Recommendations: Vocal Harmoniser (For Live Work) - Alternatives to TC Helicon?

RocknRollDave

Am under a little bit of pressure from my agent to use a vocal harmonisier as he uses two of them with his trio line up to fill out the sound.
However, gigged with him last weekend and the TC Helicon he gave me to use was faulty - wouldn't switch off when the switch was stepped on - plus from another thread, I get the impression that the TC Electronics pedals' switches are more prone to developing faults than some other pedals - so I am looking for reliable, affordable alternatives.

I am still in two minds over these things in the first place, as they undoubtedly sound great in the right setting, but also feel a little like "cheating" to me too...So, come on, sell me the idea and recommend me something that won't break when a fat beardo clomps on it with his size 11's....

exocet

Look at the other Helicon units. There are versions that mount on a mic stand.

RocknRollDave

exocet said:

Look at the other Helicon units. There are versions that mount on a mic stand.

How do they switch on and off mid-song, though? If it is by the press of a button, that would rule them out as I play guitar .

vasselmeyer

I use a BOSS VE-20. It's built like a BOSS (of course). You can do loads of stuff with it...loads of presets, lots of effects etc. It's not intelligent in that you have to tell each preset what key you're in, but it's a matter of seconds to switch the preset. I give my preset a name such as "Gmaj 3rd and 5th" or "Cmin 3rd" so it's easy to find the right one in the heat of a gig. I think I bought it new for about £145 about 3 years ago.

hubobulous

We use the Digitech Vocalist Live 4 and have done for about 8 years now. Its excellent, easy to operate and program and sounds great

exocet

RocknRollDave said:

exocet said:

Look at the other Helicon units. There are versions that mount on a mic stand.

How do they switch on and off mid-song, though? If it is by the press of a button, that would rule them out as I play guitar .

MIDI Footswitch.

Roland

Our singer uses a Boss vocal effects pedal. Like everything else it can be over used, so you have to avoid getting carried away. The biggest problem we had was agreeing common reverb settings. There are times when one or other of us wants more reverb for a particular song, which is why we don't do it through the desk. Except that it has to be the same reverb character (early reflection timing etc).

The bass player does BVs. We use the pedal for effects on a limited number of songs. On Billy Joel's Uptown Girl our singer uses it to record and play back stanzas so that he can sing along with himself. I thought that he'd have a footwork problem, but he gets it right every time 

fretmeister

I use the TC Harmony Singer that reads key shapes from the guitar signal 

Footswitch on it. Works well.