Voice Pedals for Live Performances

Daverevad

I am thinking of purchasing some of those vocal Modifier pedals that you see often.  

Voicetone Correct xt / Voicetone Create XT

or even a Voicelive 2 or Touch model.

Anyone have any experience using these, and want to share if they are worth the buy?

Thanks. 

Dave.

dingo

What do they do?

highmtn

Dave,

Check this out.  I'd like to get ahold of one of these little puppies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez9zTjMb4HY

Bob H.

 

Eazy

Dingo, it goes between your microphone and the mixer/PA and creates different voice effects such as delay, reverb and harmonies.

 

Dave I don't have any experience with voice pedals, but from years of experience with guitar effects I'd suggest nothing compares to going to a music shop, plugging in a mic and trying it for yourself.  Many times in the past I've tried a particular effect based on someone's recommendation only to find that I don't personally like the sound of it at all. 

Also, the multi-effects units have the advantage of only having to buy one unit and being able to turn on/off several effects at once, but if you don't like the sound of one of the effects you can't really swap it out for a different brand. 
Single pedal effects give you more flexibility from a swap out perspective, but it's difficult to turn on more than one effect at once with your feet and you may run into issues with differences in volume between pedals. 

Not sure if that helps or not but hopefully someone finds it useful.

Eazy.

Coda

Coda

well worth it.. you can control you pitch (if you need to , on those off days), and compression, delay, reverb, etc.... really eliminates a sound guy, or gives you that extra edge on smaller venues where no sound guy is present..

jay

highmtn  

I was going through your old comments out of curiosity and looking to see if you had a link for a demo - as you've studied and worked with your vocal for a while now

I found this discussion and thought I'd share my experience.

I watch your link featuring Ken and I found myself nodding my head in agreement when he said about being in control and not relying on someone else for "your" sound.

A guitar player such as @sspatrick and i'm sure will agree, will spend hundreds or thousands on their axe and amps and fx rig .............. 

Well why would you not do the same as a vocalist and take control - this is what brought me to TC Helicon.

I've been a fan and a user of TC Helicon products for vocalists for about 5 yrs now, in my opinion they are the best for vocalists

I'm currently using a voicelive 2 which comes everywhere with me,

from memorable harmonies from your favourite songs to simple lush ahh's and ooh's it really adds a sparkle to gigs and performance.

There is a pitch function on them - though only chromatic and subtle i prefer not to use it anymore as it gives a better feel and "live" sound without - though thats my preference.

One thing I have noticed on youtube from users "testing" the products - almost EVERY video, the person using it has a tendancy to OVER USE it and then it sounds AWFUL 

Apart from seven bridges road or harmony specific songs - less is most definately more and little flutters of effects will add to your performance more so than the Harmony switch "ON" all night

straight out the box after calibrating your input level it gives you studio ready vocals (well 85-90% - I have my own small studio and like to do things manually) its a great starting point for studio and gives fantastic instant stage ready vocals.

across the range of TC products - from experience they all work fantastic - buy for your needs, the voicelive 2 is flagship and has a lot more in depth settings and editable features but essentially use the same algorithms and track flawlessly

Hope this is helpful to you and anyone else thinking of investing in a vocal product.

PeteMurphy

I know this isn't the model you asked about, but I definitely give a thumbs up to the TC unit that I use...

I use the TC Helicon Harmony G, which allows me to have two harmonies on top of my voice. I'm singing backing vocals and it really fills the sound out. I plug my guitar into it and it selects major or minor harmonies depending on the type of chord I'm playing on the guitar.
It also has a few reverbs and I think it has some form of basic pitch correction.

It's a great unit, and I think I'd be lost without it now.

The lead singer in my originals band uses the other model... I'm not sure of the model name, it looks very similar to mine but it has delays, reverbs, etc... and I know he loves it.

jay

Hey PeteMurphy that's great your a user too
The model your band mate uses is the Voicetone Create - its a reverb and delay fx unit,
I also have one of those

PeteMurphy

Yeah, I think mine is an out of date model now (I think the current model is the Harmony G+). I've had it a few years, and I'm so reliant on it. It's so cool the way it works out whether to do a major 3rd or a minor 3rd depending on the chords you play on the guitar.

Hodgepodge

jay said:

Hope this is helpful to you and anyone else thinking of investing in a vocal product.

@jay hope you are still reading the forums... or anyone else who can share their experience with live voice 2 or live voice 3.  I'm playing in a band again and our backup vocals are lacking to where I'd like to get one for chorus vocal thickening, and/or harmonies.  Might use the pitch autocorrector, or at least see how well it sounds vs. going dry, I'm still hitting off notes once in a while (yes, I know keep practicing with Ken's DVD's  

Don't care about any of the other effects or looping, but quality vocal sound is worth the extra money over vocal foot pedals.

thanks

Hodgepodge

I'll answer my own question, I just bought a livevoice2 for $470 on amazon and it sounds really great.  I suspect the sound and harmony quality is similar to the voicelive2 touch that Ken demo'd, except this is a stomp floor model.  Its really awesome having the harmonies track with my guitar chords.  This thing can really do the Eagles, Kansas, Beachboys, etc... justice.  I also like the tone feature which has automatic compression and de-essing.  Looking forward to using it with a live band setup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez9zTjMb4HY

ps. Ken, I love your laid back and fun style.  Hope to meet you some day, it would be fun to jam with you at the Costa Mesa Studio.

highmtn

I went to a gig a couple of months ago in California for one of the bands my little brother drums for. 

The lead guitarist is their main background vocalist.  He's using a stompbox harmonizer. 

It was very effective (no pun intended).  You have to be judicious with the mix settings, but it sounded like 3 or 4 voices in harmony.  The high voices can sound a little chipmunky, but that's where good mix settings are important.

I wouldn't mind having one of these items.

Elvis's backup singing group was called "The Jordanaires".

I've often been referred to in my group as "The Jordanaire".  ; ^ )

 

Bob

Hodgepodge

@highmtn yeah, that's what I've been finding as well. We have to be careful having the backup vocals too loud in the mix. I've also split my lead voice using an A/b box to get my standard vocal sound in the Bose L2 pa, then route a return from that channel to the backup effects and use the A b stomp to put it in the mix. I don't like the helicon's bypass mode, seems to take something out of my vocals.

danhurley

I also fell in love with the Demo of the Voice Live and got my own Voice Live Play GTX.
Now if I could just figure out how to use it. It is a guitar singers perfect match if you can put it together properly. I am still trying to build my home studio on a Zero Budget. Hard to do. I only have a SM58 Mic and need to find a cheap upgrade for home use. Then its on to the Recording Programs.
Would love to find someone in my area (Sacramento Foothills) to play with and share equipment.
If you have a Voice Live system can you please tell me what Mic you found works well with it?
For the Guitar part, it is so nice to have it all in one spot. I no longer need to mess with all my pedals, what a relief...

Alyona

I myself have Voicelive helicon. I love it very much - amazing effects that you can edit yourself. But in Russian clubs the sound engeneers are not used to this pedals - so the mic is always whistling - don't know why. They say that better have 2 mics together. One - clean channel - - one with a pedal. Didn't get 2 mics yet. )))

Furious_Phil

@Alyona, I think I know what they are doing wrong. In order to get the really huge stereo sound, you need to run 2 XLR cables out of the VoiceLive Play and into independent channels on the mixing board. These 2 channels are then panned hard left and hard right. This is especially effective if the PA system is running in stereo.
Lastly, as you control the mic gain from that little black dial on the side of your VLP, get the sound guys to pull back the gain on your 2 channels to "0".
That should kill the feedback whistling, unless your monitors are the cause.
But these 2 things should definitely help!

Cheers,

Phillip

Alyona

@Furious_Phil Wow thank you so much! That is so helpful!
I have a gig in 2 weeks - will bring them your message - see what we can do! ))

Furious_Phil

@Alyona, the biggest contributor to feedback/squeal is the little black knob on the left side. This should be set so that you peak in the yellow, but are pretty consistently in the green. Just make sure that the sound guys have the board gain greatly reduced on your channels.

The other parts are all about getting you the absolute best sound possible.
i.e. running dual XLR cables from your VLP to 2 channels on the mixing board and panning them hard left and hard right to achieve true stereo separation like what you hear in your headphones. This will be much more dramatic if the PA is running in true stereo!

Let me know how you do with it!

Alyona

@Furious_Phil Sure I will! Thank you for the advice!

cjfox

I have a Voicelive (1) that I got used. I love it! You do need to hook the unit so the harmonies are coming through a separate channel(s) on the board. My unit allows separate left and right as well as a bypass for the main mic to go unprocessed into the board, similar to what Phil was saying. I have found the unit colors the sound even in bypass mode if you have your voice coming out of the same output with the harmonies. My favorite feature is the midi hookup, as I play keyboards. The unit will do the harmonies according to what you play on the keyboards, regardless of what the main melody line is doing, which is great for stuff like Steely Dan, where you have complex chords that don't follow the preset scales built into the Voicelive. I don't use a lot of the other features, but it's a great unit and I have only scratched the surface.

Furious_Phil

Charles,
Yes they make an amazing product for sure! I think I want to turn down the overall effect level to get a little more pureness to the tone, but I've found that what I hear over headphones is allot more exaggerated than over a stereo PA system. So I basically record our practices/rehearsals and make performance notes from that for me to tweak my settings for the next rehearsal... rinse and repeat