WOW! Great Day Tone Wise...

[Six String]

In spite of our recent discussion on "where to put threads"... this placement is a group post. It coulda gone in the "show you jam station" thread or in the thread about e-tuners but it actually is about a neat little harmonizer I picked up. Let me tell you the story... (coffee or beverage of choice suggested)

I had to go to the VA place over in Fort Wayne for an appt. yesterday and everything went well. (Another story in itself) On the way back I stopped in to check on an order I have at Sweetwater. (Again, another story I will have later) Well it wasn't in so I looked around. I have been thinking about an upgrade on an old DigiTech Vocalist and had been looking at the Sweetwater catalogue. (not a good idea if you got a little "extra" cash...) So I looked at a TC Helicon unit and it was ok but had a lot of questions as to what it would do. They asked if I wanted to try it but I really didn't have the interest so I asked about the other one I had been looking at. The DigiTech Vocalist 3. I asked several questions about it and all looked pretty good. Again they asked if I wanted to try it and I said why not. (I caution against this for people with low tolerance levels...) So they hooked it up to a small Fisher or Fishman (??) amp with an XLR input and gave me a line out for the guitar to a Fender amp. This was cool as I want to go thru a DR 880 for guitar effects as well! So this thing will go direct to a mixer/ amp and/ or to a separate effects/ amp.



Noticing the back, it has a vocal/guitar out in mono or stereo! very cool!

So he got everything hooked up and asked what I played and I told him SG's so he to their guitar room and brought back a 2015 Gold Elite (?) SG. (It was pretty good but not my old ones.) It had extremely lite gage strings on it and I'm not a lead player so I had to compensate my grip on the neck. (The git also had the e-tuner thingy on it which amazed me but I can see how some may not like it. It tunes, but I could hear it a shade off...)

Anyway, back to the DigiTech...... I and the guy fiddled with it and got it adjusted somewhat and it was good in spite of my cold. The first thing I noticed was that there was no more setting the key for the harmonies! It senses of the guitar input and adjusts accordingly. Wow!



I played with it for about an hour and decided to get it. I got it home and set it up and did some hi-tech fiddling with it





The adjustments are very easy and the tone range is pretty good. You can dial in to your own tastes. The guitar effects are reasonable especially if you need a little something for an acoustic/electric show. I did a solo show a couple weeks ago with the old harmonizer and it got me thru. I want to do more in the near future and this machine will give me the ability to have additional backup vocal/ harmony up to 2 parts (hi or low, male or female, doubling, delay, compression....) but it will still allow me to use this with either my 2-man or the electric group. I think the word is versatile! I will still run some more testing but I am very pleased with what I have found on it so far! Two thumbs up!!!

Now for the work station thing, here's and overall of my "new" area I escape to, to practice...... I have it on the stand but it normally would go on the floor as a foot pedal. For learning purposes, this way beats having to bend over. If there is a negative... I haven't found an off/on switch for it, but I suppose it isn't a big deal.!?



Sorry for the rambling, but it has been a while since I have been this up on new equipment. And to think it will help towards getting back out there playing! That is always the best......

 

[JohnnyGoo]

Good deal SixString.

 

[Dorian]

Six String -- Your post and this technology caught me by surprise. Getting on-key backing vocalists for $200 seems like a real bargain. I have a harmonist pedal, which I use for chorus, organ sounds and fake 12-string tones, but your DigiTech Vocalist is at least one step beyond this. Please keep us informed as to how you end up using it.

By the way, what does the "humanize" control do to the tone?

 

[Alex_SG]

Awesome setup you got there bro!

 

[Six String]

Thanks all... I still have some fiddling to do but things are really impressing me! And the "humanize" feature gives it a warmth to the harmonies that is adjustable to ones ear. It is pretty cool. The M/F at the top is either nothing, more to a male (heavy), less male and so on to what ends up singing like an added female harmony back up. It also adds warmth to the sound. It takes some fine tweaking but I am getting it there to my liking. What even amazes me more is a song I wrote years ago has a higher harmony I added when I recorded it. This box will put that harmony in! WAY cool!!!!

The "Patch" settings (5 of them with an A & B opt.) is factory set, but I found the way set them to my settings tonight. It will give me about every combination from Doubling to Doubling X 2, to single harmony (high or low) to double harmony (high or low & combinations of them)....... it is amazing. My current direction is to do some solo shows and this will really help those shows out. I'm also looking at trying to get 5 part harmonies with the 3 of us in my electric group........ We'll see.

I am liking the dual guitar outlet I have as well. The main out (Mono or stereo) puts the guitar out with the vocal to the mixer, but I also take the separate guitar out to my effects unit and add a different sound to it and run it to the amp or mixer. Lot of possibilities!

(Hey if anyone's interested in that song, you can here it on my ReverbNation page under Terry J. Anderson. It's the "Beats Me Man (elect)" tune. There is also an acoustic version of it too......... Hope you like it.)

 

[Six String]

Oh... and if someone hasn't messed with harmonizers before, there are some less expensive units out there, but for the 2 bills this one goes for it is well worth the time, effort and bucks. Is it going to do what the big buck units do... don't know, never had one. But it does do what I need it to do and then some!

 

[Six String]

Just an update..........

A friend I have done some shows with came by today and he brought over some of his stuff. He has a TC Helicon (?) harmonizer and we started doing some experimenting...........

I am getting my settings dialed in on the Vocalist 3 and it sounds pretty good. I did a couple of his tunes that I do a backup harmony to. Well, I kicked in the harmonizer while doing my normal backup harmony and holy crap! It added more harmony backup! I swear that between the two machines we had 7 part harmony going on. Amazing sound! We even tried "Seven Bridges Road" and it sounded good.

 

[Voxman]

I was also shocked when we used one .... harmonies were many, thick and full provided we sang spot on

 

[Six String]

I know what you mean about the spot on Vox... my old one was that way. But this new one will actually let you dial a bit of that away. The pitch control will give you from 0 to reasonable control on it. In turn, a touch of the "Warmth" knob and a touch of the "Humanize" knob and away you go.... The major pitch issues I had at first was to listen too what was coming out more then what I was putting in. (But that was also maybe my Sometimers kicking in........! )

Now if there is a huge pitch problem in the input.......... then it will be some major issues, agreed.

 

[Six String]

Next thing I need to see if they have is an electronic bass pedal....... inexpensive. Would add a lot to my one man show. I have been working with a looper but it's tricky.

 

[WavMixer]

Oooooohhhh, nice stuff Six String. Who is the Moist and Meaty fan?

 

[Six String]

Those are actually very old and were for four legged family members that have long since gone to their reward. The boxes now hold the rest of my fathers miniature bottle collection. There are about 700+ bottles in the collection. I have been looking for a buyer for some time but most want them given to them. My father stopped collection in the early 90's or earlier so they are old ones. I know this isn't the "Sale Section" but if anyone wants more information PM me..........

 

[Alex_SG]

Hey Six... I just noticed the pics of the Digitech Vocalist above are all upside down, bro!

 

[Six String]

Really. They look good in my view........ anyone else seeing the upside down?

 

[Alex_SG]

I can't work it out, Terry... On my iPad, the pics are upside down, yet on my computer, they're right way up! What the heck is happening???

 

[Six String]

Obviously they are every which way but loose.....?