digitech vocalist ex

[jaeden]

anyone care to dump their opinions on me about the digitech workstaion ex? Fire away.

[Buck62]

Nice unit.

Wanna buy mine?

$300 (includes shipping)

Like new in the original box and packing.

My price beats any one of them you'll see on ebay by a mile.

[jeff0633]

Originally posted by jaeden
anyone care to dump their opinions on me about the digitech workstaion ex? Fire away.

I use it on stage with midi backing tracks, and I love it. It doesn't sound as good for recording, however.

Jeff

[jaeden]

jeff, when recording, did it sound too robot like?

[mikeh]

Any harnomy process will have some mechanical tones - even the most expensive device like a TC Electronics (I know I have one in additional to a Digitech).

I find that if I have the "real" lead vocal and add one "real"
harmony (whichever harmony is the most important) then the machine can fill in the rest with a degree of realism.

However, if you hope to depend on the machine to be a magic backup group, you'll be less than satisfied.

By the way, having owned both, I'm not convinced the TC is that much better than the Digitech as a "realistic" harmonizer - however the mic pre, reverb & compression do add to the value of the TC.

[mrx]

What about pitch correction and the ability to change the 'character' of the vocal? In a prior thread there seemed to be a feeling that places like TC vastly exaggerate the capabilities of these things. I have the original Digitech from ten years ago and it almost seems like the technology hasn't improved.

(I've used the Antares plug-in on recordings of a great vocalist and it makes a difference, but when applied to my bad singing it really doesn't help.)

[MISTERQCUE]

Originally posted by mrx
.

(I've used the Antares plug-in on recordings of a great vocalist and it makes a difference, but when applied to my bad singing it really doesn't help.)

The same thing with the TC! It did nuthin' in the area of pitch correction. I bought mine from Sam Ash and then ret'd it the following week!

[mrx]

I can't figure out the appeal of the TC - the Antares AVP-1 is under 400 bucks and includes pitch correction, eq, compression, mic modelling, etc.

I suspect these things work if you take the time to tweak settings. I still remember a guy getting incredible harmonies out of the original digitech, and he said he had to change every parameter to get it to work for him.

[mikeh]

I've been let down by the TC I own (in particular given the $900 price tag) While I am getting better tone than I did at first - it takes a lot of effort. Don't believe the claims that you can solo a channel and not tell that it's a machine.

Things like oohs & aahs work good, but articulation gets muddy - I don't know about the Antares (never tried one) but I agree that the technology hasn't improved that much.

I had the original desk top Digitech (got rid of it cause the realism wasn't there) later bought the Digitech EX - didn't think it was much better (I keep it around as an extra reverb unit) and I recently tried yet again with the TC-Helicon - and the realism ain't much better than the Digitech tabletop from 10 plus years ago.

It would seem the human voice is too much of an instrument to try to synthetically reproduce.

[mrx]

Originally posted by mikeh
I've been let down by the TC I own (in particular given the $900 price tag) - and the realism ain't much better than the Digitech tabletop from 10 plus years ago.

Are you mostly using it for harmonies, or for 'correcting' a lead vocal?

I'm parting ways with my vocalist, which is forcing me to 'sing' again in order to hook up with someone new (would be nice to say I can sing background, etc.) I need something (anything!) that will act as a confidence boost - any correction would be a bonus. Anderton reviewed the Antares and felt that the 'channel strip' effects (compression, EQ,mic sim, etc.) made his source vocal 'feel' so much better that it helped his performance.

[mikeh]

I use it almost entirely for harmonies (in particular high ones I can't hit or difficult ones (lots of 1/2 steps - using MIDI control).

My unit does not have auto tune - candidly, I've not heard an auto tune that did not seem fairly obvious.

I've tried to use the TC unit to "change" my lead vocal, using the modeling options, but I just can't solo the damn thing and not hear the processing.

I find if I use a harmonizer on only a couple of harmony voices and mix that with the lead vocal and maybe one other "real harmony" I can get good effect - but this is one of those piece of gear that requires very subtle use - a little goes a long way.