Topic: need help!! i cant get the voice live rack harmonies to work for me

i need major help, i just brought my VLR and when i use harmony, i sound like a robot. i dont play any instruments so i dont have that for help. my microphone plugs str8 into my VLR and the VLR goes into my avid m box running protools, is there any way to get the VLR to read the audio from protools so maybe it can put the harmonies of VLR on key of me,
i brought this to help me with harmonies cause i have lil knowledge  on how to find them,, any ideas on the best ways to reach this goal with the VLR

Last edited by c10bmd (2012-04-04 04:37:20)

Re: need help!! i cant get the voice live rack harmonies to work for me

Hi c10bmd,

Can you clarify "sound like a robot"? Are you sounding Auto-Tuned or are the harmonies in the wrong key or droning?

To answer your question, yes you can send a guitar/keyboard audio track into the Guitar IN on the rack to guide the Key/Scale for the harmonies. Just make sure you turn the guitar level to OFF in the mix so it doesn't get mixed in with the vocals. Then just return the stereo processed vocal track to your DAW. You may want to turn LEAD MUTE ON, so you can have harmony/effects with no lead vocal. That way, you preserve your lead and have a separate track with the Harmonies on it. Mixing is easier that way.

Alternatively, you can drive the harmony Key/Scale with MIDI.

Cheers,
Craig

Re: need help!! i cant get the voice live rack harmonies to work for me

thanx for getting back to me fast,  im not using any autotune, the lead was on so ima try an turn it off in see what that will do..and when u say "send a guitar/keyboard audio track into the Guitar IN on the rack to guide the Key/Scale for the harmonies"

i not following cause im alil slow lol!! but i dont have anything separat  from whats plays in protools,, now what i was thinking is that i can in run a cable from the output of the mbox back into theVLR, do you think that will work even tho the VLR is already going into my mbox, ???? unless that was what you were trying to say anyway lol, , ima try it all n let you know how it works out,

Last edited by c10bmd (2012-04-05 07:47:27)

Re: need help!! i cant get the voice live rack harmonies to work for me

i turned off the lead and did the other things i said, but it still sound real distorted n just give a crazy sound,  even with no harmony just pitch its still distorted,, i have a $1000 mic that i brought for the quality n clarity but when it goes thru the voice live rack all that goes away,, is it because my mic have its own phantom power supply? do i need to turn phantom power on, on the VLR?, im lost,  i really want this product to work

Re: need help!! i cant get the voice live rack harmonies to work for me

Hi c10bmd,

Hmm is the input clipping? You'd see CLIP on the far right of the little bar that shows your input level on the screen.

If your mic has phantom power already, you won't need to turn it on in the Rack.

The "guide track" I was referring to is any guitar or chorded instrument track that you have in your Pro-Tools session. You can have the Rack listen to the chords and figure out the Key and Scale for the song automatically. You'd need to go into Setup/System and turn Global Natural Play to Auto Input Sense or Guitar for that to happen.

So, yes you would have the track coming from your interface, into the VLRack and then back to the interface. If you turn Guitar down to OFF in the mix screen, it will still listen to the chords for Key/Scale, but it won't send anything back via the main output of the Rack.

-Craig

Re: need help!! i cant get the voice live rack harmonies to work for me

sometime i see the clip icon, but most of the time i dont..
Thats the way i has the inputs set-up, and had the guitar turn down, but i still get the wired fuzzy sound,, anyway we can skype or something so u can hear it?

Re: need help!! i cant get the voice live rack harmonies to work for me

Hey c10bmd,
A few questions....

- Does the mic sound OK when plugged directly into the MBox?
- While you don't get the clip icon on the VLR, is the MBox possibly showing a clip light when the using the VLR, which might indicate the MBox input signal is too strong?
- Does your model of MBox have input switches for Line/DI and if so how are they set? Are you use the line inputs or mic on the MBox?
- Does the bad sound happen with any selected preset on the VLR?
- Do you have a set of headphones you can plug into the VLR and see if you get clear sound that way?
- You had mentioned the mic having it's own phantom power. What brand and model of mic do you have?

Last edited by Mark48 (2012-04-06 12:26:39)

Re: need help!! i cant get the voice live rack harmonies to work for me

Hi c10bmd,

Definitely record it and post a link here, so I can listen to it and play it for the engineers.

Cheers,
Craig