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JeffTadashi « For keyboardists who sing only »
Published on 06/11/12 at 08:18The TC Helicon Harmony-M is an interesting product if you happen to sing and play keyboards. It allows you to add vocal harmonies to your voice, depending on what chords you play with the keyboard, and what mode/preset you currently have selected. It features a midi input, mic input, footswitch port, and a stereo output. It has a mic input gain control with clip indicator, which is essential for setting the gain correct, in order for the harmonies to properly process. It has 20 total preset slots (10 banks, 2 a/b presets per bank), and master tone, humanize, fx, and harmony controls.
UTILIZATION
One of my biggest problems with this unit, is simply the cable format of the output. The input is an unbalanced, low-z microphone input via xlr, but the output is stereo trs, higher z, line level. This makes it nearly inpossible to simply intercept a xlr microphone cable with the device. Instead, I had to also use this pedal with a direct box, in order to convert the signal properly back to microphone level; even though the output of the device is technically balanced, the volume is way too loud to be used as a mic signal. I don't think the other TC Helicon products have this problem. Notably, the Harmony G has xlr inputs and outputs. Perhaps they simply ran out of room.
SOUND QUALITY
The harmonies sound amazingly realistic, but they aren't fine-controllable like they are on the Voicelive 2. I tend to sing in a brighter, higher voice, and the harmonies that are high, higher, and octave up, tend to sound pretty good for me. The harmonies that are low, lower, and octave down, sound too bassy, too male, for my genre, but they woulds sound good in more classic rock genres. In the Voicelive 2, the timbre of the voice is more customizable, and I was able to produce low harmonies on that device that sounded better for my purposes.
OVERALL OPINION
Overall, the TC Helicon Harmony-M is a useful product for a very specific audience. I personally can't imagine how many keyboardists/vocalists are out there that could use this, compared to their more popular products that work with guitar inputs. But it is a great product nonetheless, especially if you are in a band full of non-singers. Enjoy!
UTILIZATION
One of my biggest problems with this unit, is simply the cable format of the output. The input is an unbalanced, low-z microphone input via xlr, but the output is stereo trs, higher z, line level. This makes it nearly inpossible to simply intercept a xlr microphone cable with the device. Instead, I had to also use this pedal with a direct box, in order to convert the signal properly back to microphone level; even though the output of the device is technically balanced, the volume is way too loud to be used as a mic signal. I don't think the other TC Helicon products have this problem. Notably, the Harmony G has xlr inputs and outputs. Perhaps they simply ran out of room.
SOUND QUALITY
The harmonies sound amazingly realistic, but they aren't fine-controllable like they are on the Voicelive 2. I tend to sing in a brighter, higher voice, and the harmonies that are high, higher, and octave up, tend to sound pretty good for me. The harmonies that are low, lower, and octave down, sound too bassy, too male, for my genre, but they woulds sound good in more classic rock genres. In the Voicelive 2, the timbre of the voice is more customizable, and I was able to produce low harmonies on that device that sounded better for my purposes.
OVERALL OPINION
Overall, the TC Helicon Harmony-M is a useful product for a very specific audience. I personally can't imagine how many keyboardists/vocalists are out there that could use this, compared to their more popular products that work with guitar inputs. But it is a great product nonetheless, especially if you are in a band full of non-singers. Enjoy!