Friday, September 4, 2015

Silas, How DO You Sound SO Butch On-Stage

After you get to performing online, you're probably pleased if you're just starting that you have a live mike for vocal and maybe a second one for your guitar.  This is all very good as you get those mikes balanced and you're ready to play.

The above is for the total purist but there's one tiny detail about total purists:  there are none online.  A large number of the 'acoustic' guitars use an electric pickup but a purist would never permit anything to modify the resonance of the guitar.  Adding a pickup will slightly stiffen the soundboard and it will have wiring inside which may affect air motion and wave propagation inside the guitar.  There will also be at least one plug on the side of the guitar for the cable which will further stiffen the body.  Ultimate purity is Segovia playing under a tree in a park.  That's a beautiful thing but it will never happen online.

Note:  it wasn't in a park but I have heard him play up-close.  Eternal thanks to my ol' Dad for that treat.

Note 2:  I paid him back.  I took him to a stadium-size Rolling Stones concert when he was sixty or so.  He loved Keith Richards.


There are additions you can make to your kit which take minimal technical expertise and not so much money.  One of these is the Digitech Vocalist LiveFX.  It doesn't cost much or there's no chance I would have one.  The connection is easy as your XLR plug from the mike goes into the Vocalist and another XLR cable goes out from the unit to the mixer.

There is button-pushing in using it but so it goes.  The buttons offer an impressive array of effects from reverb through digital harmonization.  Select various combinations to give your voice the touch that gives the reality to it that miking it took away.  For basic enhancement like that you will most likely want a bit of reverb and some compression as this will give a little more beef and a bit more depth.

The other extreme is to go full pitch shift and make yourself Barry White.  Drop your voice an octave, why not.  Add in some echo and be God again, just like Orange Sunshine.


Summary is this type of enhancement is not expensive and is not difficult to use.  It's appropriate for anyone who wishes to sing but also serves usefully for poetic reading as you can go full-out Burrrrrton with one of these.  Richard Burton asks if you can read as well as a Welshman.  Well, can you.  Can you, punk?

Many times we don't know our own voices.  We know what we sound like but often there is not as much control as we would like.  A device of this nature may be helpful for performance for more than the effect insofar as it gives confidence in how your voice will sound and you will be more comfortable stepping into it.  The stage is going home, it's everything else which is an act.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So then shooting heroin is a useful effect since it boosts my confidence to play well or be more creative
If you need an effect to increase your confidence then maybe they should change what they do.
If you cant read it like a welshman maybe the reading shouls be left to the welshman