TC-Helicon VoicePrism, User Manual

VoicePrism User Manual

Smooth Scale

Scalic harmonies require key and scale information to be input at the beginning of

the song in order to create harmonies. Western songs are usually crafted around a

single scale, which is completely described by its key ( “A”) and the scale (“minor”).

You can customize your scale to create different harmony notes for each input note

using the 

SETUP

menu. 

SMOOTH SCALE

is so named because it allows harmony notes to

follow “in between” bends through semitones, creating a natural, Blues-style deliv-

ery.

This is the harmony mode where VoicePrism will make you shine, but a bit of effort

is required to pick out the correct key and scale.  

Step Scale

The harmonies are based on key and scale, same as 

SMOOTH SCALE

, but are pitch cor-

rected. Instead of gliding gradually from note to note, as in 

SMOOTH SCALE

, the harmony

voices will move to the next correct note based on the pitch of the lead voice. This

means your harmony voices will always be on pitch, even when your lead voice is

between semitones.

Provides pitch-corrected scalic harmonies.

Notes/Manual

Harmony pitches are determined by incoming MIDI notes. You can sing or talk, and

as long as a MIDI note is held down, your vocal will be mimicked, pitched at those

notes. 

NOTES

mode allows you to be very creative at producing harmonies. Harmony

voices can change pitches while you sing a held note or vice versa. You can also sing

an ascending arpeggio with harmonies descending. You can make the harmony

voices sound more natural by adjusting 

ATTACK

, 

RELEASE

and 

VELOCITY

in the 

SETUP

menu. For details on how to set up MIDI channels, do MIDI dumps and so on, read
the 

UTILITY

section or press the 

UTILITY

button and toggle to the MIDI menu tabs.

MIDI CC’s are listed in Appendix B: MIDI.

Creates harmonies based on a single MIDI channel.

Notes/Manual 4CH

Each harmony voice is controlled by a single note on a single MIDI channel. A varia-

tion of 

NOTES

mode, 

NOTES

 4

CH

overcomes the automatic voice allocation that causes

panned voices to jump back and forth in the stereo field when playing chords. When

you want ultimate control of your harmonies to weave melodies and counter-

melodies around your lead voice, this is the harmony mode of choice. For 4 channel
mode, VoicePrism uses your selected input MIDI channel (

UTILITY

button, 

MIDI

menu) and the next 3 consecutive channels, wrapping at 16.  For example, if your

selected channel is 15, then in 4 channel mode it will use channels 15, 16, 1, 2. Be

cautious; dedicated MIDI channels, like channel 10 for drums, can be inadvertently

assigned as a harmony voice channel if you select 7, 8, 9 or 10 as your MIDI input

channel. 

Gives each harmony voice a separate channel for MIDI control.

14

Key Point:

if you don’t find that the scales we have cre-

ated fit your needs, you can create your own

custom scales on the vocal setup page.

Vocals: Smooth Scale, Step Scale, Notes, Notes 4CH