"Sugaree" - Boss VE-20 Vocal Processor Demo

[Blooby]

To help flesh out our live recordings, and perhaps more importantly, to cure my bout of G.A.S., I eradicated my tax refund with some musical goodies. I thought the Boss unit might be of interest to some of you who play live.

First impression, it has some nice basic presets for singing.  Plug a mic in, dial up phantom power (if applicable), turn a knob, and you're off to the races. It has some special effects such as a radio voice, a bullet mic simulation, a looper, and a pitch correction tool (don't know how well it works).  The reason I got it, though, was for three part harmonies.  At first, I thought the thing was worthless, and then I realized that I sing so poorly, no technology would ever help me. I am lending it to the singer in MoO, so he can opine with some semblance of authority.  

Any-hoo, you can control levels of the two harmonies, pan, gender (too extreme at most settings), and interval of each "voice."  I believe the choices are minus a 5th, minus a 4th, minus a third, unison, plus a third, plus a fourth, and plus a fifth.  It may do octaves as well, but I can't remember.

I quickly threw down this version of the Grateful Dead's "Sugaree" to try out the device.  The guitars and bass went down on three successive passes without much thought (I punched in the rhythm guitar at one point where I missed a chord change at the chorus). I admit to liking the looseness of the music and the bass...that is until the singing rears its head.

With regard to the background vocals, I originally did each pass of the chorus with a different harmony setting, but two of them just didn't sound appropriate.  I realized this after all the equipment was away, so I cheated and just cut and paste the background singing from one chorus to the two others.  I believe the setting was unison for the first voice and up a fifth for the second voice.

I attached the VE-20 brochure at the bottom of the post, and a version of the way the song is supposed to sound is in the video.

Peace.

Blooby


If the player doesn't work, downloading the tune should.  And if the singing is killing you, the first example of the harmonies are around 1:15 at the first chorus.

Time:

0:00

Volume:

50

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 Stop   Play   Pause   Vol   Vol   Mute   Repeat   Download

And since I buried my vocals in the mix (I couldn't make my hand move the fader any higher), here are some of the indecipherable lyrics.  I left out a couple verses.

"Sugaree" by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter

When they come to take you down
When they bring that wagon 'round
When they come to call on you
And drag your poor body down

Just one thing I ask of you, just one thing for me
Please forget you knew my name, my darling Sugaree
Shake it, shake it Sugaree, just don't tell them that you know me
Shake it, shake it Sugaree, just don't tell them that you know me

Well shake it up now Sugaree
I'll meet you at the jubilee
And if that jubilee it don't come
I guess I'll meet you on the run

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNvitc9ssaY

[launched]

Well I'll be dipped in elephant shit. You put together quite a package here. I still don't understand your reluctance to sing, because you have done very well in this performance. I loved it.

That VE-20 is a great unit, though. I've read some reviews. For now I'll have to do it the old fashioned way, but I'd love to have one of those!

Great job with this, bro - You sell yourself short!

Mark

[lg]

What a cool piece of machinery!
And, your vox isn't that bad as you say!!!!
Only practice.
Nice cover, by the way.

LG

[Oldrottenhead]

gaun yersel blooby.

[Bluesberry]

"Well I'll be dipped in elephant shit."  I second that, holy shite Bloob, this sounds deadly.  You are far too self critical.  This was just "thrown together", shite brother, its sounds deadly.  This sounds like a very usefull and good unit.  I have the TC Helicon Harmony-G, but if this unit was available last year, I just may have gotten this instead.  I don't use mine all that much (stupid GAS purchase too on my part), but when I want harmonies in my songs, these units are hard to beat.  It looks like you don't have to run your guitar through this unit.  The Harmony-G needs a guitar input to make the harmonies work.

[Satchwood]

Cool device and of course great guitar work!!  But wow, Blooby sings ~ very cool ~ keep it up, i think you got a great voice!  You just need to get more comfortable with using it
... believe me i know.....

[Blooby]

Thank you very much for the encouragement, all of you, but I still hate my voice.

I hate it! I hate it! I hate it!

Pffffftttttt!

So there.

Blooby

[Tony W]

Thank you very much for the encouragement, all of you, but I still hate my voice.

I hate it! I hate it! I hate it!

Pffffftttttt!

So there.

Blooby

Who doesn't?

I swore I left a comment on this yesterday. Your self deprecating sense of humor kills me. It would be a lot less funny if you weren't so damn talented though.

Mark said it, great package, and fantastic introduction to the product. I'm in love with it. You are a marketing genius, now people the world over are salivating with GAS.

PS, that's a damn fine piece of music in my opinion.

[OsCKilO]

Blooby......

Why does everything you do have do be Awesome......?
Greedy Bugger........





The Vox is F*cking Superb bro!



I Have had this on loop four times now.....

The Playing and Performance demands repeat listens....








Peace

T (OsCKilO)

[Bluesberry]

Bring it back, blooby you sing well, sing brother, don't hold back.