Seen this
Im not after perfection. Just to add another dimension to my all electronic tracks. Even Kraftwerk vocals would be good enough. Im a tone deaf singer though. Can it be done? Anyone else had a go at singing?.
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Same. I had been eyeballing that box myself, and used to do vocals/songwriting. But usually the effects were light, more punk rock/ lots of low-cut EQ, cheap mics, a little detuning thru a Quadraverb. Preamp sure helps, used an old dbx comp with gate/de-esser, etc. because everything was about recording.
Did a long stretch without vocals but recently want to open up live performance more. Actually picked up an old Roland GP16 for some ambient vox stuff. Was considering the Soma Pipe but not really heavily invested in it for something Iāll do for 2 minutes.
Personally, with any vox+fx I feel quite a bit more confident with a comp in there somewhere, esp. for live mixingā¦
Im surprised more people dont do vocals. You dont have to be great. The Roland does a lot and would open up a lot of avenues.
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Iām a singer/electronic performer. Hopefully not tone deaf, but no Pavarotti either.
IMHO, compression and reverb or delay are the most important FX for most vocalists. Delay can cover a multitude of sins 
Also, donāt underestimate the value of having lyrics that have some thought put into them.
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Cheers. Do you write the lyrics first or after?
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usually Iāll have a few lines, or just a title, or a subject for some lyrics. Might come to me in the shower or while out for a walk or whatever.
then - listening to a track-in-progress - write more, itās easier if you have the rhythm of the track in mind while you write the words.
Often I do this live - play a work-in-progress track with semi-improvised lyrics - but that takes a bit of confidence, which I have for some reason.
Iāll often record a track with a fairly messy guide vocal, and then the process of editing that helps define what it should be and influences future live performances. That can also help in producing something thatās got a bit of spirit and live feel to it.
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Cheers. That sounds like a good way to go. This would make a change from sampling voices.
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Yeah Iām starting to realise this a bit more recently, even some of my favourite 80s vocalists donāt have perfect voicesā¦ but I still have a long way to go before my vocals are passable. It took me so long to record the vocals for even a non-serious track a few weeks ago, just because I kept messing up the takes, and even after I got it right I still had to go through and do a bunch of manual pitch correctionā¦ and it still sounds like shit haha.
I am determined to keep going though, I just donāt often have the time to sing to myself. I donāt like doing it at home when my girlfriend is there, for some reason!
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I have the feeling that TC Helicon Voicelive is much more versatile. I had a session last week with a singer, voicelive is really impressive. It can do standard delays and reverbs, add harmonies, and also covers many weird effects.
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Ah yes, I forgot to mention that. I used a VoiceLive in my band, when I had a brief period of singing live, the subtle pitch correction was really good, as were the other effects. Iāve since sold it but am considering getting one againā¦
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The Roland vt-4 is the only piece of gear I bought and returned in the 30-day return period. However, I bought one again recently only for one function I couldnāt find anywhere else, which I missed dearly. This is the ability to sing into it and playing the notes on a midi-keyboard (called robot on the device). If you feel like you canāt sing at all, this device enables you to hit the notes you want. You will sound like a robot, but your voice will still be recognizable. The autotune also works fine. The vocoders on the vt-4 are okay, but as anything else on this device, lack in editing capabilities (unless you know how to program that thing with sysex). It is basically a preset machine. I also have the pocket operator po-35 speak from teenage engineering, which I think sounds really good for the price and is lots of fun (and has a dope monophonic drum machine as a bonus).
I use the vt-4 in combination with a digitakt. I record some melodies I want to sing on the digitakts midi tracks and send these to the vt-4, so I can concentrate on singing and not having to worry about playing the wrong notes on the keyboard (although sometimes I do both at the same time). Here are two tracks I recently recorded using this technique:
I recorded the vocal takes without any reverb or delay from the vt-4, as it is much more flexible to adjust these in the DAW when mixing. The delays and reverb on the vt-4 sound good though and are pretty hands on to use live (only one at a time though, you canāt have both delay and reverb at the same time). There is also a thread on the vt-4 somewhere on this forum.
some people here already mentioned the voicelive boxes, and I think they can sound good for live purposes. The singer of my band has been using one for years and its nice, although a bit fiddly with the touch controls (voicelive touch 2, i think). I also read some pretty gnarly customer feedback, that the voicelive devices tend to break or malfunction pretty easily.
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I am also tone deaf and been eyeing up this box. I had the vt 3 but it didnāt have the setting for picking key. I want to able to lay some vocals on to electro tracks Iām working on and to use live. It does seem perfect for this
Chiming in with another āVoicelive is greatā. I havenāt done vocals in years, but when I did, I had all my vocals (both recorded and at live shows) running through Voicelive and they sounded great. I am possibly the worst singer in the world, full disclosure. Canāt carry a tune to save my life. But all I wanted was for my voice to be another element in the mix, shoegazy, cloudy, ethereal, providing a human element to the electronic sounds, and the Voicelive worked wonderfully for this. My favorite was the first āshowcaseā preset, which (I believe) contains the outstanding TC Electronics reverb algorithm among other elements.
Was actually planning on selling the Voicelive, but due to this thread I might hold onto it a bit longer. Never know when Iāll feel like bringing in vox againā¦
Also, small secret about the Nord Modular (original G1, at least) - thereās a vocoder patch on it that some people regard to be one of the best vocoders available, holding its own with classic vocoders like the VP-330. Nord Mods are such insanely deep synths that this little gem is buried in everything else you can do with them, but itās totally worth at least a few hundred of the asking price just to have those really solid vocoderized vocals you can play polyphonically with the keys!
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Also have a look at the TC Helicon Perform VE.
Iām currently figuring out how to use it with my Digitakt.
I backed the electrospit Kickstarter and eagerly awaiting it
I play in an electronic duo and my partner sing into a Zoom MS-70CDR wich is a multi fx in a stomp pedal format.
Itās set up like this : compressor -> chorus -> delay -> reverb with a stereo signal path.
100ā¬, hard to beat.
Here itās how it sounds
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I believe what youre looking for is a vocoder
Actually no. The Roland vt-4 is also a vocoder, but the function I am talking about is what is called robot on the device. It allows you to āforceā the pitch of your vocals to the entered midi notes in real time. Think of it like autotune but you can exactly control which notes your vocals will hit.
I āsingā into my OT quite a bit. This one is all vocals, done live in OT and recorded two channels into Logic. Used Logic for additional compression/leveling, but no effects after the fact.
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