• Registered: 2012-08-15
  • Posts: 8

Topic: Is there a Comperative Review?..TC Helicon VoiceLive Play VS Boss VE20

Hello all....

I am considering buying VoiceLive Play (the blue one), and I am having trouble choosing between this unit and boss ve-20.

I have googled, and I have read dozens of forums were the arguement Tc Hel. VS Boss arises, but unfortunatelly almost everybody compares boss ve20 with tc helicon voice  live 2 .

In my opinion VL2 is a completely diffrent category of an effect/pedalboard. This is absolutely clear when it comes to the price (it costs at least twice as much), and then VL2 is the same category as digitech's vocalist live series, which is pedalboards /harmonisers for singers/guitarists.

Now I know that even if you are "simply" singing, you might get to convince your guitarist to pass his guitar through your pedal, in order to give you the right harmonies and all, but the main reason for buing a VOCAL processor, is NOT the harmoniser.  Harmonizer is just ONE effect out of dozens that there are out there. (I mean just check out boss guitar pedals.... most of them do NOT harmonize).

I know that usually vocalists make good use of 3 effects, reverb,delay and harmonize... and all of them in moderation. Well there is auto-tune now after the Cher thing, but its a pop thing, and a bad taste as well to my humble opinion,  and clearly  I am not a pop singer.

But I am interested in other more dramatical and spacey effects, that usually fo not get picked by vocalists.
Effects that would pretty much "devocalise" your voice.


So anyway, looking in VOCAL PROCESSORS ALONE, I think the market has 3 options. Obviously TC Helicon's VL Play,  Boss VE 20 (and 5 but thats the same thing in a diffrent box) and Digitech vocal 300 (which HAS an expression pedal, but doesnt have a looper which is a major turn-off for me. And anyway I never got to find a descent demo-promo video for this product, so I guess its own company does not believe in it).


So back to the basic Q.... When it comes to VLPlay and VE20 which have similar prices, and -I think- similar features,  is there a serious comperative study?

Have you used both of them?  I know that in US (you lucky people) you get to RENT pedals for a few days and check em out. Would love to have that service over here as well, but UNFORTUNATELY even the official dealers of the manufacturers DO NOT have a proper showroom where they actually display all the equipment they are selling.

(TC Helicon people, do you copy that?  I live in Athens-Greece, and when I went -yesterday- to your official dealer, ALL the TC pedals where shown to me IN THEIR FREAKING BOXES. I thought, if I wanna see a PICTURE of the product, I ve got internet man!   I insisted on listening to the sound of "Play" and they opened carefully-ceremonially a box of a new PLAY GTX (as they had run out of Play alltogether), after being somewhat annoyed about me seriously insisting on testing it, which of course they intend to sell to some poor kid, after having used it as a demo product.  Unfortunately dealers/importers of musical stuff in this country, do RETAIL sales as well, which is why we musicians never get proper services/prices at ALL. Thank God for online music store Thomann.de, he made them lower their INSANE prices a couple of years ago, as we were all buying online from Germany!)


Anyway, if only you TC Hel. people werent so marketing oriented, uploading 10 official videos and tutorials for your products, I wouldn't even think about buying one of your products (based on the behaviour of your official seller).  You do a great job promoting your stuff, well done.


So to close this long topic, has anybody used both the pedals? Has anyone actually LOOPED effectively and efficiently with live play?

What about expression pedal? Why TC doesnt incorporate expression pedals on its stuff? This seems way too odd to me...   Any ideas wellcome!

Thank you all!

  • From: Newmarket, Ontario
  • Registered: 2012-07-29
  • Posts: 308

Re: Is there a Comperative Review?..TC Helicon VoiceLive Play VS Boss VE20

I'm not sure about the price difference over there, but it's only $100 here between the Play and the Play GTX which makes it a no brainer.  Even without any guitar processing the GTX has a midi in (out/through would have been a nice touch) plus the instrument in and through.  Those two things alone are worth the extra money as they offer infinitely more options.  I've read through all your threads so I'll just answer what I can think of here.  I don't know how your rep couldn't figure out the looper without the switch 3 pedal. It's easy, but the switch 3 will give you a lot more control if looping is going to be a big part of what you do.  I haven't compared it to the boss unit, so I can't help you there.  As far as battery or mic stand mounting and all the other questions about firmware upgrades, all I can say is, you buy a product for what it does.  Don't expect a company to implement all your suggestions just because you bought the unit.  We are all using the thing differently and have different needs so we may agree on some feature changes/upgrades and not on others.  And don't expect TC-H to put in writing "don't buy any more of our current units, we have new models coming out in 18 months with more features, all companies make these announcements when they are ready, for 1000 reasons.  Getting back to the looper, if it's going to be an integral part of your show I'd make sure the maximum loop time is enough for you.

  • Registered: 2012-08-15
  • Posts: 8

Re: Is there a Comperative Review?..TC Helicon VoiceLive Play VS Boss VE20

Thank you litesnsirens for your answer. It has been compact and more or less answered a lot of stuff.   Well the diffrence here is 110euros, so quite a bit more compared to usdollar, but still i can understand how gtx is an interesting piece.

When it comes to companies, I understand how its not to their best interest stating when they will upgrade some of their product, -hence the tongue at the original post- nevertheless I feel they should at least state what the release date was. I think VL play was probably introduced around january 2012, which -in my mind- makes it a pretty new piece of equipment.

when it comes to loop time, I think 30 seconds is ok, (although I would love the overdubbing function AND my 30secondS)  anything longer would probably get messy and complicated, and I would have to do a lot of counting in my head to get it right.... but who knows... maybe a few months after using it, I will decide I am more of a minute-person....   Hopefully i will have figured a software path to go around it, by that time wink

Thank you again

  • From: Victoria, BC
  • Registered: 2011-07-25
  • Posts: 2,090

Re: Is there a Comperative Review?..TC Helicon VoiceLive Play VS Boss VE20

Heya asgartha,

We try our best to be responsive to suggestions that customers make and I'm sure some of the forum users can attest to my ongoing quest to implement whatever we can.

To speak to the comparison and be totally honest with you, it's something WE wonder as well.

From the company standpoint, we know that Boss sells a ton of VE-20's. We're selling a large number of Play/Play GTX and getting really good response from the people who are using them.

The real question for us is: Do people buy the VE-20 because they actually prefer what is has to offer or is it just because Boss is such a well known name?

I'm obviously biased toward TC-H, but when I look at the number of effects we offer, the instrument controlled harmony, user programmable presets, factory presets, large screen to edit on, and other stuff, I think we have the superior product.

With all that said, I would rather you have the unit that suits you the best, even if that's not from us. Your best bet is to try and find a way to use them both. If your dealer has even a 7 day return policy, buy them both and compare side-by-side. Then, keep the one you like the best and return the other!

Cheers,
Craig

Craig @ TC-Helicon's Website