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T.C. Helicon T1 Voice Pedal


tocs100

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One time, the only time i have ever seen one of these things, I saw band playing and they had whatever the really big one is. I'm not familiar with their stuff (that thing was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of my price range) but this band was using it for backup vocals, and they had it dropped down really low - not like an octave - you could just use a pitch shifter for that... but it really sounded like a man with an extremely low voice. sort of like the guy who sing bass for the Oak Ridge Boys. I was totally impressed with that, but that was the only time I have actually seen any of those things in use. They were some country band with a female lead singer from out of town. I normally don't care for country music, but I have to give them credit. I asked him about it and he said it took him a few weeks of playing around with it before he was happy with how it was sounding live, but he did say that he didn't trust it enough for his wife (their lead singer) to be using it. :lol:

So, it was good for BG vocals, but maybe not for lead vocals. I personally don't like a lot of effects on my voice anyway.

 

A few years ago I was playing in a 3-piece cover band and the bass player wanted to sound like he was in a gym... he would turn the effects on his voice up until the effect was as loud as his voice.

PERFECT!

Just what the guitar player and I wanted to hear onstage! :thu:

 

I have a dbx 166XL and a (cough, cough) Behringer stereo effect unit. I couldn't even tell you which one it is...it is like 10 years old. I like a little bit of a chorus and a 2:1 ratio compression on my voice. That's it. And scoop a little of the hi-mids out so I don't sound like Dennis DeYoung from Styx.

 

:p

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This is like the one billionth time I've seen TC Helicon mentioned on this forum..
:facepalm:

 

 

I don't see why people are so worried about having vocal effects like that... it is that whole, "You can have control of it at your feet!" marketing thing at work.

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Thx Consume, I imagine most questions concern harmony and de-tune, while I'm curious about the standalone de-esser: vocal spikes make using guitar-pedal reverbs/delays a pain, cuz one must either overdrive or (hiss!) underdrive them.

For the T1, there's a manual online but my computer can't dl it. :=( have you also noticed all the $300-dbx-type rack voicestrips are now $500!!!!? Behringer had one for $100 but people boo'd it out of production--I've never been a fan of even their older, highend stuff. But their Xenyx mixers are EXCELLENT.

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I'm a big fan of TC Helicon's auto-engineering feature, which adds compression, EQ, and de-essing automatically. I am not an engineer and I really don't want to be bothered setting these things, so I much appreciate having the box do it for me. (And it does this stuff very well, I might add.)

 

If this pedal has single knobs, my guess is that TC Helicon is giving you control over the amount of auto-engineering you want. This is surely easier than doing the setting yourself, but not (to my mind) finally necessary. Try setting it the way they recommend and then simply concentrate on your singing.

 

I also use a light reverb/delay and very occasionally a harmony voice from my Harmony-Gxt, but never the pitch correction. I'm not sure why (beyond marketinging) TC Helicon decided to create indidivual pedals, but you won't be wasting your money on their stuff. Or so it has been for me....Of course, ymmv.

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Okay, since I have never actually used a De-esser, what exactly does it do?

Does it remove hiss, or control sibilance?

If it controls /removes Sibilance, shouldn't YOU work on controlling the sibilance yourself, rather than using a processor to do it?

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I don't see why people are so worried about having vocal effects like that... it is that whole, "You can have control of it at your feet!" marketing thing at work.

 

 

Well, as a singing guitar player, their marketing worked for me.

 

The HarmonyG XT has become invaluable to me for my one-man shows.

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Yes, the Harmony G XT is a great pedal, especially for solo guitarists--auto-engineering, vocal effects, harmony generation, even a guitar tuner, all in one pedal. You can even install a pitch correcter into it, but I'm not a big fan of this application (outside of my regular reservations about pitch correction).

 

The harmonies can easily be over-used, and you have to be a little careful about your guitar playing to keep them in tune, but they sound great. :cool:

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i've been using the G XT and have found it to be very natural sounding, and easy to work with... i too use it in a solo guitar/vocal setting and after the initial learning curve and working to finesse it rather than overload it i'm thinking it has been one of my better purchases... just my perspective... :idk:

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One time, the only time i have ever seen one of these things, I saw band playing and they had whatever the really big one is. I'm not familiar with their stuff (that thing was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of my price range) but this band was using it for backup vocals, and they had it dropped down really low - not like an octave - you could just use a pitch shifter for that... but it really sounded like a man with an extremely low voice. sort of like the guy who sing bass for the Oak Ridge Boys. I was totally impressed with that, but that was the only time I have actually seen any of those things in use.

:p

 

Probably the VoiceLive2 (their "Cadillac"). It is a nice unit for sure but spendy...

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I don't see why people are so worried about having vocal effects like that... it is that whole, "You can have control of it at your feet!" marketing thing at work.

 

 

As far as wanting to have effects - I don't see how it is really much different than guitar pedals.

 

As far as wanting the "control at your feet" I always liked having the control myself instead of relying on someone else.

 

After deciding that we were sick of paying a sound guy 2-3 times what we were each taking home (for doing next to {censored} all usually), we decided to start doing or own sound; then it was the only real option.

 

May not be a big deal for originals or certain styles of music, but if you are doing covers- not unlike getting the right guitar tone/effects - it adds that extra "oomph" to be able to produce the same tone/effects as the original recording.

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