You can't trust anyone

[Jazz Ad]

harmonizers used as fake backsingers have their place. Il well managed they are transparent to the audience.
What I can't stand however is the way they are used to boost up solo voices. You listen to any pop singer these days and the voice sounds like a full choir.

 

[moody]

The harmonizer we had sounded great if the keyboard was plugged into it so it could 'listen' and pick the notes. If you set it to guess the harmonies based on the ambient sound of the room or set it to a particular key, it sounded bad.

You must have had your keyboard player always playing the correct chords for the harmony.

I think the harmony depending on the set key can sound good or bad depending on the song (and whether in contains weird keys) and also depending on the scale used. Any harmonies I plan to do are rehearsed along with rehearsal recordings and headphones to make sure that they do sound right, that will means setting the key and playing with the scale to see what sounds best. It also means every song has to have its own preset. Plugging into a guitar would be very hit and miss as both swap between rhythm, lead and nothing depending on the song, and sometimes they are doing power chords and things.

 

[two fingers]

I'm really lucky. I have about a half a dozen people in my life who care about me enough to shoot straight without being jerks.

 

[Munjibunga]

I'm glad when my brother's out front. He's been in bands with me since the '70s (including one now), and he knows what's wrong with a mix and will tell me. Interestingly, in my semi-acoustic group, I run the main mix into the monitors, so I have a good sense of what's going out front. I mix from on-stage in that group. I've been doing that so long that I usually can hit it right from the first song. Also, that's what the other guys want. This is a fools-on-stools gig.

On gigs with my classic rock band, I generally use a wireless unit so I can go out front during sound check and adjust as necessary.