Live vocal processing

AntonHunter

Wasn't sure whether to put this in here, or FX, but I'll give it a go.

We're doing some gigs next month, and the lead vocalist/songwriter/producer often ends up processing their voice on record; filters/delays/saturation/multitracking, you name it. He wants to get a bit of that into the live shows, not any one particular sound per se, just a bit of variety and interest.

Does anyone on here have any advice? Anything you use yourselves for a bit of "je ne sais quoi?" on the voice?

vasselmeyer

If you don't have anything on your mixer, you might be able to use an outboard vocal processor in an aux loop. 

Alternatively, something like a Boss VE-20 could work. It has footswitches to turn the effects on and off at will. 

fretmeister

Laptop with NeuralDSP Mantra plug in? It has a live mode. 

14 day free trial available.

Kittyfrisk

Get him in touch with Yungblud 

AntonHunter

vasselmeyer said:

If you don't have anything on your mixer, you might be able to use an outboard vocal processor in an aux loop. 

Alternatively, something like a Boss VE-20 could work. It has footswitches to turn the effects on and off at will. 

Yeah, I should have said, we're working with different venues and their in-house sound systems and engineers. So something separate to that would be preferable, like the Boss thing...

...or something like this yeah. Will investigate. 

fretmeister said:

Laptop with NeuralDSP Mantra plug in? It has a live mode. 

14 day free trial available.

Grangousier

If your laptop is a Mac, you could try MainStage, which is basically Logic without the DAW, and you can load any plugins you might want to use. 

shufflebeat

A few people I know are using TC Helicon units and loving them. I have no need for them because I can actually sing.

AntonHunter

shufflebeat said:

A few people I know are using TC Helicon units and loving them. I have no need for them because I can actually sing.

Hahah, I was looking at one of theirs with pitch correction as I'm going to attempt some harmonies, but I decided to practice instead. I must finally be growing up. 

mrkb

shufflebeat said:

A few people I know are using TC Helicon units and loving them. I have no need for them because I can actually sing.

ESBlonde

Do remember that highly processed vocal in a wedge monitor can result in horrific feedback, or eq chopped to a none musical sound. IEMs are not prone to this.
I’d be tempted to let the engineer do his thing, tell the singer it’ll be fixed in the FOH mix and go for an actual performance!

rze99

We just use an old Boss ME50 for main vocal effects - just reverb delay gate and a bit of compression. Obviously it’s not what it was designed for nor does it do harmony additions or corrections but they’d just be wrong for the kind of alt pop rock we do. Works surprisingly well. And very cheap used.

Snags

Either a vocal processor in-line (TC Helicon, Boss VE, Zoom V3 etc.) or just let the sound guy add some reverb on the desk.

We don't normally have the luxury of a sound guy, so I just set some basic reverb and have it wet enough to add depth/warmth without swamping stuff and it's fine. At the moment I can't actually play (fingers are buggered) so I'm doing sound guy duties which means I can sod about with the level of reverb for particular songs, but even then, that's enough.

Musicwolf

A note of caution if using with a full band i.e. with vol on stage.

I have a TC Helicon VoiceLive2.  A great bit of kit capable of producing some amazing results.  The problem is that when using it on stage it will process everything that it 'hears' through the mic and pitch shifting / harmonisation of cymbal spill, whilst 'interesting', is maybe not the effect that you are after.

Danny1969

Musicwolf said:

A note of caution if using with a full band i.e. with vol on stage.

I have a TC Helicon VoiceLive2.  A great bit of kit capable of producing some amazing results.  The problem is that when using it on stage it will process everything that it 'hears' through the mic and pitch shifting / harmonisation of cymbal spill, whilst 'interesting', is maybe not the effect that you are after.

This is what people forget on these "what mic sounds the best for live " threads. Live sound is compromised in every way, the mics pick up a bit of everything. Especially the drums. 

A little bit of verb is nice on a vocal, by that I mean only 8% or so of the dry vocal but with a long decay.  I tend to use timed delays more than reverb. Most aps have a tap tempo button so I'm tapping the delay time in to match the BPM. I can then get the delay to do the same vocal repeat you hear on the records. 

maltingsaudio

Best advice I can give is get a mic splitter , pass the vocal one side unaffected into one channel of the Pa then the affected sound into another channel. So if the effects all go to shxt you at least have a very quick solution. The two sources can be blended in the PA and routed differently .
I prefer a box like this https://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/Lambden-Audio-MS12-Mic-Splitter/6Q2T

But a simple cable solution works just as well https://cpc.farnell.com/soundlab/g113na/xlr-splitter-skt-to-2x-plugs/dp/DP38175

Prefer the box solution because cables break quicker than boxes!

thecolourbox

I have a TC Helicon Voicelive Play though I think I can actually sing, I'm just not able to manipulate my voice to do a slapback nor a hall reverb just yet. Maybe lessons would fix that for me

But bear in mind I only use it as a solo singer with piano or guitar so I may not have been likely to have heard and "spill" being processed. That said, I don't use the harmony nor the autotune on it, so I suppose it's less of a problem for my personal use case. Worth bearing in mind depending on what kinds of effects your singer wishes to use. The splitting a clean signal might be a very good idea as you can then let the person doing the mixing decide what's a good combination

AntonHunter

Yeah, that all makes sense. We've talked about splitting the signal for those reasons too, think I've got a cable knocking about here somewhere already.

Thanks all!

Stratavarious

I have a TC Helicon mic mechanic thing that has come compression and reverb/delays and an autotune…   I just don’t use it as the desk has what I need for basic fx.  You are better using IEMs for pitching well rather than rely on tech too.

I’ve found most vocal processor presets, esp. the Boss ones, don’t really enhance and are often distracting or kill the dynamics that better mic technique should address. Need to keep it subtle. Too much compression and the singer might start shouting.

A very short doubling can definitely add a bit of impact though..  a couple of 100/150ms taps - to thicken the vocal along with some ducking on the reverb to keep the diction clear.  The sound guy should have options for basic vocal stuff if you brief them.

Monkeybone

I use a Boss VE-8, but only for my solo acoustic sets. It's fantastic for harmonies and vocal looping, I've not really delved too far in to the actual effects side just yet.