Hi! Anyone tried any vocoder for backing vocals in Gig performer? Sounding as human as possible? What carrier to use? How do you configre the setup?
Could be so nice to have on a small separate keyboard!
Kr/ Olof
Are you looking for a vocoder or a harmonizer?
Hi! Yes Harmonizer is the thing! Any suggestions? Kr Olof
There are some solutions like iZotope or Waves.
But they all introduce latency which is not comfortable when playing live.
Better you use a hardware solution like TC Helicon.
2 Likes
As long as we’re spending someone else’s money, there’s the Eventide H9000 Harmonizer. One can be had for only $7,999. That’s a lot…or not much, depending on if you’re spending your money or his. 
Me? I’d look for the lowest latency software solution and add some delay and reverb, making the latency kind of disappear.
I use a hardware unit. Boss VE500. A couple hundred dollars. You can use midi for harmony key or it also has an audio input to sense the key. It will also do vocoder effects if you run your audio through it.
I’m pretty happy with it.
Boss also came out with another unit recently, that is a little less $, but I think it does pretty much the same, but not sure. I’m sure their website will have more info.
Antares has a “Harmony Engine” but it’s (a) quite expensive and (b) I don’t know what kind of licensing it requires and (c) I don’t know what kind of latency it incurs
Waves has one as well (Waves Harmony) but I have no idea how good it is (though I can find out)
Sadly, the licensing is quite inappropriate in that installs a whole webserver on your machine just to facilitate the licensing (CodeMeter - Wibu-Systems). I stopped using any Antares plugins for this very reason.
Regarding a good harmonizer, the best I’ve tried so far is Density by Sound Particles:
It’s currently on sale at 50% off!
I’ve checked regarding Waves Harmony, it has zero latency and it is based on the same engine used in Waves Tune Realtime which got high rating reviews.
There are lots of demos, reviews and an option for a trial license.
Yuk. No Antares for me!
1 Like
Sounds good. Do you use it with GP? How fast is it? How CPU hungry?
Can you feed it MIDI to control what harmony notes should be produced?
Not directly, but each harmony slot has exposed plugin parameters (relative pitch, no of voices and gain), so some scripting would make that possible, at least in terms of relative pitch.
I’ve just started testing with it in GP. It runs at zero samples of latency and only adds a couple of percentage points to the CPU load readings.
2 Likes
I own it, that was my final choice for an harmonizer.
One of the most important things in a vocal harmonizer, is the ability to modify the formant parameter. This parameter allows to reduce both Darth Vader and Mickey Mouse effects on the harmonized voices. Not all harmonizer have this parameter. Also, I noticed that it is easier to get a more natural result when the lead voice comes from a woman. If you are a baritone, like me, it is a bit more difficult to get a good result.
4 Likes
Thank you for all answers! I’ll Try waves and think I just blend it in very carefully beneath the rest of the real voices in the band. To support and fatten when needed. Could work? Kr Olof
While i cant vouch for realism, Reason Neptune is pretty fun and alows great midi control of harmonies.