vocal harmony pedals

[morgansterne]

Our singer used to use a vocal harmony pedal (tc helicon). His acoustic guitar was plugged in to it to give the pedal an idea of what harmonies to add. I persuaded him to stop using it as it sometimes would pick the wrong harmonies. Fast forward a few years later, I switch from playing bass in the band to playing keys/rhythm guitar and we're performing "reelin in the years." The band just can't nail the harmonies (and keep the melody sounding strong) so we resurrect the harmonizer pedal, now plugged in to my keyboard (actually an aux out of my submixer so it can "hear" my guitar playing as well.) It tracks the keyboard FAR better than the acoustic guitar. Tracking off the electric guitar is tricky, you have to fret the notes you want an instant earlier than normal.
At our most recent gig I recorded my playing and singing off my submixer and to me the faked vocals still sounds synthetic and weird, although they are harmonically correct now. Everyone else in the band said it sounded good.

Anyone else use one of these pedals? What's your results like and how do you use it?
Backing tracks are not an option, the rest of the band is adamantly opposed to that idea.

 

[Thornton Davis]

We have 3 vocalist in the band and we each use a TC Helicon VoiceLive pedal. Two of us (main vocalists) use their new VoiceLive3 pedal and the other uses a VoiceLive2 pedal. All of our sets are predetermined ahead of time and input into the VL3 along with the key and the appropriate vocal effect. That way everything is pre-set for each song and harmonies are perfect including the vocal harmony levels. When all 3 of us are singing, we can sound like a choir of 20.

If you're going to use a VoiceLive pedal, I highly recommend the VL3. It's tracking for vocal and and built-in guitar effects are outstanding compared to its predecessor the VL2 and anything else that's out there.

TD

 

[DiabolusInMusic]

Our vocalist tried one(not a helicon, cannot remember which brand, it was red.) Rhythm section agreed it sounded bad (i.e. digital.) Singer fought it for another couple practices before out the door it went. Never looked back.

Seems like a perfect chance to improve everybody's vocal ability or pick a more appropriate song for the band's ability. I had an audition with a band yesterday that wanted to play Stevie Wonder and Donna Summers... without a keys player! I wished them the best of luck.

 

[smeet]

My pink Floyd tribute uses a few of these for the songs that have too many harmonies for us to do live. We have 3 vocals, and it works really well for huge sounding songs like "eclipse", which builds layers of choral "ooohs" and "aaahs". Sounds wonderful in that arena rock anthem context. I would not recommend using them for a quiet ballad, it would sound fake.

 

[leroy diamond]

How would the TC-Helicon VoiceLive 3 work with just the bass guitar plugged into it?

 

[jetgraphics]

I had an audition with a band yesterday that wanted to play Stevie Wonder and Donna Summers... without a keys player! I wished them the best of luck.

Don't scoff. I once heard a power trio do "Take Me To the Pilot." Yes, the Elton John tune. They killed. The bass player played a complex arpeggio accompaniment and sang lead. [Multiple expletives deleted] !!!
....
The act was “Shenandoah” featuring Louie Cossa on Bass.
(Yes, he played bass in a strange way. See photo in the bio.)
Link Removed

 

[smeet]

How would the TC-Helicon VoiceLive 3 work with just the bass guitar plugged into it?

I don't remember what model it was, but I didn't have the greatest results just plugging the guitar into the TC unit I used.
Which makes sense, since the bass just plays the root. If you played the 135 or 1357 I would expect it would work better. If you set it to harmonize in the correct key (the VoiceLive 3 can do that right?), that might work better, unless there were accidentals in the chord.
All in all, keyboard input gives the best results.

 

[morgansterne]

awesome, thanks for the help folks. I'll definitely try the vocal pedal out for the next two gigs this month and then re-evaluate after that. I definitely like the lower octave effect, but there's only two or three songs a night that call for that.

 

[buldog5151bass]

I play in a country band, and most harmonies we do live, but we have used a harmonizer for some tunes, tracking the electric guitar, and it does an accurate job. No substitute for live vocals, but it works.

 

[Thornton Davis]

Here's a demo of the Voicelive3. It's well worth viewing.



TD

 

[Doug R]

I'm enjoying my Vocalist Live 2 (DigiTech) with a little oldies trio. I work with a guitarist/singer & drums and kick-in the invisible extra guy sometimes on harmony back-ups. We try to keep it subtle and not overuse it. I mostly just keep it set for a tight third above what I sing and it fills in nicely with a tight harmony.
Easy too. Just run a line out from the guitar amp and it picks up the chord changes. No presetting the key. And it holds the last chord for a while so when he goes into a guitar solo the harmonies are still there. It can do two harmonies - above or below - plus 2 unison voices (one pitch corrected), but we try to "keep it real" with just one extra voice and most listeners never notice it. They do sometimes comment on our full vocals though.

 

[abarson]

I use the Boss VE20 on some numbers, but I really haven't taken any time to tweak parameters. It doesn't rely on instrument tracking, and usually does a pretty good job on harmonies. That said, you need to select or preset the key of each song, so it's not practical. But the guys in the band like it, so I use it.

 

[Tomkat8]

I have been using a voicelive 1 for over 5 years live, Although 1 doesn't key off a instrument, I just preset everything I need and call it up with a footswitch. You might try tweaking the parameters of the harmony voices and there are sooooo many possibilities to tweak. Sometimes it's tricky with different effects ,genders, etc. to make harmonies sound correct.

 

[nutdog]

The H1 with acoustic guitar works very well. But mostly only on the 1 above/1 below and 1 above settings. Doesn't sound digital at all with the right blend.

 

[Steve Dallman]

I've been using a Digitech Vocalist Live 3 for over a year, both with our band (with the guitar player's guitar triggering it) and with my acoustic guitar playing solo. I really love it. Our guitar player thinks it's "gimmicky" but he thinks anything more than a guitar into an amp is a gimmick. He also doesn't like singing harmonies, although he's good at it. I'll use anything that makes the band sound better.

 

[MrLenny1]

My buddy's duo uses a Digi-Tech and it sounds pretty good.