I've been looking for a good single-rackspace vocal preamp/MFX for a while now. Something to handle vocals for practice, but good enough to gig with too. So I wouldn't have to haul out the whole mixing desk for practice, or leave it set up and then have to pack it for gigs.
Ideally I was looking for one of the TC Electronic units, but when a Digitech Vocalist Live Pro (basically a Live 5 in a rack) popped up on Gumtree at a good price, I figured I'd jump on it.
A quick scroll through the presets was surprising - there are some gimmicky patches, but on the whole, the quality and usability of the presets was quite good. Fairly natural sounding harmonies with minimal "chipmunks & demons", a full house of the basic channel processing (low cut filter, de-esser, compressor, "tube" drive, EQ) and some advanced FX (pitch correction, modulation, "persona" [a.k.a. formant modelling], parametric filter.
Up to four harmony voices, which can be set to the usual intervals and can follow preset keys or identify and follow chords from either guitar or MIDI input. The guitar tracking is surprisingly good - I was worried that my tendency to play syncopated bass lines and chords would confuse the detection, but my fears were groundless. Furthermore the advanced features on each voice (delay, inflection, formant, detune, etc.) are numerous and impressive, allowing for programming some surprisingly natural harmony ensembles.
One area where Digitech have really screwed the pooch is in a software editor ...there is none. There's a patch librarian for backup and patch organisation, but no editor. This alone gives the lie to the "Pro" moniker and ensures that I will still upgrade to a TC unit in the future.
Overall though, a great unit that (surprisingly) makes even me (with my somewhat unreliable voice) want to try singing more.
