TC Helicon Voicelive 3 in the House

[open-road-matt]

As the title says, I ordered a TC Helicon Voicelive 3 a couple of weeks ago and I've been messing around with it at home and at shows ever since.

First off, I owe an apology. I had some preconceived notions and prejudices when it came to these "vocal effects" boxes. I had written them all off and if I'm being honest, when I would read about someone using one, I assumed it was because they frankly couldn't sing very well and needed help. I was wrong! There, I said it. Sorry about that!

Because of my unenlightened feelings about these products I would have swore up and down that I would never get one. I don't even use reverb on my vocals or my guitar!

So how did I end up with one of these things?

A while back martingitdave started this thread about what he called "singer-songwriter boxes"

http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...d.php?t=440880

A couple of people posted about the Voicelive 3 and to summarize what I got from their posts: If you ignore the fact that it has pitch correction and get past the demos showing tons of crazy effects and harmonies, these are really powerful boxes for getting great sound. Hmmmm.

Over Labor Day weekend we were at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin to see Jimmy Buffett. G Love opened the show. I hadn't seen him live before and I enjoyed his set. It was all electric with some really nice, gritty, bluesy tones. That got me thinking that it might be fun to again try a looper with some guitar effects. Not live but just to play around at home. I don't play out much during the winter and I get bored practicing.

I called my guy at Sweetwater and told him what I wanted to do. He suggested the Voicelive 3. I told him how I don't use vocal effects, I'll never use the harmonies, etc. etc. He still encouraged me to try it. I could always send it back.

I got the Voicelive 3 on a Friday morning with about and hour and a half to play with it. I had a show that night and I figured I should be able to get a good vocal and acoustic guitar sound out of it and be ready for the show. I wanted one good preset for strumming and one good preset for fingerstyle so I could easily switch back and forth. I had been watching demo videos and browsing the manual. Plus I've been fooling with gear for years. How hard could it be?

The first go around did not go well! I followed the very weird process of auto setting the gain for my mic but I couldn't figure out how to set the gain for my guitar. After some fooling around I found the knob and did the auto gain setting for my guitar. I didn't like the balance between the two.

I figured maybe I'd find a preset to bring this thing around. I started scrolling through the presets. There are a lot! I couldn't find one for acoustic guitar. What I did find was a whole bunch of really loud, overdriven electric guitar presets. Each of those set my guitar to howling with feedback through my PA! My time was up and I was thoroughly frustrated! I boxed the thing up and sent my Sweetwater guy and email asking for a return label.

The next morning, before printing out the label and heading to UPS I did one last Google search on Voicelive 3 for acoustic guitar just to make sure I wasn't missing something. Here I found what I couldn't find in the manual. WAY up at the top, past all of the screaming electric tones is a plain, old, regular acoustic guitar preset! A-ha!

All my gear was still in the van from my show the night before. I set everything up in the garage and tried the preset. It sounded good.....really good! I messed around a bit more and figured out how to manually set the gain for my vocal mic and my guitar and then I had a vocal and guitar sound that I thought sounded fantastic. No effects yet on either but they sounded really rich and full. I skipped the VL3 and went right into my system and confirmed what I thought, both my guitar and vocals sounded much better through the VL3.

I stored that preset and labeled it "Strumming." I started with my strumming preset and used the Drive as a clean boost. I added just a touch of reverb and now I had a wonderful fingerstyle sound! I stored that on the next empty slot and labeled it "Fingerstyle." I had what I wanted! I added just a touch of reverb to the vocals in each of the presets, re-stored them and I was all set for the show that night.

I have the Trance Audio Amulet M in my Collings D1 and after more than a month I still can't quite get the hang of rolling the volume knob to the perfect spot to go from bare fingers to a flatpack. With my two presets in the VL3 I could move seamlessly from one to the other and have the tone and volume I want for each.

It worked just as intended for the show. I've since used it live several more times and I've gotten the hang of killing the reverb between songs while I talk. I updated the firmware which gave me the Body Rez presets. I found one of those that I like even better than my strumming preset. I've learned how to go into the "guts" of all the presets and adjust the EQ. I can send a mix to my little spot monitor from the headphone out and plug my iPod into the Aux to play some songs before the show.

I've even started looping! At home only! I have some lead guitar presets and I'll loop an acoustic part, switch to the lead guitar preset and practice my lead playing.

On top of all that, our almost 9 year old and I have spent hours playing with the vocal effects and making some really fun loops!

So thanks AGF for opening my mind! I've tried many (dare I say most) of the preamp/EQ/DI boxes on the market for acoustic guitar. I would never have thought that one of these "vocal effects boxes" would be this powerful for acoustic guitar. If you have some mental blocks around these boxes like I did, you should do yourself a favor and try one out. Especially if you sing! I'm glad I did.

Matt

[Woodstock School Of Music]

Matt congrats on your new addition. If you have a pc laptop I'd recommend the voicelive editor software it makes programming patches a breeze, also the Facebook VL3 page is a good resource for info.

http://www.voiceliveeditor.com/

[SpruceTop]

Matt, glad you like the TC Helicon VoiceLive 3. I've had the original VoiceLive, and currently have the VoiceLive 2, and I've enjoyed using them both over the years. Just in case you decide to use the harmony capability of your VoiceLive, the auto-generated harmonies work very well for chordal strumming as the device needs to hear a root and a third in close time proximity to automatically generate a good-sounding interval. When playing fingerstyle with harmonies, because of the arpeggiated chords, it's better to choose a key/scale mode which uses fixed intervals to generate a harmony vocal directly from the notes being sung. Aside from harmonies, as you've discovered, the VoiceLive is a wonderful production tool that can assist in bringing out the best in vocal and instrumental performances!

Are you still enjoying your Trance Amulet M Dual Mono system?

[open-road-matt]

Originally Posted by The dman

Matt congrats on your new addition. If you have a pc laptop I'd recommend the voicelive editor software it makes programming patches a breeze, also the Facebook VL3 page is a good resource for info.

http://www.voiceliveeditor.com/

Thanks dman! Does it have to be a PC? All I have is Mac.

I did get the Voice Support 2 application to upload firmware, etc. I'm guessing this does more right?

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

Matt, glad you like the TC Helicon VoiceLive 3. I've had the original VoiceLive, and currently have the VoiceLive 2, and I've enjoyed using them both over the years. Just in case you decide to use the harmony capability of your VoiceLive, the auto-generated harmonies work very well for chordal strumming as the device needs to hear a root and a third in close time proximity to automatically generate a good-sounding interval. When playing fingerstyle with harmonies, because of the arpeggiated chords, it's better to choose a key/scale mode which uses fixed intervals to generate a harmony vocal directly from the notes being sung. Aside from harmonies, as you've discovered, the VoiceLive is a wonderful production tool that can assist in bringing out the best in vocal and instrumental performances!

Thanks Ken!
I'll look into the harmony settings. I could be missing something somewhere. I've only tried them a couple of times and I don't really care for how they sound so I'm sure there is a setting I could change.

There is so much there it can be a bit overwhelming. I was hearing a weird click (for lack of a better description) when I would first play my guitar in my Fingerstyle set up. I tried different guitars with different pickups, different speakers, etc. and it was always there. Turns out there was a gate setting that I needed to adjust. I dialed that back and the noise is gone. I'm sure I can do something similar with the harmonies.

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

Are you still enjoying your Trance Amulet M Dual Mono system?

Mostly yes. I love it for strumming! I do think there is something just a touch off with my high E string. I only notice it when I switch to bare fingers. The high E seems a touch muted and a hair quieter than the other strings. It's not enough that I would try to reinstall it but the guy that did the install guarantees his work so if I have a reason to be near Milwaukee and can live without the guitar for a bit, I might have it looked it. I have a hunch that with a little adjustment (by someone who knows what they are doing) it could sound better.

Thanks!
Matt

[Woodstock School Of Music]

Originally Posted by open-road-matt

Thanks dman! Does it have to be a PC? All I have is Mac.

I did get the Voice Support 2 application to upload firmware, etc. I'm guessing this does more right?



Matt

Yes the TC software is a librarian software only but the Voice live editor allows you to edit all the parameters. The developer is supposedly working on a mac version but that's been a long time coming

[open-road-matt]

Originally Posted by The dman

Yes the TC software is a librarian software only but the Voice live editor allows you to edit all the parameters. The developer is supposedly working on a mac version but that's been a long time coming

I was afraid of that!

I'll keep my eye out for the Mac version. It sounds like it would come in handy!

Matt

[dragonfly66]

Matt,


Before the VL3 I was using the Radial ToneBone Pz-Pre for guitar and mic direct into acoustic guitar amp or simply micing the guitar.

I have not had success getting a good acoustic tone from my guitar through the VL3. It might just be that any pickup will not sound quite like the acoustic sound of the guitar. So far I've used guitars with ES, ES2, different undersaddle pickups. I'm curious what settings you used on the VL3.

I found the BodyRez 2 worked the best so far for the Taylor 412ce (sitka, walnut) that I'm using. Before finding that BodyRez amp model the guitar just sounded too thin. It still isn't perfect though. I've tried changing EQ settings too. I'll have to experiment more to get to something I really like.

Probably the biggest problem I have is that I can't get the guitar and vocals to sound good TOGETHER. It isn't the level because the volumes seemed matched, it's something else. The vocals and guitar always sound so separate.

So can you share any advice on getting a good acoustic guitar sound and mixing the two so they sound good together.


VL3 SOFTWARE
I bought the VL3 Editor software when it came out for the Mac. The interface can be quite confusing, however once you know your way around it is rather easy to change the values for all of the settings and pre-sets. This is nice because you can have the mic and guitar connected and try out any of the changes you are making.

[open-road-matt]

Originally Posted by dragonfly66

I'm curious what settings you used on the VL3.

So can you share any advice on getting a good acoustic guitar sound and mixing the two so they sound good together.

I know what you mean about the guitar and vocals sounding "separate." That's a good way to describe it. I keep messing with the gain on both the mic and the guitar to try and get a nice blend. I have also stopped using any effects on my vocals, guitar and ukulele. I feel like I get a more natural sound that way.

Have you tried different microphones? I'm using an Audix OM5 and I think it sounds very nice through the VL3.

As for acoustic settings I played around with the Body Rez settings and I kind of liked one of them but my favorite is the acoustic amp. I'm taking very slight (- 2 or 3 db) pre and post mid cuts. I can't remember the frequencies. And that's it.

I do feel like I'm cheating a bit. I have a Collings D1 with the Trance Audio Amulet M and getting good plugged in tone with that set up is as easy as falling off a log! It is by far the best guitar/pickup combo I've owned and I've owned a lot! No outboard gear needed. It sounds great going straight into my mixer, right into my sound systems (JBL Eon Ones) or through the VL3.

One thing that helped was to turn the volume down on my guitar. I do that when I'm using my mixer or going straight into the JBL. That's my flat picking volume and then I turn it up for bare fingers. My original plan with the VL3 was to turn the volume on my guitar all the way up and have one setting for strumming and then a boosted setting for bare fingers. But having the volume all the way up on my guitar before hitting the VL3 created some harshness.

Hitting the VL3 with a bit softer signal mellows out the strumming sound and then I do my volume boost for bare fingers with the volume wheel on my guitar.

Hope that helps a bit,
Matt

[Marty C]

I learned something from the TC forum. I have a Play Acoustic. I cut the Bodyrez effect by 40% and run to a mixer after the Play Acoustic and then to a powered speaker. Had to turn the gain all the way to 0 on the mixer and then raise the volume on each channel. Going out stereo. I have the output on the guitar and the overall set about 50%.

This tames a lot of that harshness. Too much gain really brings it out. Think about the different areas where it can get picked up. Guitar preamp, guitar output, overall output, gain on the mixer channel, volume on the mixer channel, output of the mixer and finally volume on the powered speaker. I had set the TC unit like they recommend, but with all the other areas where gain could build, I had to back off quite a bit. I now start with the powered speaker at 50% and if I need more volume, I turn it up first. Second is the output of the mixer and the
last thing I turn up is the TC unit.

Maybe not by the book, but it tames a bunch of harsh sounds.

Just my $0.02 and good luck.

[dragonfly66]

Thank you both, will do more adjusting to see what I come up with.