Synth being put to work at someone's desk
VoiceTone Synth is currently enjoying its round of beta testing. The current focus is on voicing the internal vocal synth sounds. Everyone testing in the office is commenting on how satisfying it is to mess with vocoding, you can create very granular, crazy and new sounds – not too mention HardTuning yourself to oblivion. This is one fun piece of kit.
I’m working with a music project for person who are motoric disabled in Sweden.I think Voice Tone Synth could be a very smart solution for this persons. When is it possible to buy or try it in Sweden?
Hiya Hakan,
The VoiceTone Synth should be shipping to stores in early August.
Best wishes, Joey
Ok gang, I’ve run my first few tests on the Voice Tone Synth and it’s working great! I was away on honeymoon when it arrived and nothing against my wife but I couldn’t wait to get back and test this baby out. Ultimately it’s an odd but interesting lil’ robot. I can see wide use for this device in modern Hip-Hop / Rap, and Sci-Fi based production…George Lucas would probably love this unit!!!
Of course, it does what it does so the testing isn’t as intense as it was for the VL2. Everyone, I can’t stress how important it is to keep your TC units updated with the latest builds from the online App. Definitely don’t be lazy about that because its well worth the mere minutes it takes to keep that data fresh and up to par.
Calibrating the pots is necessary once you get past build 9 but its easy and well explained in the manual. At first the Voice Tone Synth boasts 10 presets, which I only found 5. All ya’ hafta’ do is hold the key button down when powering up and you can punch in how many presets you want to use.
Phantom Power works great but the gain knob will need to be set quite low, which means having to push your fader up to make it more audible. At first I connected both left and right outputs but just note that one is your dry that should go to the board and one is your MONO wet. If you have troubles separating the sounds the Synth makes, just hook up your Mono Synth output to your sound device to audition its sounds.
So, you’ve basically got 10 cool presets with a variety of selectable options from the Hard Tune, Vocoder, and Transducer buttons. These buttons engage what they are and when using more than one button at a time, the Lead Mix Knob swings between volume of those effects vs. your dry and wet voice. If you want to dial in dry and wet then select only one effect button for your preset.
The tone button just sounds better when its on. I’m not sure all that went into that little button, but you’ll most likely want to keep it engaged as it makes for a smoother performance when it’s on. Another note on the tone button…hold it down until it flashes and TC gives even more production prowess. I was able to get a louder signal by altering my tone options. Once the tone button is engaged this way you can tap through it and accessing various tone settings to your liking…handy dandy.
Setting your Key Scale is a breeze by use of the Key button or by holding down the ON toggle button. You get C through B and the sharps/flats. The Major / Minor buttons do work and you can tell right away. It’s simpler than the Voice Live units in this regard, but just as effective. Knowing what key your song is in, or its relative minor, would be a good start or it might get a little frustrating for you.
The real power comes in line with your ability to tweak and experiment. The Voice Tone Synth wants to be played with so dust of your twilter freakin’ grubbies and start turning those knobs!
Tonight I test the Input feature using my keyboard to drive my sounds. I’ll be using the AUTO button and will report on my findings tomorrow morning. I have a guitarist coming in on Saturday to test the input by using guitar to drive the source. More to come!!!
Peace,
Brian
http://www.myspace.com/voxiferation
http://www.myspace.com/ujiya
Ok, I ran through the line input feature of the Voice Tone Synth with my Korg R3. It worked like a dream! Fantastico!!! Definitely engage AUTO, if it doesn’t do it for you already and of course make sure your key is set…but it does a darn good job either way of guessing where you’re at.
My lil’ test box is pretty smart and it knew right way that I had a line signal running to it. It responded fluidly and pretty much burped out what I played. I found it best, as in old vocoders, to sing or speak in a monotone, while letting the keyboard do the work for notation…this way you’re not confusing it or yourself.
Tonight I wrote a little piece using the voice tone synth for all of my sounds except for the bass and drums. Kraftwerk would’ve loved one of these! Heck they’re probably testing one right now
You’ll want to make sure that you twiddle some knobs if you’ve got a free hand, when using the line or mic input. It’s very responsive and you get some great additives by doing so. Saturday I’ve got a guitarist coming over to test out how well it responds to guitar. Stay posted.
Peace,
Brian
After loading the final build for Voice Tone Synth, I had Alex Algarin (uJiya guitarist) come over to help me test out the Instrument In for guitar. We ran the Mono out to a couple of powered monitors and tested the following features: Hard Tune & Vocoding. To get a good signal we agreed upon a pattern and I had him play a clean tone.
This little box is straight forward and easy to wrap your head around. It worked well on both accounts. I had more luck driving the sounds with guitar on the Voice Tone Synth than I did with the Voice Live 2. Also, it doesn’t say it’s supposed to do this in the manual, but when using guitar or keyboard to drive the signal, the auto setting auto selected itself and seem to just know that we had and instrument plugged in…I didn’t even have to push the button!
We did test the Major / Minor buttons, and when leaving it in the Auto position it did a good job of altering the voice…especially when I sang in a monotone. Note: similar to old school vocoders, I received the best results, while using a monotone voicing, allowing the Instrument in to guide my pitch. I tried it both ways but there was a bit of confusion in the voicing when I sang in a more melodic fashion.
Just for kicks I plugged the whole rig + guitar into a “known” noisy power outlet, knowing I’d get a buzz in the signal. I engaged the ground lift button on the back of the Voice Tone Synth and I’m glad to say it does a nice job of knocking down the buzz quite a bit. Good job TC!
At first you may feel the Voice Tone Synth is limited on sounds. However, check out the Advanced User Section of the manual, when you get it. There’s some extra tid bits I missed on my first go around with this unit. In the Vocoding and Hard Tuning there are style banks. Initially you will feel or think that you only have that one type of sound but by HOLDING the Style Bank button down till it flashes you will be able to audition multiple textures within each style bank.
When you find a gem that you want to use you’ll perform the same steps of holding the button down until it flashes. Really cool…and quite a few more sounds to enjoy. The display always depicts the number or value of sounds and textures as you page through them.
All in all I feel the Voice Tone Synth is the best bang for the buck if you’re wanting an inexpensive vocoding solution with lots of options. And honestly, I’ve used more expensive vocoders that don’t do as good of a job or have as many options. TC Helicon obviously had the new Hip-Hop artists in mind, when they built this. But seriously, don’t let that scare you away. If you’re prone to experimenting you’ll find new and interesting ways to add “otherworldly” elements to your sonic creations with the Voice Tone Synth.
To sum it up, this unit is one tough little robot!
Cheers!
Brian Stevenson
i just wanted to know about the hardtunning can you change the level of pitch you want like if i want a low hardtunning or high and do i need an instrument for the hardtunning?
Hiya Vincent,
The following is an edit from the VoiceLive 2 manual (page 78). I hope this helps and answers your questions. You can also download the manual from our website at the following link: http://www.tc-helicon.com/media/VL2_details_manual_US_v2.pdf
Most pitch correction products require scale information, offline editing or MIDI performance to yield correction. However, VoiceLive 2 goes one step further and allows you to play your guitar or MIDI keyboard normally and get the result.
When set to FOLLOW HARMONY the HardTune effect will follow the same source as the harmony voices.
For example, if a guitar is controlling your harmony voices, it would also control your HardTune effect. When the parameter is set to MANUAL/CUSTOM the Key and Scale are set with the KEY and SCALE parameters lower down in the FX tab.
When FOLLOW HARMONY is set for HARDTUNE and the Harmony NATURALPLAY mode is set to SCALE, then only the key is passed on to the HARDTUNE effect. This allows a different scale to be used for the HardTune effect independent of the Harmony effect.
When Harmony is set to SHIFT, MIDI NOTES, or MIDI NOTES 4 CHAN, HardTune will use its own key and scale parameters.
HARDTUNE SHIFT sets a relative shift in semi-tones above or below the input vocal. This is useful for transposing or creating character voices while simultaneously pitch correcting.
KEY/SCALE sets the musical map that the HardTune effect will correct to. They are applied when HARDTUNE KEY is set to MANUAL/CUSTOM. When the current preset is based on Scale Harmony and HARDTUNE KEY is set to FOLLOW HARMONY these will display the key set in the HARMONY tab. The manual scale selection is different from the ones available for Harmony. They are:
o Major
o Minor-Har (harmonic minor)
o Minor-Nat (natural minor)
o Minor-Asc (ascending melodic minor)
o Chromatic (no key or scale required)
Best wishes,
Joey
I’ve been having one major issue ever since I took my VoiceTone Synth out of the box. My sound guy has to CRANK my vocal channel to dangerous levels to get my vocals at the same loudness as when I don’t use the Synth pedal. I’ve had the same problem testing it out on other PAs. Recently we worked a casino gig out-of-town and the sound guy there said that he’d worked with plenty of bands lately that use these pedals and hadn’t encountered anyone with this type of problem until we tried mine. I think I might have gotten a dud and I’m getting nothing useful from TC Helicon support. Any ideas?
Haven’t seen that issue. To confirm, test it with the unit in Bypass. Many of the effects in Synth can add or take away from the level. If that still yields the same results, then TC-Helicon support is best.