Vocal Settings

[maarkr]

since I'm on a campaign to set up vocals for a live performance... I'm thinking of setting up 8 saved vocal harmony/mic settings into a registration. I'm tired of messing with individual songs and different vocal details.  If you are a performer, how do you set your voices up?

I'm thinking:
1 Out Front - Sinatra, Strait, Elvis, CIsaac, HnOates
2 Rough Voice - CCR, IggyPop, Lennon
3 Higher thin voice - Tom Petty, Eagles
3 Hi voice Neil Young
4 Smooth Voice - Manilow, Pink Floyd, Monkees, Moby, GM, McCtny
5 Female octave Voice
6 Lower Voice - JCash
7 TBD -
8 TBD - Verby, hard voice

Since my earlier post, I decided to start using a 2d pedal and set it to toggle harmony on/off.  I have years of experience in mixing voice details, so I can tweak settings to sound similar to those above.

[DrakeM]

Number 5 can't be done with the VH2 and sound any where near correct for a serious female soloist voice.

Use your own natural voice. Sing the song in YOUR key range. Use the transpose key to find where you sing the song in the best KEY for your voice.

Set the reverb to at least 17% (more if the original artist had more on the mic).Then add the backup singer/s to your setup. Save it as registration in slots #7 and #8.

Drake

[ChrisH]

To be honest I find that so many performers tend to turn the harmony on and leave it on for the whole song and it simply sounds artificial to me so the number one asset would be a harmony on/off pedal A live performance sounds so much better if the verses are set up with decent reverb/delay and pitch correction and then only kick in harmony for choruses and middle 8 pieces. Sadly that also means that you cannot emulate a female voice for an entire song unless you have two settings for it ..like just 5 above for the verses and then 3 part for the choruses etc etc.   To be honest I found the VH2 tricky to use because for each song you need mic effects with and without harmony so I use a Digitech Live Vocalist 4  which allows 50 preset setup but more importantly 50 custom setups and you have 4 pedals so you can have just the mic, mic with effects, harmony on and off and then up and down pedals to move between settings.  If using the keyboard the 8 registrations sound good but also a harmony pedal is essential too!

Chris

[DrakeM]

I have several hundred YouTube videos with me using the VH2 live. I tried using a pedal first but found it moved way too much. Don Mason suggested I set up a registration which I did. Slot 7 is my voice and 8 is setup with the backup voices.

I have 37 different VH2 setups that I use. Several are setup for special songs only. There is really no need for a seperate Vocal Harmonizer when preforming with he keyboard. The VH2 is the most efficient way to control the Harmony as the registration buttons are right in front of you and easy to switch back and forth flawlessly.

As far when to turn the harmony On and Off, all you have to do is listen to the artist's actual recording and note when the back up singers are used. I note when to turn the back up singers on and off by simply underlining the words on my Lead Sheets.
Drake

[ChrisH]

Impressive Drake

You really have nailed it down well!!  The only pedal that I found that didn't slither all over the place was the dual Alctron as it's heavy enough to stay put.

Looking forward to a few new videos using the SX920 ..should be really good

Chris