Vocal Harmony Effects

Mark1960

Hi Folks - i have been looking at Vocal Harmony Effects recently. We have a female vocalist, in a male band, and whilst there are many many songs which are fine with Female vocals and male backing vocals, we have found some just don't work as well so i was wondering if anybody had any experience with these effects. From what I've seen on the net, they all seem to rely on putting a guitar signal into the unit to give it a "base line to start calibrating". our vocalist doesn't play any instrument, so are there any that work without an instrument, which take the vocal pitch and harmonise with it? If we had to put an instrument through it could it be someone else's guitar? Also what are the must haves, and "don't bother with gimmicks" with these units. Any recomendations or suggestions / comments greatly accepted.

fretmeister

It can be someone else's guitar.

When used subtly they can be excellent. Just don't over do it.
The non-guitar ones need programming per song. You input the key signatures and so on.

I used a TC Harmony Singer V1 for a while and it was pretty good.

If you get a compatible microphone with the right type of switch then the singer can turn the harmony on and off on the mic rather than the footswitch - the FS probably needing to be on the guitarists pedal board.

I've got a couple of TC MP75 mics that were on special offer when I got them and as it happens I really like them on my voice. Double win!

Musicwolf

I use one (TC Helicon Voicelive 2) as I'm the only backing vocalist in the band.  They work well if used sparingly but it is important to select the correct harmony patch for the song.  I usually record the results, either in the rehearsal room or practicing at home, and listen back to see what is working and what isn't.  On some songs it's better just to use a doubling effect rather than a harmony.

When it works, as in used appropriately, it's great.  Wrong patch, over used or used in the wrong place and it sounds awful.

I select the patch for each song via MIDI from my Helix.  I don't use the gender changing feature except as part of the kids choir on Another Brick in the Wall.

McSwaggerty

I use a TC Helicon Harmony Singer and it works fine for me. It's got various settings but l find less is more. I you have to use a guitar in conjunction with it if you want harmonies bang on, however it could be anyone's guitar..... 

Mark1960

McSwaggerty said:

I use a TC Helicon Harmony Singer and it works fine for me. It's got various settings but l find less is more. I you have to use a guitar in conjunction with it if you want harmonies bang on, however it could be anyone's guitar..... 

Would the guitar go into the harmony effect, before or after any other guitar effects, so for example if I had an overdrive pedal, I would connect my guitar to the pedal, and then up to the amp. where in the chain would the harmony effect go? 

fretmeister

Mark1960 said:

McSwaggerty said:

I use a TC Helicon Harmony Singer and it works fine for me. It's got various settings but l find less is more. I you have to use a guitar in conjunction with it if you want harmonies bang on, however it could be anyone's guitar..... 

Would the guitar go into the harmony effect, before or after any other guitar effects, so for example if I had an overdrive pedal, I would connect my guitar to the pedal, and then up to the amp. where in the chain would the harmony effect go? 

Very first thing in the chain. It needs a clean signal to work properly

Guitar > Harmony > rest of your signal chain.

The Harmony doesn't affect your guitar tone at all. 
There is a mic In and Out and a Guitar In and out.

You can "pre arm" the pedal too. So if you've just finished a tune in E Major but the next one is in E Minor the harmony will be wrong if you want harmony on the very first vocal note and there isn't a clear chord for the pedal to listen to.

So just strum an E Minor chord before the song starts and it sorts itself out.

vasselmeyer

I use a BOSS VE-20. It's not as clever as the TC, but it doesn't need an external signal. You create a preset (in my case call it "Gmaj 3rd" which will add a third above whatever note I sing in Gmaj. Of course, this also works for Emin so I could call it "Gmaj/Emin 3rd". You can double the vocal, add whatever interval you want to, make the harmony above or below the note you're singing and add two notes, so I could sing a root and get a 3rd and 5th for example.

You can also add reverb, delay, chorus, compressor to the vocal as well as a load of other old bollocks like distortion and robot effects as well as a looper and pitch correction. It has stereo outputs so you can have a central vocal and then add a harmony left and right. It's in a BOSS stompbox format so is very well built and you can switch presets with your feet which takes less than two seconds.

If it got nicked, I'd buy another one.

There's a bunch of videos on YouTube but this sort of shows off what it can do:

Mark1960

Thanks for all the help and advice guys. I'll go and check out a few units.

DCS222

I used a Tc voicelive play... which has a mass of other effects as well as the harmonies... one of the previous posters summed it up well with “subtle use”. I found the trick was to spend time playing with it (ohh matron) and having the effect much more powerful than you would use it, to get the type of effect right, then backing the level back down to subtle levels (this is the harmonies I’m talking about, the mega phone/distortion types need to be out front)