Guitar Gear

For the past several years, I’ve had some sort of vocal/harmony processor in my solo acoustic rig. Some were all-in-one units that combined vocal processing along with guitar effects (DigiTech Vocalist Live, TC Helicon VoiceLive Play Acoustic and GTX). Others were focused mainly on vocals with limited guitar processing such as my trusty TC Helicon Harmony G XT. All in all, a vocal processor/harmonizer has become an invaluable component in my solo acoustic rig.

But like any gear that gets used often, it eventually wears out. I’m actually surprised my Harmony G XT lasted over 6 years because these units while they certainly look and feel as if they’ll last a long time, they just don’t stand the rigors of regular gigging, with some units like the VoiceLive Play units not lasting more than a year. Granted, I gig far less now than I used to, so chances are that the unit I eventually will get should last a bit longer. Let’s hope.

So I’ve boiled my search down to two units: The BOSS VE-8 Acoustic Singer and the TC Helicon VoiceLive 3. Both offer similar features, and from what I can tell, the sound quality of both units is pretty similar, though I do give an edge to the TC Helicon. But admittedly that could be bias since I’ve been using TC Helicon units for so long.

I’m kind of agonizing over which unit to get. All things being equal, I’d probably get the VE-8 because it’s less than half the price of the VoiceLive 3. BUT the big mark against it is complexity of the unit. You can set all sorts of stuff on the pedal, but to get to them and set them, you have to do a lot of knob and button twiddling.

Plus, there’s so much packed into the unit, it seems you have to have the manual handy; unless, of course, all you do is tweak it constantly and memorize everything. Um…. NOT! Clearly this is a unit where it’s best to preset everything you need for a gig then make adjustments in between gigs or on long breaks. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I’ve usually found that kind of stuff fairly tedious. On the other hand, at $299, damn! That’s VERY approachable.

In contrast, in typical TC Helicon style, the VoiceLive 3 is set up to make setting parameters incredibly easy. From what I can tell, you can set everything from the foot switches entirely, making it so much easier to use than the VE-8. That has always been a hallmark of TC. It’s clear they put a lot into their user interfaces to ensure unparalleled ease of use.

On top of that, based on past experience, the TC Helicon harmony algorithm is incredibly natural-sounding and very fast, with no detectable lag. It’s actually pretty amazing. I’ve purchased and demoed five different TC Helicon units over the years, and have always loved how good the harmonies sound.

But the high-quality voices and ease of use of TC Helicon units are much more expensive than the competition. In fact, the VoiceLive 3 Extreme, which seems to be the one that all the distributors carry instead of the regular unit is over twice the price of the VE-8. Furthermore, the VoiceLive 3 has been plagued with reliability issues since its release.

But to be fair, from what I’ve been able to find out through research is that these problems are easily addressable and don’t require spending money on repair, though you will have to get electrical contact spray and a star Allen bit. I have both, so no expense for me. The problem stems from dust build-up and metal shavings from the switches themselves and from the internal Micro SD card either coming loose or collecting dust in the mount. Yes, it’s a bit of a pain, but the fact that the known issues are addressable makes the reliability issues less of a deterrent.

So I’ve got my work cut out for me in figuring out which one to get. I’m leaning heavily towards the VoiceLive 3 because frankly, ease of use is very important to me. But the big factor is simply this: Am I willing to pay over twice as much for that? It certainly does give me pause.