Vocal effects for live shows (& rehearsals etc) - pedal or vocoder or what?

Denalihighway · 15-07-2009 02:22PM #1

Hi,
Just wondering if I could get some opinions (never any shortage of that around here

)

I want to add some vocal effects for live shows (for now it would be for experimenting in rehearsals). My main requirements are core effects like reverbs, delays, phases, chorus, flangers, distortions, pitchers and basically whatever ever I can get on the wild side of things to add a bit of colour and something different every so often. Harmoniser would be complimentary but not essential really.

I've looked at stuff like this http://www.thomann.de/ie/tc_helicon_voice_live.htm , which seems to be more focussed on harmonies etc

and stuff like this http://www.thomann.de/ie/digitech_vocal_300.htm which is more what I'm looking for but this particular unit doesn't seem great, quite unversatile and naff sounding from any demos I've seen.

Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Should I be looking at a vocoder/synthsiser set-up instead? I'm not familiar with what's out there but wondering if anyone has any thoughts?

I have a micro-korg which I've fecked around with a bit but the vocoder doesn't seem to be what I need.

Thanks

rcaz · 15-07-2009 10:23PM

Have you got a guitar multi-effect pedal? Get an XLR -> Jack cable and play around with that. I sometimes plug my mic into my Zoom GFX-5 (or any of my other normal guitar pedals), you're not going to break anything.

A vocoder isn't what you want. Vocoders make "robot voices" - Kraftwerk's The Robots (or any number of other Kraftwerk songs), SFA's Juxtaposed With U, etc.

I suppose the best thing to do is look out for something like that Digitech box you linked to there, I'm sure there are a few you could check out.

The_g-man · 15-07-2009 10:30PM

http://www.musicstore.com/en_EN/EUR/TC-Electronic-Helicon-VoiceTone-Create-Multi-Effektpedal-fuer-Gesang/art-REC0005431-000

This is focused on effects rather than harmonies.

Some demos of them on their website:
http://www.tc-helicon.com/voicetonecreate.asp

Also, if you want harmonies later, there are more thorough demos for the guitar based harmony pedal here:
http://www.tc-helicon.com/voicetoneharmonyg.asp

ArthurGuinness · 15-07-2009 10:58PM

The voice live 1 is supposed to be very unreliable and hard to use, but a friend of mine uses the new voice live 2 and swears by it. It does about everything you can imagine from effects to harmonies to vocal pitch correction and you can also run your guitar through it. He uses it mainly for harmony for church ceremony gigs. The thing is to remember when using the harmonizer is if you hit a bum note it become all the more noticeable.

This is quite a helpful video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGLOrKm-GYk

Denalihighway · 16-07-2009 04:36PM

thanks folks.

seems like the tc helicon voicetone create might be one to look at and it doesn't break the bank too badly (which the voicelive most certainly does...)

its amazing how many demos there are online but that dont showcase the effects very well, everyone knows what a soft reverb or double or chorus sounds like but I haven't seen one demo yet that gives an idea of how extreme/alternative you can go wiht them, which is annoying. I'll see if I can get a demo in one of the shops or something but it looks promising, hopefully might pick one up cheap/2nd hand.

cheers...any other ideas, fire away...

Vocal effects for live shows (& rehearsals etc) - pedal or vocoder or what?

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