DigiTech Vocalist Live 4 Harmony-Effects Processor Review

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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 is a three- or four-part vocal harmony generating floor pedal, that uses musIQ Harmony Technology for both note detection and harmony generation. The unit analyzes guitar chord progressions in real-time an. Buy DigiTech Vocalist Live 4 Harmonizer Vocal Processor now!... Buy DigiTech Vocalist Live 4 Harmonizer Vocal Processor now!

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Korg KP3 Kaoss Pad Dynamic Effects Sampler Review

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(More customer reviews)first thing, i am no where near a pro with effects and recording equipment, that said, i have a long history with korg, and know from exp they make really good effects and at good prices. this machine is addictive. i want to let potential buyers know what you can do with the kaoss right out of the box, with about 20min w the manual. so it is basically an effects processer, instrument(drum machine and synth) and a sampler(w 4 banks a-d) i have a 400 disc player, and ran the rca through the korg line in, and line out into a 8 track digital recorder. and its just fun. i hit random play, and rarely get past the first 30 seconds of a song. the kaoss makes it very easy to sample any line in, and loops them, you can use up to 4 at a time,and you can save your fav samples on sd cards (2gb max,which you can buy on amazon for 7$,i like kingston) thats just the beginning, once you get a sample or samples, you have a hundred dif effects(phaser, grain,delays, re-verb common effects and sounds in the korg library) so you get a sample, you loop it back and you can manipulate it in a infinite number of ways. it also has bpm, a feature that syncs the beats in the machine to music from the line in, so it does the timing for you, and the beats loop in increments(4,8,16} the touch pad(which is huge) act as the knobs on effects and synths. so the clip its playing changes with every move of your finger. , every time you change the effect it opens a new world of the same sample.
now the drum machine and synth, there could have been more banks here and less effects, but some i imagine would say the opposite. i very much like that it loops seamlessly, and you can change the measures, but not as versatile as traditional drum machines. the touch pad responds very well, though when you tap faster as in a drum roll, it will hold up, but the sound is more in the held position anyway.and its somewhat user friendly, i say that cause i hate manuals, i just like to play, so i have figured out about 20% of this machine, and still i cant help to smile just looking at it. i have been looking into samplers for 15yrs and this is the least expensive, most fun, and easiest to use machine i have ever seen. . i, you can be silly, serious, either way it will impress(it will process anything w rca jacks, so there is no limit, there is allot of rhythm in the most common tv shows, radio programs, even the worst lp has sumthing sweet korg gives one year warranty,
update drum machine and synth work welly well w my microkorg, play one w your right and other with the left hand, ,my guitar through the mic input is really cool, you press hold on the effects, and you can change the sound completely after each riff, not so good w my bass, distorts at low levels

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Embraced by DJs, musicians, and producers alike, the Korg KP3 Kaoss Pad Dynamic Effects Sampler is intuitive, immediate, and just plain fun to use. By simply touching, tapping or sliding your finger over the touchpad, the Korg KP3 allows you to control multiple effects parameters and manipulate samples in real time. On stage or in the studio, these gestures and moves can become truly powerful and expressive performance elements.
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Electro-Harmonix V256 Vocoder with Reflex-Tune Review

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(More customer reviews)First of all, I bought this pedal only seeing one demo, and it was a short stupid video on youtube. wasn't very helpful. However,This was the best decision I have made in a long time. I'm not one of those people who reviews on a product and tries to find every little problem possibe. normally, if you have a bunch of negative feedback it means you dont know how to use it to the fullest. I have bought so many pedals off of bad reviews and made them do excellent things and people ask me how i did it... simple... I'm a musician not a critic.
ANYWAYS.... this pedal is awesome, the reflux tune, vocoder and instrumental controls are out of this world. the sounds are even better than the cheesy effects that play on the radio. It is awesome that the reflux tune offers all major and minor keys in the chromatic scale. You can choose how robotic the switch is between the notes and also choose how deep the glissando is between the notes. this thing has a mighty punch for its size. the vocoder is the best i've heard in a very long time. you can plug in your guitar or keyboard or whatever and control what notes come out of your voice, its super bad. and it also comes with a talkbox effect that sounds better than the original. you'll be sounding like peter frampton withing seconds. the multi-band vocoder is so much better than the microkorg synth or any other synth on the market. BOTTOM line....
IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A GOOD VOCODER, AUTO TUNE (reflux tune)A TALK BOX AND INSTRUMENTAL CONTROL CAPABILITY, AND ALL IN ONE PEDAL THIS IS IT!!! stop wasting your time searching the net and just buy this thing.
I found a bunch of cool settings for the different bands of the vocoder, so if you want some let me know


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Korg microKorg Analog Modeling Synthesizer with Vocoder Review

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(More customer reviews)The MicroKorg is probably the finest synth you'll ever get at that price. It's very small (same size as many of those toy keyboards you grew up as a kid, but this is no toy), and has 37 keys, although the big criticisms here is Korg opted for toy keyboard-sized keys, rather than full-sized keys (the similar sized and similarly priced Alesis Micron, also 37 keys, used full-sized keys). It's a four note polyphonic virtual analog synth capable of fantastic analog sounds, with all the great sounds of the '70s, '80s, and '90s! It's essentially a Korg MS-2000 in a small package, but with an 8-band vocoder (instead of 16-band), and a superior arpeggiator, great for all you electronica and techno buffs out there, or those who want to create Tangerine Dream-like rhythms without the bulky gear that group had to use back in the glory days of the mid '70s. I've been aware of vocoders for ages, and of course, was a huge trademark in Kraftwerk's sound (they started using vocoders starting with 1973's Ralf & Florian, which is one album prior to their famous breakthrough, Autobahn), I am so happy to now personally own a vocoder, that is, one included in a synth. It has a condensor microphone for use of a vocoder, although you can hook up any standard microphone too. Like most any synth made in the last 20-25 years, it's MIDI, so you can have it interact with other MIDI synths, drum machines, your computer, or any other MIDI device.
Although it comes with an AC adapter for home and studio use, you'll be happy that you can use 6 AA batteries, so you can bring it with you on your next camping adventure (plus it has a headphone jack too, since hooking it up to speakers might be a bit difficult in the Great Outdoors).
It's also fully programmable, you can alter the sounds already included, or you can erase one of the settings and start from scratch. I really love the features you can do here. You can have it polyphonic, or monophonic for use of soloing, or retro-'70s analog sounds. It has two oscillators, you have many different choices of waveforms. You can edit the arpeggiator so you can get it to do different rhythms (it can do up to a sequence of 8 notes). I also really like the delay feature, to get that echo sound when you release the note, it really gives it a fuller sound. You can get it to pan for that wonderful stereo effect, or select a phasor. You can even program it to have the pitch wheel and modulation wheel do things, such as altering pitch, the resonance, vibrato, etc. There'e two edit knobs, and five more knobs to help you with the programming. But I very much suggest you read the instruction manual, or you might have a hard time programming it. But once you get a hang of it, you'll have a ton of fun programming your own sounds and see what you can do. Despite the keys itself, it's actually a fully professional synthesizer.
The MicroKorg might be geared for the younger audience, thanks to its low price and many of the techno sounds it can do, but Jean Michel Jarre uses one and he's hardly young. Not to mention you can make it do a lot of non-techno sounds too, like classic '70s analog sounds, or '80s polyphonic synth sounds (like what you hear on Van Halen's "Jump") so it doesn't just appeal to the young segment.
It's great see many professional musicians using it from Jean Michel Jarre right down to Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran. I even saw a documentary directed by Hans Fjellestad called Moog, which was about Robert Moog and of Moog synthesizers, and they showed several techno/electronic groups where the main emphasis was on their Moog gear (naturally), but one group was clearly shown with a MicroKorg.
This is no 88 key workstation, that's for sure. In some cases that's a good thing, especially if you like in a small apartment and you're concerned about space, but for such a small synth, I am completely blown away at what this can do. You really need to try and buy this synth, you won't be disappointed!

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