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(More customer reviews)The VL4 is a lot of fun! I've had mine for about 3 weeks now, so i've had time to really use all the features. First, i'll talk about the highlights. This product really makes your voice stand out. The compression works great and really brings your voice out of the mix. Even has a de-esser to remove the sibilant "s" sounds. The EQ is important for removing muddy mid frequency from your vocals which also helps to bring your voice out of the mix. The harmony works wonderfully and you can change the parameters in many ways. For example, let's say you're playing an A minor chord on your guitar, and singing an "E". You can choose your harmony note to be either an A or a G, depending on whether you want a true 3rd above, or the note closest to a 3rd above which is also a note in the chord. You can also choose the VL4 to choose a harmony note in a predefined scale, rather than based on what you're playing on the guitar. If you're playing a song in the key of D Major, and there are no key changes in the song, and no chords that do not fit in the scale, then you can simply choose all your harmony notes to be in the key of D Major. The strength of the Music IQ feauture(harmony based on what you're playing with the guitar) is when a song has key changes or chords which do not fit in the original scale. The reverb works great and you can change the predelay, decay, intensity, type(hall, studio, stage) and tone. The features which are not so great for vocals are the following:
1. pitch correction--it doesn't sound natural because the VL4 outputs both your original off-pitch voice and the pitch-corrected note, so it sounds like a doubling effect. Maybe if you really play around with the pitch correction parameters you'll be able to get a more natural sound, but i have yet to achieve that.
2. delay--if you can get the tempo of delay that you want, it works fine. The trouble is, the VL4 won't let you choose a fairly slow delay. So if you're singing a slow-tempo song, you won't be able to get a delay of a quarter note or even an 8th note. The delay works best for achieving a doubling effect.
3. lead effects--this effect lets you change the timbre of your voice, allowing it to sound deeper, more femminine, more Elvis-like, with vibrato, etc. Actually, this feature can be useful and fun. But like the pitch correction, it doesn't sound too natural. However, if used sparingly and in a song with complete backing music(bass, keyboards, etc) i think the audience wouldn't know any better.
Now for the guitar effects--reverb and chorus. I am very impressed with these! It uses the same reverb settings as your vocals, but you can adjust how much of the reverb is going to the guitar. The chorus sounds realistic and can be adjusted to be obvious or not-so-obvious. You can get a great guitar sound with these 2 effects, but i'd recommend running your guitar through a compressor and EQ to get a really clean sound.
I'd recommend the VL4 over the VL2 because of the extra vocal effects(they're really useful) and because you can store changes to any presets, and with the step of the pedal, you can get your stored preferred settings. I think having 4 harmonic voices is overkill, but for the features i just mentioned, the VL4 is recommended over the VL2.
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DigiTech Vocalist Live 4 Harmony-Effects ProcessorThe Digitech Vocalist Live 4 is THE low-priced solution for vocalists looking to get accurate vocal harmony on stage or in the studio. The Vocalist Live uses guitar chord analysis to build the harmony structure, not the main vocal, so it is much simpler to use. It tracks what chords are being played and creates a harmony chord in that key. Genius!! The VL4 also has an integrated mixer.Just plug your vocal mic and guitar into the inputs and plug your PA and guitar amp to the outputs.Simple as that. Easy stomp-box operation activates or deactivates the harmony processor. Same goes for the built in digital effects- stomp on/stomp off. An unbelievable amount of Bang for your Buck. A surprising number of songs fool other harmonizers because these songs just do not work with a single key/scale setting. In fact, any song that has the same note sung over two different chords (for example, a C sung in the melody over a C maj / F maj chord sequence) is going to confound conventional harmonizers. Vocalist Live uses breakthrough musIQ technology to directly analyze the output of any electric or pre-amplified acoustic guitar (no special MIDI guitars or hex-outputs needed). Then it generates the correct vocal harmony. For example, if you are singing an A over the chords that are generally found in the key of G, Vocalist will harmonize with a C. But, if you then play an A major, Vocalist will shift to the C#...because like any good harmony singer, it listens to the guitar! With musIQ, forget about the technology, just sing and play! Skip complicated programming and having to analyze each song chord-by-chord; just follow these steps. Plug in your microphone and guitar; Pick a 3rd or 5th-above or below harmo
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