. Band can't sing. From what I've seen most harmony pedals won't work with a bassist/singer. What do?

 

[Ba55Man1ac]

Hiya. I'm bass/backing vox in my band & have been using TC Helicon Voicelive products for 10 years. They do encourage the use of a guitar or MIDI source for the harmonies but I just create presets with a set key & interval(s) & step through them while playing. The original Voicelive was great as you had 30 steps per patch. Voicelive 2 & 3 are limited to 10 steps per patch but if you're nifty with your feet you just jump to the next patch when needed.

My best advice is to have the harmonies 3-6dB lower than your voice to mask any digital unnatural-ness.

Good luck!

 

[Terracite]

TC Helicon H1 adds harmony when I'm doing backup vocals, and no setting of presets is required - so easy for jams and such.

It takes a feed off of my bass to know what key to harmonize. The downside to that is that you can't play anything other than the root while singing with it. Also, setting the voice vs effect levels is not intuitive, and it WILL sound artificial if it's too loud.

 

[Kurtis Marleau]

The Voice live sounds more geared towards me. We are just a trio so the bassline often needs to be just as if not more complex than the guitar line. Myself and my guitarist also use many effects in our instruments. Bass is often flanged, phased or chorus'd. Also use a Digitech Bass Whammy with alot of our work. I want something easy to use that either has a mic attached and can detect a key based on what's happening around it or something where you just choose the key. However something that sounds more natural would be nicer.

 

[Thornton Davis]

I've been using my Voicelive 3 for the past year now. For my harmony vocals, I pre-set the key that the song is in and then pre-set if I want the 3rd, 5th or 7th either above or below the root as the harmony. You assign that info to the song and once it's saved, you don't ever have to do it again.

I had a Voicelive 2 prior to buying the VL3. I prefer the VL3 over the VL2.

TD

 

[tbirdsp]

TC Helicon H1 adds harmony when I'm doing backup vocals, and no setting of presets is required - so easy for jams and such.

It takes a feed off of my bass to know what key to harmonize. The downside to that is that you can't play anything other than the root while singing with it. Also, setting the voice vs effect levels is not intuitive, and it WILL sound artificial if it's too loud.

I'm using the TC H1 also, but I set the key manually. For me it doesn't work sensing it from my bass. Down side is I have to bend down to change the key settings. It takes some fiddling to get it to do the right harmonies - it uses a different scale if you hold down the footswitch while selecting the key, plus the main key of the song isn't always what works for the harmonies. I've gotten surprisingly good results though. What sounds cheesy/digital by itself is often fine in the full mix context. Our sound guy is constantly telling me to turn UP the mix level of the harmonies.

 

[imdkoz]

I play/sing lead as well and I use the VoiceLive 2 with manually set harmonies.

 

[Terracite]

OP - I know this isn't an option for you, being in a 3 piece, but for others: In my last country band, we had a singer/guitar player who did nothing but strum basic chords. The H1 worked beautifully taking a feed from her and I never needed to worry about presets.

 

[Kurtis Marleau]

Looked into the Voicelive series by TC Helicon. A little bit more than I'd like to be spending. All I really want is the harmony function. I came across the "Voicelive Play" which appears to be a cheaper version of the Voicelive 1,2 or 3. Anyone have any experience with this one?

 

[mowburger]

I'm in the same situation and the voicelive play and (gtx) looks like it is what I could use, I dont mind programming the song key per song beforehand, anyone have one? The demo vids look good, price and size are right. ... anyone?

 

[tbirdsp]

Wow - as I said above, have been using the H1 - but the Voicelive Play looks really sweet for the money.

 

[Carlo CN]

I use Digitech Vocalist with bass, it record a few second and recognise the key and use it for harmonize what I sing.

 

[Kurtis Marleau]

Digitech is where I started looking but I don't want to have to dumb down any basslines.

 

[gtthomas]

Hi, another singing bassist here!

I realize this thread is a bit old but feels worth asking... anyone have the same problem as me with VoiceLive Play?:

I set (and save) the proper key for a preset, and program it to give me 2 harmonies below my vocal line (it names them as "low and lower" rather than referring to actual intervals...). When practicing the vocal line acapella, it sounds perfect, all the intervals are right where they need to be.

As soon as I start to play my bass along with it, if I sing the exact same line, suddenly it goes all wonky, putting a truly horrendous dominant 7th where the 5th of the chord previously could be heard, and sometimes even putting a 6th where the 3rd had been. Wow, it's a mess! (I recorded it, and I swear I'm singing the right thing, haha, and you can DEFINITELY hear the false notes generated by the harmonizer, it's not just some nutty harmonic I'm getting inside my own skull). Further evidence something's amiss: if I sustain my voice but mute my bass, the harmony corrects itself back to what it is supposed to be.

Anyone have any guesses why this is happening? Think it might be that my vocal mic was picking up too much from my bass amp? As a bass player, my position is always going to be situated near my bass amp, so I wonder if this problem will persist i.e., maybe this device "just isn't meant for singing bassists."

(Feling a bit skeptical about this FX unit in retrospect of my purchase because... it sure seems to have an unrealistic amount of positive reviews and nary a mention of any problems even remotely like what I've just described. Thing is... I actually bought TWO of these devices –one for me, one for a bandmate– and it happens on BOTH units, so... I know it's not just something glitchy going on with my personal device...

And that makes me wonder why no one else in the world has mentioned this problem online in the several years this thing has been on the market...

In terms of all the other effects it does quite nicely (delays, reverbs, voice doubling, 2 part harmony where it's just creating one additional voice to my own, etc etc)! Just feeling really disappointed and frustrated in the 3 part harmony issue. Probably something we can file under "bass player problems."

 

[KevH]

Hi, another singing bassist here!

I realize this thread is a bit old but feels worth asking... anyone have the same problem as me with VoiceLive Play?:

I set (and save) the proper key for a preset, and program it to give me 2 harmonies below my vocal line (it names them as "low and lower" rather than referring to actual intervals...). When practicing the vocal line acapella, it sounds perfect, all the intervals are right where they need to be.

As soon as I start to play my bass along with it, if I sing the exact same line, suddenly it goes all wonky, putting a truly horrendous dominant 7th where the 5th of the chord previously could be heard, and sometimes even putting a 6th where the 3rd had been. Wow, it's a mess! (I recorded it, and I swear I'm singing the right thing, haha, and you can DEFINITELY hear the false notes generated by the harmonizer, it's not just some nutty harmonic I'm getting inside my own skull). Further evidence something's amiss: if I sustain my voice but mute my bass, the harmony corrects itself back to what it is supposed to be.

Anyone have any guesses why this is happening? Think it might be that my vocal mic was picking up too much from my bass amp? As a bass player, my position is always going to be situated near my bass amp, so I wonder if this problem will persist i.e., maybe this device "just isn't meant for singing bassists."

(Feling a bit skeptical about this FX unit in retrospect of my purchase because... it sure seems to have an unrealistic amount of positive reviews and nary a mention of any problems even remotely like what I've just described. Thing is... I actually bought TWO of these devices –one for me, one for a bandmate– and it happens on BOTH units, so... I know it's not just something glitchy going on with my personal device...

And that makes me wonder why no one else in the world has mentioned this problem online in the several years this thing has been on the market...

In terms of all the other effects it does quite nicely (delays, reverbs, voice doubling, 2 part harmony where it's just creating one additional voice to my own, etc etc)! Just feeling really disappointed and frustrated in the 3 part harmony issue. Probably something we can file under "bass player problems."

I'm pretty sure you've sorted this problem by now but for others who might currently be finding something similar it sounds to me like you had your "roomsense" turned on. It was then trying to match what was coming in with your vocal.