Worth the money
I use this live every week. Back in 2000 I bought the Digitech Vocalist, but after a year of trying everything possible to make it "good", I gave up, and 5 years later bought Voice Works.
Voice Works' harmonies are impressive at first, but I found that the more I looked at them with a critical eye, the more I realized that these harmonies could only be used sparingly.
I have spent many hours tweaking each parameter in Voice Works, and there are a lot of them. I've meticulously "A-B'd" different settings, and recorded everything, and listened back many times so as to really be able to hear what happens when different parameters are changed. After all that work (months of it) I came to conclusions as to which parameter settings sound best for me ... but still, it's not really a "panacea" for not having other live vocalists.
Nevertheless, I do use the harmonies on occasion every week, because it's a fun effect. But "effect" it is; it's still not good enough for me to really boast about (and I really wish I could boast about them!)
I'll mention that since I'm doing live work, I considered the footpedal version "Voice Live" or whatever -- my advice is to go with this one instead. For me, playing keys, I already don't have enough room for a big foot pedal box. My keyboard stand needs some room, too, as does my sustain pedal. Furthermore, with some reading and experimenting, I was able to configure 4 of my keyboard's faders to send out MIDI-cc messages to Voice Works, so I can control the MIDI volume of the 4 Voice Works voices -- live, dynamically, in real time. That's very nice!
Also, I configured a separate 3-switch foot switch to enable me to turn the harmonies on/off and to increment or decrement the Vocal Works patch number, so that I can program different patches with different harmony voices and switch them in real time. With this switching capability, it pretty-much makes "Voice Live" unnecessary, I feel.
Now, I will say that in spite of my being only partially thrilled with the harmonies, I still think that Voice Works is worth the money! I could have returned mine, but no way. Why? Because of 3 things:
1.) the preamp. What's the big deal about that? All I can say is that when I sing through Voice Works, even with no harmonies or doubling or special effects, the sound is significantly "warmer" than without it. In fact, it's beautiful.
2.) the voice-correction. My friends and wife are happy to remind me that my voice needs some tweaking (and some think seriously-so). Although I think their judgment is off-base, I'll say this: when I put on voice-correction (which itself has several tuneable parameters which I tweaked for weeks) it adds a "detuning" effect to my own voice which fattens it. Presumably, the Voice Works version of my voice is the accurate one and my real voice is the "detuned" version, I suppose. It's not quite like a guitar phaser, but has just a tinge of that quality -- but it is not "weird". I have sung through digital phasers and chorus units, and I know what they sound like. This is much more natural than that, and is not distracting. In fact, it gives my voice a more "studio" sound quality. It's great.
3.) the voice doubler -- I only use this on occassion, just like the harmony voices. I use it because I want to really kick through the clutter around me. And it does it. It's like having a superhuman voice that can mow down the "forest" of noise and audio competition around you. I wouldn't advise using it constantly, like any effect, but judiciously. It's another excellent weapon in the arsenal.
Also, by the way, I've experimented with using Voice Works as an effects-loop processor as well. It works OK, but to do this means you lose out on its preamp capability, which is only available if you plug the mic directly into it. Hey, buy this for yourself -- not for your band. Treat yourself good for once and plug your mic directly into it, which means you won't be sharing it with anyone else, and take some time to really experiment with it.
By the way... for keyboard players ... it's important to realize that you'll probably need to adjust your keyboard playing so as to make Voice Works sound right. Specifically, most keyboardists seem to practically STAND ON their sustain pedal. If you do this, you're gonna be sorry with Voice Works. You'll need to learn to release the sustain pedal each time you change chords -- because Voice Works bases its harmonies on the chords you are playing ... and if you have the sustain pedal down, even though the previous chord may have faded out from your hearing, it's still playing at an electronic (MIDI) level, and so that previous chord + the new chord will both be playing simultaneously as far as Voice Works' circuitry is concerned, so you'll get harmonies which are messed up -- they're based on both chords, and not on the chord that you "think" you are playing. Like I say, there's some work to do to make this thing sound best ... but it's worth it. If you only play "presets" on your keyboard (like as if it were a Casio), then this Voice Works' sound may suffer because you may be too lazy to dig into it to make it sound best! Having good vocals, however, is an investment which has potentially huge paybacks, so in my books, it's worth taking the time to really work on. Don't expect this thing to just be plug-and-play. You didn't learn to play your instrument by taking it out of the box and plugging it in, so don't be unrealistic in assessing the investment to make your vocals the best they can be.
Reviewed by Dave on 5/29/2007 who plays Praise & Worship.
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