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I get a lot of people asking me about vocal processesors for vocal effects, pitch correctors, and harmonizers. The problem is i'm not familiar with many of them. Any idea what's out there that would fill the role of one, two, or even all three of those in one unit?

Comments

lorenzo gerace Wed, 04/23/2003 - 00:19

The first unit that comes to mind is teh Eventide brand of processors, the latest one, Eclipse, is a one rack space that packs top quality effects for pitch correction, shifting and harmonizing (Eventide has been the pioneer in pitch shifting technologies), plus gorgeous reverbs and modulations algorithms along with 24/96 support and all of the routing options, analog and digital connectivity you'll ever need; the drawback is price, the best I found out was €2999, but I guess in the US it can go for a little less; alternatively you could go for a slightly older model (also from Eventide) like an H3000 D-FX or DSE, which is still a killer machine for those purposes, and is easier to find used.

The second that I can think of is the TC Helicon from TC electronics, which offers tools to manipulate aspects of the voice like formants and timbre too.

Another one could be the Antares Vocal Producer unit, which packs a preamp, a mic emulator and the world renowned Auto Tune algorithm; this last one I think is more geared toword more "conservative" corrections, rather than wild morphings or modifications of vocal tracks (best for this I think it's the Eventide).

Hope this helps

L.G.

anonymous Wed, 04/23/2003 - 20:21

It's definitely a start. I don't see very many Eventide units come through my place for the obvious price reasons. Not many people I know can afford them. However I do have both the T.C. Helicon, and the Antares AVP. ALthough both are decent units (I'm especially fond of the neat mic modelling the AVP has) I find the T.C. seems to be really unresponsive in some situations. Almost as if there's lag during the processing. Have you ever found that? As for the Antares, I haven't logged much time in it, and have yet to RTFM, so although I can get things to happen on the unit's display they don't seem to actually be doing anything beyond the mic modelling I played with.

So I guess what I'm saying is I'm fond of the one aspect I've actually managed to get going!

As for the Harmonizer aspect, beyond the Eventide, do you know of anything else? I think the T.C. Voiceprism and Voiceprism Plus have a harmonizer in them, but that's all I'm aware of.

Cheers

lorenzo gerace Thu, 04/24/2003 - 00:51

Well

to me as far as harmonizers go Eventide is the definitive choice; IMO all machines in the lower price range will have some kind of trouble in this, either glitching or sounding metallic and fake; unfortunately that's one of the most difficult process to achieve, so the unit has to be R&Ded extensively to work; I auditioned several units some time ago and unless you go to the System 6000 from TC, the Eventide processor still sound the best to me in the 2000/3000 $ range; if you can afford more check out the DSP 7500 or the Orville (also form Eventide).
Maybe the Fireworx from TC has a good pitch algorithm?

Hope This Helps

L.G.

anonymous Sun, 04/27/2003 - 18:21

It gives me some ideas. Unfortunately anything in that range are items I probably won't have too much access to, so I won't be able to test them out.

Other than that, I can at least tell people to save their pennies. A customer of mine ordered the TC VoicePrism Plus, so I'll at least get to play with that.

Thank you.