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Vocal Pedals for added texture to your Vocals

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Pedals that help enrich your voice is a good thing when you are both the performer and sound engineer. Some music venues that you may play in either have superior or inferior sound systems so this type of pedal might be an easy way to balance out your sound pitch and tone. Some musicians, traditionalists and critics alike tend to view this as way of electronically doping your vocals. Either way this is a great asset to take advantage of as a way to polish up your vocal tone.

I’ve seen these things on web sites and in music stores in the past but I only found it as a passing fancy that didn’t keep my attention up. These were the first generation modules that appeared to be only gimmicks. The end result made your voice appear too digital and fake. Today’s voice pedals seem to be much more advanced in my ways.

The products out there now offer control of your pitch, warmth of tone and even have the capability to harmonize and remember phrasings in real time!

A couple of great guitar friends of mine named John Ball and Eddie Myers, both from Brantford, had guitar harmonizers. They sounded neat at fist listen to but the didn’t have a realistic colour to them. The harmonizing guitars that the pedals made developed a distant feel to them, as if they were on a separate track hidden in the background. We didn’t even think of putting a microphone through them at the time but the results would more then likely be the same.

Here is an example, from the company no less but I think you get a not bad overview of what can do, of the Correct and Create by TC Helicon are all programmable.

So you tell me, what do you think about it? Have you owned this or similar products like this and what were the pros and cons of them!

Check out the pricing on the links below

The TC Helicon Correct

The TC Helicon Create

Keep on Jammin’





Exceptional guitar pedal effects

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This next installment is about Bruce Cockburn’s guitar pedal effects he uses in his arsenal of sound! Most of these items would be a great present for the guitar player in your life. If it’s good enough for him, then it’s more then perfect for everyone else.

The Boss TU-2 tuner is perfect for tuning on stage where lighting maybe an issue. I never had one, but I’m sure it would be handy to use in these and other situations. Another excellent aspect that the TU-2 has going for it is that while tuning, you can turn off the sound going out. It has a large LCD display that is hard to miss. It’s also perfect for all those open tuning guitarist like myself. It displays to you the name of the note!

The Empress tremolo pedal appears to be a huge success with tons of on line guitarists. A vast majority of the guitarists give item a 9.5 – 10 out of every question asked. This is a well respected guitar forum. It great to see it have a built in boast to the signal because sometimes when you use a pedal like this, the signal tends to be lower coming out of the amp. There are way to many advantages to this pedal to put in this post. I’d probably put some readers here to sleep!

Boss DD-5 delay sounds like a dream to me! It is a BOSS pedal for God sakes! These things are made so tough that I remember one time driving over one with my parents car! I thought that was the end of it, but when I plugged it back it, it worked perfectly!

There is a feature on the DD-5 pedal called Tap Tempo. This is something that really grabs my attention. By tapping the pedal in the right mode, you can tell it when to start and stop the musical pattern that you wish to use. This comes in handy because not all of the parts of a song that you will be performing will be of equal length or note value. It can easily be used for that psychedelic or U2 effect that you might need. It’s essentially an echo effect on steroids!

The above item also has a great stereo effect, but I’ll stand behind my BOSS BF1 Flanger any day!

Next thing he uses is the Line6 MM4. This is a modulation effect pedal that literally make your head spin round and round! I think that this and the Boss CE-2 is the great sound effect pedal for those who are looking for a true chorus feel to add to their musical arsenal. The chorus effect on the Line6 MM4 is just one of a multitude of sounds that comes with this little devil. I goofed around with one at the 12th fret in Toronto and boy was it fun.

The Line6 DL4 is the 2nd last piece of equipment I found out that Bruce Cockburn uses. The reviews equate this bit of hardware to the Roland Space Echo. I’ve only seen one used by Scott Merritt and good God did that guy push it to the limits! The Line6 DL4 also has this weird effect called Reverse Delay? Your guess is as good as mine on that one but I bet it’s fun to good around with! Another good guy to ask about this one is Craig Peeler! Craig if your out there tell us what you think of it?

Now last but not least is the Rack mounted Lexicon Alex reverb. He depends on this one for tunes like Worlds of Wonders. This version is an acoustic version but the one that he plays with his band with is awesome! Holy SHIT that’s a master piece from the great Bruce Cockburn! I’m not all that familiar with rack mount units to be honest with you. I’ve watched people play through them and they looked really cool but do to the high costs of these things, I’ve always stayed away from them, do to the fact that I’ve been in the NSF crowd for a quite a while now. I guess I guy can dream now can’t he, that won’t cost me a cent!

So that’s it for the final installment of what Bruce Cockburn uses and I hope that I broadened your horizons of the topic of guitar foot pedals! So go forth and tell everyone you know about these marvelous inventions and …

Keep on Jammin’

The Tascam DR-07 recording tool that fits into your pocket

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The TASCAM DR-07 looks like a really neat way to have a very versatile and rather compact recording device that fits right into your pocket or backpack. It would be fabulous just to have something like this if your doing a simple acoustic jam with a buddy and all you want is to have a simple play back function to just review what you just played. This will help you find out what parts of a song to work on.

The thing that honestly caught my attention was the slow down function of this guitar recording device. This would work out nicely when your figuring out how to play a certain song that is being played. It would definitely work to your advantage if the song is being performed at maybe a little faster speed then your comfortable with?

It just came to my attention the other day while I was on line so I can’t vouch for it. I do have something similar to it, but it as some drawbacks to it that the DR-07 doesn’t.

This device is called the Ibanez Rock & Play RP2000. It is a hand held tape recorder that allows you to plug two guitars and it will allow you to play both the song on cassette tape and hear your guitar playing all at the same time through two separate headphones, if two players are using it.

The neat thing about the Rock & Play is that, similar to the DR-07, it allows you to slow down the song so it can help you pick out the parts of it that you need to work on, at your own pace that is. The major drawback with it is that you had to tune down your guitar strings to the NEW PITCH of the song. Imagine playing an old record and then you place your figure on it to slow it down. The song itself, or the pitch of the tune, would be a little different sounding then to what you are use to hearing.

Musicians will appreciate the playback functions of the DR-07, including the ability to loop MP3s and slow them down without changing the pitch.

The Tascam DR-07 is quite the versatile recording unit. It would be a real neat part of your bag of guitar accessories to say the least! If you happen to have one of these at your finger tips, then please tell us the pros and cons of this item in the comment section.

Keep on Jammin’

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