DigiTech Vocalist Live 4 (VL4)

[MDLMUSIC]

Originally Posted by Rickeysound

Ha, you're right, of course. She may quit by next week. But listening to someone sing perfect harmony on all our songs for the first time in two years was a feeling of pure bliss I had to share. I'm always interested in vocal effects processing, so I'll still be around the forum. Besides, what's not to love about this forum?

You're right that a real human voice beats the machine. But you could still do both.

Set the machine to do a 5th above and have the human voice do the third above. Beautiful three part harmonies with two singers.

[Failure Theory]

Originally Posted by MDLMUSIC

You're right that a real human voice beats the machine. But you could still do both.

Set the machine to do a 5th above and have the human voice do the third above. Beautiful three part harmonies with two singers.

Or just turn down the harmonies so that it just thickens things up and adds some ambience. I would still be doing that to some extent. You still need a vocal processor. alot of the units we all have are great at that, aside from the harmonies.

[Rickeysound]

The harmonies on the VL4 or Harmony G only work if the original harmonies were, in fact, in thirds or fifths. A lot of harmonies aren't. I never really realized that until I asked my girlfriend, a classical pianist, to track the harmony to the Beatles' I Saw Her Standing There (one of the songs we do) note for note on the piano. Turns out that John's seemingly simple harmony line was all over the place: thirds, fifths, nothing consistent. Then I started noticing that was true of more and more songs that weren't sounding right with the VL4.

So we really were butchering a lot of our songs (we call ourselves a 60s "tribute band" rather than just a cover band because we try to do the songs exactly like the originals) by relying only on the VL4. It was definitely better than nothing because it thickened the sound - and on the simple third up harmonies, it worked like a charm (albeit a digital-sounding charm).

But if this new backup singer quits, I don't know what I'll do. It's sort of like broadband compared to dialup internet service: once you've used it, you can never go back!

Andrew

p.s. By the way, thanks for the props on the screen name, Keith. It comes from my obsession with Rickenbacker guitars and the "Ric sound."

[gc24]

Rickeysound: It's true what you have posted. Sometimes I put a 3rd and 5th up and hope that I catch both harmonies right. I seem to have some trouble with songs like from the Byrds and Simon and Garfunkle.

[Failure Theory]

Have you guys ever run across a song where the harmony stays on basically one note the entire time? Generally it is the root of the key with a shift here or there to make the harmony work. I remember singing the harmony in a few songs like that back in the day (I can't remember which though). These machines don't have that capability. although it seems totally doable. You could set the harmony voice (NOMINALLY) to the root of the key, or the 5th or whatever, and it could make small adjustments where necessary. would be kind of cool, and open the palette up a bit.

[smallmouth]

RickeySound

p.s. By the way, thanks for the props on the screen name, Keith. It comes from my obsession with Rickenbacker guitars and the "Ric sound."

Wish I still had my 60's vintage Rickenbacker. Great guitar! Mine was the same model as John Lennon used when they first started out. I think I saw on You Tube that you play a semi-hollow body style in the same colour I used to have. When I was a kid my band played Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Animals, Who etc. a lot of the stuff that you guys do. On my own many, many years later I've added all the stuff I grew up with Beatles Era and pre Beatles. (Everleys, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Roy Orbison etc.) For me the music started to die in the 70's so I mainly just do some Bee Gees (not the disco stuff) and Eagles from that era. The Vocalist 4 has been an inspiration to expand my repetoire even further.

What do you think of the Harmony G compared to the Vocalist 4?

I was kind of aspiring towards ownership of a T.C. Voice Live 2 as I play keyboard as well as guitar. My music store loaned me a helicon unit for the weekend and I spent most of the weekend trying to get my sound from it.
It is far too bright and trebley for me and really sounds "phasy" when the harmonies kick in. No matter how I tweaked it I could not get this higher end unit to sound better than the Digitech. After plugging in my Korg P.A. 80 instead of the guitar and getting excellent harmonies from the Vocalist,
I packed up the Helicon unit and returned it to the store, Thanks to the kindness of the store manager in letting me use the Voice Live 2 for the weekend I think I've just saved $400.

I hope I'm not giving up too soon on the Helicon product but I expected it to blow the Digitech out of the water. It didn't even come close. It has 205 presets and a lot of them are weird garbage. (like who in their right mind wants to sing "power chords"?)

I was pretty disappointed as I was willing to save for what I thought would be the best processor/harmonizer available. I am now probably after another 2weeks of rental, going to purchase the Vocalist 4.

God Bless,
Don
P.S. My handle comes from my favourite gamefish.

[smallmouth]

Originally Posted by Rickeysound

The new VoiceLive2 from TC Helicon apparently has this feature. Has anyone on the forum tried it out yet? I'm looking forward to learning more about it. It also purports to have an automatic senser that adjusts compression, eq, etc. to individual voices.

Rickeysound,

Doubling was okay. (I used the unit for the weekend) but the sound I got from what I expected was going to be the ultimate vocal processor/harmonizer was not up to the standard I have been used to while renting the Vocalist 4. Voice Live two actually sounded a bit better with the TONE button (automatic compression, EQ and De-essing) off. My dream of the ultimate processor for my voice has been temporarily shattered. Maybe if I had the unit for a month I could make it work but the Vocalist just works easily.

Good quality sound, and smooth harmonies are generated by my guitar or by my Korg PA 80 keyboard in full performance style mode. (BONUS!!!!!) I don't even need MIDI.
God Bless,
Don

[smallmouth]

Originally Posted by HaloRecordings

6) One last thing for now. I’ve said this for over a year now. Incorporate several LEAD VOCAL PATCHES. After all, this is a VOCAL PEDAL that just so happens to have harmonies as an added effect. I’m not an engineer or producer and I think this is one of the main reasons some of us have left the PRO in the studio and opted to take either the VL4 or TC Helicon Harmony G out on the road. We spent too much time trying to create the perfect lead harmony sound. If this wish list vocal processer had the lead vocals sounds configured by top engineers to give us that professional studio lead vocal sound that would save us so much time. The VL4 has 50 patches and the PRO has 100. Just give us 10-15 patches with great lead vocal effects. The chipmunk and Elvis patches are nice, but do we really need them?


David

David,

I couldn't agree more. There should be fewer presets created by experts in the studio engineering of top quality sound. Tweakability is nice but we are not studio engineers. Give us 25 high quality presets to sing with and add in the other capabilties discussed (like separate foot pedal etc.) to allow you to charge roughly the same price. Voice Live 2 is just shy of $1000 and has 205 presets. Who needs that many? You can imagine how much "filler" junk is in there to top out at 205.
God Bless,
Don

[patito]

What up dude, how are you?
I have two questions:

The VL4 can work whit keyboard besides a guitar?

If a want to sing "a capella" without loosing the pitch correction,
Can I down totally the guitar volume, without lose the pitch correction while I’m still playing?

[whinersmusic]

Originally Posted by patito

What up dude, how are you?
I have two questions:

The VL4 can work whit keyboard besides a guitar?

If a want to sing "a capella" without loosing the pitch correction,
Can I down totally the guitar volume, without lose the pitch correction while I’m still playing?

You really need keys or chords to make it work. The unit may perform well enough if you sing well enough without keys or chords but you may need to go to "key select". Often the unit can handle a song quite well depending on the song. I'm assuming you are saying no playing while singing. The pitch correction shouldn't be impacted either way but the key recognition is all triggered by the signal in. No signal and it is a bit of a crap shoot to track well enough. Again, if you sing wel enough you might get away with it since the unit (and pitch correct) do respond to you as well as the chords.

Give it a try and see if you can pull it off.

You can certainly turn the guitar volume down at the unit while playing and not effect anything. The unit still reads the chords - just doesn't send it out through the on-board mixer. Note, the signal to an amp at the separate output for guitar isn't impacted by the guitar volume at the VL mixer so sound would come out through that and into an amp or audio board.

Hope that helps explain.

[Rickeysound]

Don - I have a Ric 330/6 (Fireglo) and a Ric 360/12 (Jetglo) and love both of them. To get that classic Ric chime, I play them through a Vox AC-15 and use a Janglebox compressor.

Re comparison between VL4 and the Harmony G, we've had some discussion on that a few pages back. My bottom line was I like the effects on the Harmony G, but it wasn't practical for me to use live because it was too hard for me to turn the harmonies on and off during songs using the stompbox button (as opposed to the VL4's non-latching pedal).

Re the question about singing acapella, in the band where I don't play guitar, I have found that the manual key settings on the VL4 pretty well and also are easy to adjust on the fly from song to song.

Andrew

[smallmouth]

Andrew,

To get that classic Ric chime, I play them through a Vox AC-15 and use a Janglebox compressor.

Just like the Beatles, eh? In my youth I played through a Fender Bandmaster and always longed to try a Vox to capture the "sound." We used to play most of the stuff you guys do although I got a real job and became a teacher before "Badfinger" came along. I believe George Harrison helped them get started, didn't he?

Keith and Patito,

So far I've had good results with guitar input, keyboard input and acapella with a set key. The only thing that doesn't generate harmony is input from the mini plug auxillary. I tried a few songs from a friend's karaoke files which played as mp3's on my player. Harmony backup is already there in these files so even this is useable if you get quality files. Many of these "backing track" files, though, tend to overpower the lead vocal.

Ricky (Andrew) and Keith,

Both of you have reservations about the mechanics of the Harmony G. What is the problem there? Should have the same sound quality as the Voice Live2. I think I must have got a bad unit on the Voice Live 2 that I had for the weekend because I was expecting great sound and I couldn't stand what was being produced. The Vocalist sounds a lot more "real" to me.
I stayed away from this technology until now because of the unrealistic sounds generated by the machines. After getting decent results from the Digitech, I expected to be "blown away" by the sound quality of the Voice Live 2. I still don't understand why I got such poor results from an expensive "top of the line" product.
God Bless,
Don

[Rickeysound]

Originally Posted by smallmouth

Andrew,

Ricky (Andrew) and Keith,

Both of you have reservations about the mechanics of the Harmony G. What is the problem there?

For me, it's a matter of getting my fat foot in the right place several times per song while standing, singing, playing and trying to engage with the audience. I can't raise my foot and find the button consistently on the Harmony G. With the VL4, I often keep the ball of my foot poised above the harmony pedal for the entire song and just press and release, press and release ...

[Rickeysound]

Came across an ad for this in Vintage Guitar last night and had to check it out online: the Electro Harmonix V256 Vocoder with "Reflex Tune" (i.e. Auto-Tune). This YouTube demo shows it to be quite a fun toy:

[patito]

Originally Posted by whinersmusic

You really need keys or chords to make it work. The unit may perform well enough if you sing well enough without keys or chords but you may need to go to "key select". Often the unit can handle a song quite well depending on the song. I'm assuming you are saying no playing while singing. The pitch correction shouldn't be impacted either way but the key recognition is all triggered by the signal in. No signal and it is a bit of a crap shoot to track well enough. Again, if you sing wel enough you might get away with it since the unit (and pitch correct) do respond to you as well as the chords.

Give it a try and see if you can pull it off.

You can certainly turn the guitar volume down at the unit while playing and not effect anything. The unit still reads the chords - just doesn't send it out through the on-board mixer. Note, the signal to an amp at the separate output for guitar isn't impacted by the guitar volume at the VL mixer so sound would come out through that and into an amp or audio board.

Hope that helps explain.

THANKS very much, MEN.

but i still have an other doubt:

Have you ever used the VL4 whit a Keyboard besides a Guitar for the pitch correction?

[whinersmusic]

Originally Posted by Rickeysound

For me, it's a matter of getting my fat foot in the right place several times per song while standing, singing, playing and trying to engage with the audience. I can't raise my foot and find the button consistently on the Harmony G. With the VL4, I often keep the ball of my foot poised above the harmony pedal for the entire song and just press and release, press and release ...

Same for me - just can't keep the focus for the foot while singing out and inevitably you miss the switch or engage at the wrong moment. I use an expression pedal which I find works even better than the unit's as even on the digitech, the pedals are still pretty close together.

For Don (smallmouth) I think you may have a dud on the Helicon if it doesn't compare to the digitech. They are all pretty close in sound plus or minus a bit of tracking. So, really, fidelity for the vocals shouldn't be so way off on the one as to have you saying what you are saying. The best thing to do is try another and see if it sounds exactly the same. I can't see that there would be a setting that it's stuck on causing such a trebley mess for you.

I'm not sure that one would blow you away vs. the other either though. What can make one sound better is use of the effects such as reverb/delay and doubling features maybe. When I heard the Harmony G in this light, I liked it better but the actual harmony is very very close to the digitech.

I've used the aux "in" on the digitech to add distortion to my guitar. (A mini "amp" plug for playing with an ear phone - one of the VOX small plugs you see around now). Just plug it into the guitar out at the digitech and take the earphone out of the VOX to the aux in.

You mix your harmony, guitar and lead vocals at the digitech and the level for the distortion is at the mini amp plug itself. The distortion does not effect the harmony tracking since it is being fed separately to the unit through the aux-in. In theory you could use any effects that way (just have to adapt the input at the aux to a mini plug).

For me, as an effect positive guy, that alloed me to make just using the digitech unit alone at open stages work well. I normally have a number of things I want going on. This allowed me to at least bring some distortion back into the performance and still only use the one unit to get up and on and out. With no effects loop you can't really mess with the guitar signal going into the digitech or it blows the harmony tracking.

[whinersmusic]

Originally Posted by patito

THANKS very much, MEN.

but i still have an other doubt:

Have you ever used the VL4 whit a Keyboard besides a Guitar for the pitch correction?

I don't play keys so can't help on that one. I speculate that it will work since the same principle applies for the harmony to work. But pitch correction is really impacted by your singing and not by the playing and I think most of us agree that the correction on the VL is not really true studio-grade-industrial-strength-make-you-better correction anyway. In truth, I've found it hinders the results for harmony vs. helps.

[smallmouth]

For Don (smallmouth) I think you may have a dud on the Helicon if it doesn't compare to the digitech. They are all pretty close in sound plus or minus a bit of tracking. So, really, fidelity for the vocals shouldn't be so way off on the one as to have you saying what you are saying. The best thing to do is try another and see if it sounds exactly the same. I can't see that there would be a setting that it's stuck on causing such a trebley mess for you.

I'm thinking too, that the unit I had was possibly defective. I could see that even though it was pretty much a new unit that somebody had been using it. The plastic wrap had been torn open. The LCD had "vocal spray" on the lens. And you could see where someone had been using the footswitches. I did a total factory reset of the presets and then reset the system settings but nothing changed.
Keith you have the experience of having worked with both Digitech and T.C. Helicon products and you say the audio quality is pretty similar. If that is indeed the case there is not anything in the Voice Live to to make me want to spend the extra $400.

I wonder if the audio feed from my keyboard would generate harmony on the Harmony G? The Digitech, though not advertised as a feature seems to do this well even with drums and bass etc. from a style on my Korg P.A. 80. Can you set the key on Harmony G?

Harmony M for my keyboard and Harmony G for my guitar would give me two separate systems I could alternate with in performance but a "Y' cable to allow simultaneous input of guitar and keys gives me the same capability on the Vocalist 4.

If Digitech has been listening in on our conversations and decides to create a unit that will satisfy our needs and wants, that might be worth waiting for. Even though I only used it for a couple of days the Voice Live 2 did not have that "plug it in and go" capability that the Vocalist Live 4 has. I have only tweaked a few presets in my time with the Digitech unit but I have some very cool and useable harmonies and effects happening. I could gig with it tomorrow. T.C. would take me at least the same time I've invested in the VL4 and I still wouldn't have the confidence that is inspired by VL4.

February 5th I either return the VL4 or buy it with the moneys I've invested in rental subtracted from the purchase price. At this point I'm not entirely sure.

God Bless,
Don

[Failure Theory]

Originally Posted by smallmouth

I'm thinking too, that the unit I had was possibly defective. I could see that even though it was pretty much a new unit that somebody had been using it. The plastic wrap had been torn open. The LCD had "vocal spray" on the lens. And you could see where someone had been using the footswitches. I did a total factory reset of the presets and then reset the system settings but nothing changed.

Honestly, the whole dud theory is pretty unlikely unless, you have one of the first units sold. There are often small things that get missed in all the testing and after the initial release are discovered. So, I would assume that any unit you try, that is not fresh on the market, is how it is. now there is a possibility that TC has made an update to something on that unit and the one you have was an early version and has been returned, but hard to know, and it's all speculation if any of this would really have any effect... the overall sound of the unit would likely be unchanged, maybe decrease in noise or some bug.

Originally Posted by smallmouth

I wonder if the audio feed from my keyboard would generate harmony on the Harmony G? The Digitech, though not advertised as a feature seems to do this well even with drums and bass etc. from a style on my Korg P.A. 80. Can you set the key on Harmony G?

Harmony M for my keyboard and Harmony G for my guitar would give me two separate systems I could alternate with in performance but a "Y' cable to allow simultaneous input of guitar and keys gives me the same capability on the Vocalist 4.

The VL4 is designed around a guitar signal. but that's not to say it wouldn't work. A frequency is a frequency, right? Where you might have problems is with the effects of the keys messing with the pitch detection. Crazy synth stuff might not work as well. same for guitar, which is why these units need to come before your effects. So, depending on how your keys are set, you will probably see varying results.

Originally Posted by smallmouth

If Digitech has been listening in on our conversations and decides to create a unit that will satisfy our needs and wants, that might be worth waiting for. Even though I only used it for a couple of days the Voice Live 2 did not have that "plug it in and go" capability that the Vocalist Live 4 has. I have only tweaked a few presets in my time with the Digitech unit but I have some very cool and useable harmonies and effects happening. I could gig with it tomorrow. T.C. would take me at least the same time I've invested in the VL4 and I still wouldn't have the confidence that is inspired by VL4.

I am a for having a high end unit that does all. unfortunately I don't have much (if any) weight on any decisions regarding product features, especially those that I am not directly involved with. I did do a poll a while back to see what people thought would make a VL4-like ideal unit, and passed some of that along. I'll have to give 'er another go. BTW digitech is releasing a VL3 that has vacuum switches and who know what else (I haven't even looked at it that close yet) take a look at it on their website. I think it is basically a suped up VL2...

[Rickeysound]

Tyler - Do you know if the design folks read this forum? It contains all the info they would need to design the perfect unit. I remember you solicited a list of dream features in a vocal effects processor a while back. With all the new products flooding the market, it's obvious that manufacturers have finally realized that there is a real market for consumer vocal effects processors. Since Digitech already has the overall lead (IMO) with the VL4, they seem best positioned to sweep the field with the next generation model.

(It will be interesting to see how the new Roland vocal effects processor stacks up. Was due out in November, but at last check is scheduled for release at the end of this month.)

Andrew

[Failure Theory]

Andrew,

Digitech is the "owner" of these pedals, BUT, it is another design firm that does 95% of the actual design, it is their technology. Of course our engineers work alot with them to get what we want, and we test it, etc... Really though, the engineers only do what they are told to do by marketing/management. So if marketing thinks it will make more money, sell better, or whatever they gauge it by, they will make those calls.

On a semi-related note:
It's interesting how the current economy has played on many companies. At NAMM some guys (regulars) didn't even show up, and many that did have been making small tweaks to currently selling products rather than innovating. I "think" we're somewhere in between caution and innovation...

[MDLMUSIC]

Originally Posted by Failure Theory

BTW digitech is releasing a VL3 that has vacuum switches and who know what else (I haven't even looked at it that close yet) take a look at it on their website. I think it is basically a suped up VL2...

I saw a demo of the VL3 at NAMM and you're right. It is a lot like the VL2, but has the ability to store 5 patches w/2 harmony settings per patch that can be accessed by foot control. It also adds genderizing (is that a real word) and a couple of other features. Price is about $300.

I'll probably start saving up to add one to my arsenal (I already have a VL2 and the old Vocalist Performer).

[geckoland]

Hi Guys,

I contributed a little to this forum back when I bought my VL4 many years ago but I haven't had much to say lately (although I have been lurking a little gaining insight from your discussions - thanks for that!). I just noticed the Vocalist Live 3 which is the first thing that has caught my interest since the VL4. I am interested in getting a smaller unit for jams and impromptu sessions. The two effects that I use the most are pitch correction (but don't tell anyone ) and harmony, so this unit seems like a great solution. Has anyone here actually tried one yet? I'd love to get some feedback before I drop the coin on one.

[Failure Theory]

I am debating between using my Behringer FCB1010 midi controller, or the 3 button footswitch AND expression pedal for the VLPro. Some of my criteria:

- Must be able to turn harmonies on/off easily (Both have expression pedals),
- Must be able to change presets (both can do this equally),
- Must be able to turn on/off effects like delay (the 3 button switch turns off delay and reverb at the same time, no way to separate)
- Would be nice to turn on/off lead effects like distortion, EQ, and modulation (3 button footswitch only has 3 buttons…)
- Would like lightest/smallest/easiest setup (the 3 button/exp pdl clearly wins out on this one, the FCB1010 is huge)

Has anyone used a midi controller for the VLPro? Are there any smaller midi controllers around $100-$150 (like 6 buttons + 1 exp pdl)?

How about the 3 button switch/exp pdl method; how are people setting this up. Do you just deal with the limitations of the 3 button switch? If the 3 button switch could switch the delay independent of the reverb I would probably just go that route, but since it doesn’t my workaround is to use my MX400 for vocal and guitar reverbs, which means more gear and another footswitch for that. But the reverbs are phenomenal. The sucky thing is that I would still be turning the reverb on/off, so I would have to set the levels to 0 on all my presets….

Man, what to do?

[gc24]

Hey Guys. I just got the TC Helicon Harmony G XT and it is far superior to the Harmony G. Incredible Reverb selection on this one, pitch correction and alot of good choices for harmonies.