TC-HELICON VOICELIVE 2 Vocal Harmony and Effects Processor

[Jon Chappell]

Originally Posted by valleyguy

Thanks for the poop, Jon. Too bad there isn't an in-between model. I really don't need the auto tune, and I imagine that adds the most cost to the VoiceLive 2.

Always a problem with GAS, how much money to spend......

For me, the auto-tune function is one of the best features. It's the implementation of subtle but powerful features like this that really makes the VoiceLive 2 sound realistic--and it ensures general "in-tuneness" and a glitch-free performance. You really need this feature for more complex harmonies--meaning, really, anything beyond a simple third-above harmony.

[Jon Chappell]

I used the VoiceLive 2 over the weekend at a gig where a bass player and myself both sang and played cover tunes of standards and "good country" (the client's request).

Two songs that turned heads were the Eagles' "Take It Easy" and Alison Krauss's version of the Don Schlitz/Paul Overstreet song "When You Say Nothing at All." They were particularly well-suited to the VoiceLive 2 treatment, and I think it's because the harmony sections (the choruses, in this case), are both fairly static, as far as melodic movement.

In the second verse of "Take It Easy," I used the third-above harmony for the first part: "Well, I'm a-standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see. It's a girl my Lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin' down to take a look at me." And then the full three-part treatment for the chorus that immediately follows.

So I had three button presses to give me all I need: bypass, third-above, three-part. This is a really good template that I think I'll use on my own arrangements.

[tradivoro1]

Hi, I'm kinda of late to the party, but I'll ask a comparison question... It appears that before this unit, voicelive 2, there was a voicelive 1... So, is there really any magnificent difference between the 2 as far as sound is concerned...

And also, someone else asked this question, but I don't think it was interpreted right... if you main backing on guitar is playing intricate finger picking, are the chords that you play fingerpicking going to be picked up by the unit as harmony to trigger the vocal harmony???

any info appreciated, thanks...

[Jon Chappell]

Originally Posted by tradivoro1

Hi, I'm kinda of late to the party, but I'll ask a comparison question... It appears that before this unit, voicelive 2, there was a voicelive 1... So, is there really any magnificent difference between the 2 as far as sound is concerned...

Certainly the added features that include increased polyphony (8 voices vs. 4), adaptive correction, and improved effects blocks directly improve on the original sound. This is to ignore for a moment the other improvements in interface design and the inclusion of the onboard wizard. The original VoiceLive is still in stock in many retail outlets and is cheaper, so I think it's a good question. But I suspect the VoiceLive 2 has a later generation of processors and rewritten algorithms. (I'll try to get Tom Lang to confirm this.) And if this is so, it tips the scales.

And also, someone else asked this question, but I don't think it was interpreted right... if you main backing on guitar is playing intricate finger picking, are the chords that you play fingerpicking going to be picked up by the unit as harmony to trigger the vocal harmony??? any info appreciated, thanks...

You're right; I believe I did misunderstand the question when I answered it the first time. (I thought the poster was trying to harmonize the guitar part.) Fingerpicking is a snap for the VoiceLive 2. I regularly perform Paul Simon's "The Boxer" and Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Helplessly Hoping," and the unit nails these harmonies quickly and accurately.

[tradivoro1]

Thanks Jon, appreciate the reply on the fingerpicking and other aspects of the unit... Yes, I guess my main concern about the older unit is the sound of the voice reproduction algorithms when harmonizing in a live setting...

[Jon Chappell]

Originally Posted by tradivoro1

Thanks Jon, appreciate the reply on the fingerpicking and other aspects of the unit... Yes, I guess my main concern about the older unit is the sound of the voice reproduction algorithms when harmonizing in a live setting...

Okay, let's see if our TC-Helicon contact, Tom Lang, can dig up the answer. (It's not provided in the manual or any of the promotional information.)

Stay tuned!

[Tom Lang]

To answer the question regarding the sonic difference between VoiceLive "classic" and VoiceLive 2, I guess that can be answered with a resounding "it depends". If you sing one note and have both harmony processors sing a single harmony with no reverb, tone, or humanization etc turned on, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. If you use fixed key and scale harmony the difference, again, may not be discernable.

It's when you plug your guitar in so that it guides harmonies that the difference becomes striking. In VoiceLive "classic" The harmony voices will simply not follow your chord changes. Also, when you turn the tone and reverb on and play a few songs while experimenting with different arrangements of harmony and the other new goodies that VoiceLive 2 brings that the difference becomes apparent. When you start editing, building step chains and generally start having fun with turning effects on and off within the preset in performance, you'll appreciate the other differences.

You can still make great music with the original - I did for several years - and the price is attractive for sure. The best thing is to try and get them in a room together and see what's best for you.

Regarding finger picking, it works fine.

[Tom Lang]

Here's another VoiceLive 2 note with observations from a rehearsal last night. Our duo, the Acousticats was rehearsing tunes in my studio. We both sing and play amplified acoustic guitars at gigs (and we use a drum machine to make the dancers crazy) but when rehearsing it's great to just use our unamplified voices and the guitars. The guitars especially sound much better without the pickups.

To get back to the VoiceLive 2 thread, I still need to test and edit presets for harmony in rehearsal but don't want to overpower April, my duo partner and main singer by having both my lead voice and the harmonies come through a PA. I had a little VoiceSolo (TC-Helicon's powered monitor) hooked up to VoiceLive 2 with my lead voice and reverb etc. turned off so that when I engaged VoiceLive 2, it sounded like someone else had chimed in in the room. For those intimate, acoustic jams, this is a fantastic technique. Of course, if you have a roomful of great singers you can gently put VoiceLive 2 back in its case!

At one point I was singing the lead part in Nowhere Man by the Beatles with a single harmony below me and April singing the upper harmony. Huge! When that "(Amaj) making all his (Am) nowhere plans ..." line hits, it sure is nice to have the harmony following the guitar.

[tradivoro1]

Tom, thanks very much for your answer, I still just want to clarify something that's not clear to me... It appears that what you're saying is that if you're using Voicelive classic strictly through midi, e.g., a keyboard or laptop input putting in chords and musical data, the machine works fine... However, it doesn't work so hot with a guitar driving the harmonic changes?

Originally Posted by Tom Lang

To answer the question regarding the sonic difference between VoiceLive "classic" and VoiceLive 2, I guess that can be answered with a resounding "it depends". If you sing one note and have both harmony processors sing a single harmony with no reverb, tone, or humanization etc turned on, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. If you use fixed key and scale harmony the difference, again, may not be discernable.

It's when you plug your guitar in so that it guides harmonies that the difference becomes striking. In VoiceLive "classic" The harmony voices will simply not follow your chord changes. Also, when you turn the tone and reverb on and play a few songs while experimenting with different arrangements of harmony and the other new goodies that VoiceLive 2 brings that the difference becomes apparent. When you start editing, building step chains and generally start having fun with turning effects on and off within the preset in performance, you'll appreciate the other differences.

You can still make great music with the original - I did for several years - and the price is attractive for sure. The best thing is to try and get them in a room together and see what's best for you.

Regarding finger picking, it works fine.

[Tom Lang]

Originally Posted by tradivoro1

Tom, thanks very much for your answer, I still just want to clarify something that's not clear to me... It appears that what you're saying is that if you're using Voicelive classic strictly through midi, e.g., a keyboard or laptop input putting in chords and musical data, the machine works fine... However, it doesn't work so hot with a guitar driving the harmonic changes?

I didn't really intend this to mean MIDI or laptop control, just that, if you compare a "naked" harmony voice on each unit -however they're controlled- the difference is tough to hear.

VoiceLive classic doesn't work at all with a guitar driving changes - it doesn't have that feature built in.

[tradivoro1]

Originally Posted by Tom Lang

I didn't really intend this to mean MIDI or laptop control, just that, if you compare a "naked" harmony voice on each unit -however they're controlled- the difference is tough to hear.

VoiceLive classic doesn't work at all with a guitar driving changes - it doesn't have that feature built in.

I see, no guitar at all.... Well, that's good to know... One of the reasons I was attracted to the tc helicon units, the newer and the older, is because there is a midi input and output in the unit, as opposed to the competitor's which only have a guitar input...

So, that's good to know that it's only with this incarnation of the top model of tc helicon harmony products, it can be driven by a guitar as well as midi...

[gc24]

I am also late for the party. I ahave been away from this site for awhile and have owned the Digitech 4 and Pro, have the Harmony G and had the Voice Live 2 when it first came out, but sent it back as I didn't like the sounds that it produced. Did I miss something here?

[Jon Chappell]

This weekend, I worked with a female vocalist who wanted to hear how some of her songs would sound with harmony. This was a perfect opportunity for having someone else (other than me, because I know the unit pretty well now) try out the VoiceLive 2.

Initially she was thrown by the unit, because it tracks your every move. I told her to "straighten out" the parts she wanted harmony on, and that did the trick. She reduced the scoops, fall-offs, and flourishes, and the VoiceLive 2 not only sounded better, the song actually sounded better. I thought, "What if we could give this to the American-Idol types who over-decorate and over-stylize the melody?" It might teach people to, you know, "just sing the dang song."

In any event, we tried another exercise that sort of captured the best of both worlds--her flourishes but with stable harmony. To accomplish this, I sang her lead parts, but harmonized them as if I were a female vocalist singing an octave higher. This required me to octave-displace the harmony notes (women sing an octave higher than men). Then we sang together, her solo, me through the VoiceLive 2. I muted my lead vocal, so that only the harmonies came through the P.A. I ended up moving across the room, because she could hear my lead acoustically, and I wanted her to have the full effect.

It worked. She still had the freedom to add flourishes and trills as inspiration dictated, but without making the harmonies sound artificially locked-step to the lead.

This was something new to me, too. Normally, when I sing with a female lead, I go into the Alison Krauss or Highway 101 mode: One female and two males singing harmony. But in this case, my job was to clone the lead singer.

[dug dog]

Hmmm.... very interesting.

[Chumly]

I have sung unison and muted my main vocal to obtain the harmonies live in real time with many singers, many different harmony units, over a number of years.

[Jon Chappell]

Originally Posted by Chumly

I have sung unison and muted my main vocal to obtain the harmonies live in real time with many singers, many different harmony units, over a number of years.

Yeah, I figured I didn't invent this.

Any tips? War stories? Amusing anecdotes?

[Chumly]

Only that at lower stage volumes what the audience hears may not be what you hope they hear given that (at least for me) my unamplifed voice can project, plus of course how you emulate the other person's phrasing matters to the outcome.

I've been using various vocal harmonizers in my solo act for so long now (starting with the DigiTech IPS33B way back when) the oddness many people experience with them is in the faded past.

There is no doubt that a solid sense of relative pitch is required as is the ability to quickly obtain and sustain the given pitch with precision. Many people who think they can sing well realize that a vocal harmonizer can easily exacerbate their technical shortcomings, as you learned with your partner.

Not to denigrate Dylanesque vocal styings but...pity the poor ears having to listen to the output of a machine tracking that!

[gc24]

So are the 3rd and 5th up harmonies that much better than the ones with the HG?

[tradivoro1]

Has anybody experimented with using contrapuntal harmonies being fed to the machine via midi? For instance, the song "If I fell" by the beatles, is very contrapuntal and not just parallel thirds or a voice above or below...

I understand that you can play a midi line and if you sing against that, it will create a voice from the midi line... You can also play the midi line into your sequencer... You'd have to have the sequencer play drums or something as well just to keep time for live performance... This is on page 26 of the manual...

[Jon Chappell]

Originally Posted by Chumly

There is no doubt that a solid sense of relative pitch is required as is the ability to quickly obtain and sustain the given pitch with precision. Many people who think they can sing well realize that a vocal harmonizer can easily exacerbate their technical shortcomings, as you learned with your partner.

Very true. You have to "learn" how to best work a vocal harmonizer--even one as good as the VoiceLive 2, with its excellent tracking, humanizing elements (differing degrees of portamento for each voice, for instance), etc. I found in my own singing that while I was good at nailing sustained tones (at the ends of phrases), sometimes the rapidly moving voices in between were, how shall I say, a little "swimmy." The harmonizer had no problem making this painfully evident.

Not to denigrate Dylanesque vocal stylings but...pity the poor ears having to listen to the output of a machine tracking that!

Yes, there are some things it just won't work on. (I can't think of a better example than Dylan.) And worse, it makes it screamingly and comically obvious when it doesn't!