In researching ways to improve the “humanity” of the harmony voices from my ES7/PLG 100-VH, I’ve run across a couple external rackmount harmonizers; the Digitech Vocalist Live Pro and TC Helicon VoiceWorks Plus (both retail for about $600).  Does anyone have any experience in comparing the quality of the harmony voices of the 100-VH, Digitech, and TC units? 

The way I use the 100-VH is in vocoder mode.  I set it as an insert effect to a midi channel in pattern mode then send a single note harmony for it to “sing” along with my clean lead voice.  I’m not after the synthesized “robot” vocoder sound, but a sound as humanly natural as possible.  It seems the Digitech and TC units main selling point is the ability to auto-generate harmony based on the input guitar or keyboard chords played into them.  I’m not interested in this, rather in playing the harmony notes via midi and having as realistic a harmony voice as possible.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Dennis

Dennis,

I have a Motif ES7 with the PLG100VH and I own the TC Helicon Voiceworks. I purchased the TC Helicon with the intention of selling my Motif ES and moving up to Motif XS. Since the Motif XS did not not support plug-in cards, I thought the TC Helicon would get me where I wanted to go.

For ease of use, you can’t beat the PLG100VH. Nothing extra to plug up, no extra things to carry, easy to integrate if you are using the internal sequencer.

Yes, the TC Helicon offers many, many more things to tweak for more realism. It is pretty deep and if used properly, will yield more realistic results. You will work a lot harder to get that ‘better’ vocal sound.

I still don’t use the TC Helicon that much and not at all for live performance. I decided I didn’t need the Motif XS and can still make a lot of wonderful music with the ES.

One other thing to point out about the TC Helicon. A lot of how good it sounds is based on how good your voice sounds. If you have a good voice, the TC Helicon harmonies will sound better.

Greg

Thanks for the info Greg, my strategy is similar to yours.  Replace the VH100 board, sell the ES7 and jump up to the XF.  After researching the newest TC Helicon and Digitech vocal harmonizers I chose the Digitech Vocalist Live Pro rack mount.

Like the TC, it’s very deep with parameters and I spent the whole weekend configuring it.  It went from “tryout” to “keeper” status late Sunday afternoon.  It has a harmony setting called “Four Channel Notes” where you can send it single note midi melody lines on 4 separate channels simultaneously.  What makes it special is you can individually configure each of the 4 harmony voices separately with respect to gender, detune, delay, pan, level, vibrato style, pitch randomness, delay randomness, and more.  You can setup each of the 4 harmony “singers” to be distinct from the others in style and ability, then mix them all together.  It’s very cool.  Also cool, I got it for under $600 including shipping from Sweetwater.