This pedal will make a significant impact on the portion of your performance that many listeners notice the most – the vocals. Musicians tend to het focused on minute instrument adjustments, completely neglecting that a properly utilized harmonizer could improve their show way more than any tweak in the instrumental department.
Therefore, we’ve carefully sifted through all the products on the market to bring you our list of 4 best vocal harmonizer pedals:
TC Helicon Harmony Singer
The TC Helicon Harmony Singer is a very frequently used harmonizer; hence, it deserves an opening spot on the list. The pedal has it all – a compact package, top-notch sound for an intermediate user, quality sound output, fair versatility, and an affordable price.
The gizmo features a set of three control knobs – Vocal Harmony, Tone and Reverb – allowing you to change the type of harmony the device will deliver, along with a few tonal adjustments.
The Harmony Singer is capable of delivering up to two harmony voices, which can be automatically guided by your guitar via the In-Thru connection. This should be on any list of the best vocal harmonizer pedals.
TC Helicon VoiceTone Harmony-G XT
TC Helicon is a dominant company in the vocal harmonizer realm; hence, we decided to give a nod to the renowned manufacturing team with two items on the list. We’d said we’d offer you the crème de la crème, and if team Helicon has more than one representative then so be it.
Anyhow, in the high-end realm, one of the best selling items of its niche, and an incredibly budget-friendly device for such quality, we bring you the TC-Helicon VoiceTone Harmony-G XT vocal processor.
This pedal is packed with top-quality circuitry and incredible versatility. It does an amazing job both in the studio and onstage, utilizing the renowned NaturalPlay technology. It has the ability to “listen” to your guitar and create correctly harmonic parts, meaning that if you don’t want to spend too much time tweaking the processor. You can just plug it in and let the device to its thing on auto-pilot. It will never let you down.
As for the price, the VoiceTone is well worth it, but if you find a good deal online, you might be able to fetch this baby for even cheaper! This is easily one of the best vocal harmonizer pedals for your money.
Boss VE-2
The VE-2 vocal harmonist is a multi-effects pedal that will give you an incredible variety of ways to enhance your vocal performance. It gives your live sound the same professional quality you’d get in the recording studio, in a battery-powered, portable stompbox. The real-time vocal harmonizer can be set to get its pitch from the chords on an attached guitar, making it especially useful for self-accompanying vocalists. It also features real-time pitch correction, delay and reverb effects, and two dozen harmony types with both one- and two-voice options. The user-friendly interface is easy to use, even if you don’t have much effects pedal experience, and the three onboard memory slots let you save favorite settings for quick set-up or changes at a gig. All in all, this is one of the best vocal harmonizers period.
Boss VE-8 Acoustic Singer
Here’s one from Boss that’s a vocal harmonizer and then some. You can think of it as an all-in-one solution for any singer-songwriter, with all of the effects and tools you’ll need to make both your voice and your acoustic guitar sound their best.
Even just focusing on the harmony controls the VE-8 Acoustic Singer is a pretty impressive little unit. You can seamlessly harmonize in real time, either with your voice or with your guitar tone, with options for doubling and other more elaborate vocalization effects. There’s also a live pitch correction that sounds incredibly natural.
The Boss VE-8 can honestly take the place of pretty much all the equipment a gigging singer/songwriter needs. It includes mic preamps, both improving your tone and bringing your signal to line level for mixing. It also has built in chorus and loop effects, which are just as fully-customizable and easy to use as the harmonization. If you want the ultimate vocal effects unit, you want the Boss Acoustic Singer.
“So how does a vocal harmonizer work?”
To put it plain and simple, a vocal harmonizer takes the vocals you’re singing into the microphone, and raises or lowers the original pitch. While you’re singing, it simultaneously sends the pitch-altered version into the speakers. Essentially, vocal harmonizers provide you with backing vocals.
You can manually adjust the type or the pitch of backing vocals you want the pedal to provide you with. But some devices have a cool feature which allows them to “listen” to what you’re performing on your instrument at the moment and automatically provide you with the type of backing vocals you need at that specific time. This is a very cool feature typically associated with high-end items, so if you’re able to get your hands on one of these models, we say go for it.
“Do I need a vocal harmonizer?”
Much like with every effect pedal, it depends. If you don’t perform live often, the need for having a vocal harmonizer significantly drops, since you can sing a countless number of vocal lines yourself in the studio.
But if you are a live performer, then a different set of question arises. Do you perform on your own or with a band? If you’re on your own, you will definitely need the best vocal harmonizer pedal you can afford. Believe us when we say it, a proper pedal will boost your quality performance through the roof.
If you’re with a band, then it all depends on how well your bandmates can cover backing vocals. If they’re not too good, well, get a vocal harmonizer.
But even with a vocal harmonizer, you need to get your singing chops right, so get to practice!
Excellent overview, nicely done.