Re: [Harp-L] Digitech Vocalist VR

["Tim Moyer" <wmharps@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ron Good wrote:
> And minor flaws that I (might have) heard (because it sounded 
> pretty darn good to me) in how the processor handles tracking your 
> playing I think would certainly be simply un-noticeable in any 
> live mix. 

On the first tune (Vocalizer One) right at 0:44 there is a glitch.  
I made plenty of little miffs in my playing, and am not trying to 
escape responsibility for those, but this one was the unit.  Maybe 
the note was indistinct, or the pitch was off, but something 
confused the ADC or the DSP, and I got a bit of a hiss.  In the 
second tune (Somewhere) at 0:34 and at 1:17 it happens again.  At 
the end of the first tune as the run heads up into the higher 
register you can really hear latency in the harmonies.  I agree that 
these probably wouldn't be a problem in a live performance, 
particularly when I'm playing accompaniment to the band.  

> I think Digitech is a the top of the game in vocal harmony
> processors (have neen for quite a while) and have thought about 
> using one for the same purpose for quite a while. 

The Digitech is one of the less expensive units of its kind, with a 
pricier competitor from TC-Helicon (VoiceWorks) that gets pretty 
good reviews.  The Helicon has selectable intonation, human 
characterization for the harmony voices (how useful for harmonica?), 
and transparent pitch correction (fixing those overblows?).  

On the other hand, the Digitech is half the price and has a lot of 
the most useful features, including the same basic harmony setup, 
built-in preamp and nine different reverbs.  I think I need to spend 
some more time dinking around with mine to get what I want, but so 
far it's a lot of fun!  

Thanks,

-tim

Tim Moyer wrote:

>I bought a new toy off ebay (yes, a last-second bid beat the 
>previous high bidder by just $2.50), which arrived on Saturday.  
>It's a Digitech Vocalist VR, a rack-mount harmonizer that does up 
to 
>five harmony voices simultaneously, in real-time.  I played with it 
>a little and got some interesting stuff out of it.  
>
>My intention is to use this while playing backing parts to simulate 
>a horn section, and for that I think it will work pretty well.  I 
>still have some reservations about it, most notably that it fails 
to 
>lock up occasionally (listen to the samples), and the latency 
that's 
>obvious in some places.  
>
>I'm still working with it to determine the best place in my 
>pre/fx/amp chain, but right now am leaning toward putting it right 
>up front, using it as a balanced low-z input.  It seems that any 
>signal processing preceeding the harmonizer -- even just the tube 
>preamp -- makes it a little more challenging to latch the source 
>note.  It's also very important to this unit to hear only one note, 
>so precise playing is at a premium.  Obviously this unit isn't for 
>everything, but I recorded a couple of samples of my first 
>experiments:
>
>http://www.workingmansharps.com/Sounds/other/vocalizer_01.mp3
>
>http://www.workingmansharps.com/Sounds/other/Somewhere.mp3
>
>-tim
>
>