Guitar Gear

I already wrote a quick review on this cool little box, but I thought I’d provide an update on the DigiTech Vocalist Live 4. Wow! What a tool! I’ve been playing around with it since I got it, and let me tell you, what it does is nothing short of amazing. Throw pretty much any chord at it – this includes “jazz” chords like half-dims, and it’ll create a harmony – ON THE FLY. What I didn’t go into with the last review were some of the features of the Vocalist. I’ll cover some highlights here.First off, it comes with 50 factory presets, but you can also save up to 50 user presets to customize harmony voicing (and several other parameters – 45 to be exact) to your liking. Editing is very easy. Select a preset number that you want, make your edits with a couple of button presses and knob turns, press “Store” and voila! You’ve got your own customized harmony!As far as it sounds, I created a quick recording of the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling.” Mind you, it’s not mastered, and I kind of screwed up the solo, but you’ll get an idea of the great harmony that this box creates.The Vocalist comes in two flavors: the 2 or the 4. The 2 can provide up to two harmony vocals, whereas the 4 can provide up to 4 harmony vocals (hence the numeric designations). In addition, the 4 can also act as a mixer, so if you’re a solo player with just a guitar and your voice, you can use the 4 as your mixer. It comes with line-outs so you can hook up a pair of speakers. Myself, I route the guitar signal to my pedal board so I can use my effects then into the mixing board, then output processed vocals directly to the mixing board. Any way you choose to do it, configuration is a snap.Here are some other highlights:

• Automatic pitch correction
• Built-in guitar tuner (I prefer my TU-2)
• Built-in mic pre-amp (so you can use a ribbon mic that needs a pre-amp)
• +48V phantom power
• Guitar ground-lift to eliminate hum
• 24-bit/44.1 kHz audio (very nice)

Whether you play solo or in a band, the DigiTech Vocalist Live (either the 2 or the 4) is in my opinion a must-have box that will add a lot of vocal texture to your sound.