Top 9 Best Vocal Processors (May 2024)

The TC Electronics Singles VoiceTone E1 looks cool and is easy to use since it doesn’t have too many weird effects you won’t use anyway.

This is another one trick pony that basically only does different kinds of echoes and lets you change your tone and make it dry or wet. It’s good to have if you’re performing in a place with poor acoustics and you want it to sound as if you’re singing in a church.

The company which is TC Helicon generally need no introduction when it comes to discussing vocal effects technology, as they’ve been pioneering the industry since the early 2000’s when the company was initially founded. TC Helicon was recently acquired in 2015 by Music Tribe, who is the parent company of Behringer, Bugera, Midas, Turbosound & Klark Teknik.

None the less, in the 19 years that the business has been in operation, they’ve managed to produce several well-known effects units, including the VoiceTone series (which the E1 unit is part of), alongside other series such as the VoiceLive series. We’ve constructed our product review of the VoiceTone E1 in a way which not only talks about its unique features, but also includes high-quality images, demonstration videos and informational videos.

The right control knob is used to adjust the level of dry (raw input) and wet (echo) signal; Hence, turning this over to the left will provide less echo in the final mix, and turning it over to the right will provide more echo in the output mix. The middle control knob ‘Feedback’, controls the length of the echo repeats. The left control knob is used to select 1 of the 13 different delay styles, which include slapback/flutter echos, non-tempo matched echos, timed echos, special effects echos and much more.

The Voicetone E1 has an extremely useful feature where users can control the E1 directly from their microphone, which is called Mic Control™.

Finally, it has a large footswitch which is used to engage and disengage the unit’s effects, especially useful during a live performance, where you can engage and disengage the effects easily, without having to bend down. Therefore, if you’re looking for a unit which offers a lot of delay/echo styles and settings, the VoiceTone E1 is a fantastic solution for you. Lets not forget, as with all of TC Helicon’s products, the VoiceTone E1 comes with a 3-year warranty.

Controls

TC Helicon are known for producing easy to use products, and the Perform V does not disappoint in this area.

Let’s talk about the specific controls:

The unit has all of its main controls located on the front of the interface, making it easily accessible for vocalists during a performance.

On the left, we have the Double, Reverb and Echo buttons, which each provides 4 types of the effect. Not only this, but you can hold the buttons to do further editing to these default effects.

On the top, we have a ‘Set’ button, to engage automatic microphone input gain, allowing for a very easy mic setup. Additionally, there’s a ‘Tone’ button, which engages TC Helicon’s Adaptive Tone functionality, which essentially allows the unit to automate the use of EQ, Gating, Compression, and De-Essing based on your voice.

Next to the ‘Tone’ button, we have the ‘Anti-Feedback’ button, which as you can imagine, engages an algorithm to automatically prevent feedback from occurring. This is especially useful if you’re a solo performer and you have your speakers positioned behind where you’re singing from, which would usually cause feedback, but not with the Perform-V.

And then on the top right, there’s a ‘Pitch’ button, to engage auto-chromatic pitch correction, and a ’48v’ button, to activate phantom power, to power a condenser microphone.

On the right side of the TC Helicon Perform V interface, there are three buttons which can be used to assign your customized presets, which you can integrate from the TC Helicon Perform V mobile app (available for iOS and Android).

At the bottom, there is a ‘Talk’ button which disengages all effects, to allow for vocalists to speak to the crowd in-between songs, without any distracting vocal effects being heard.

Located on the back of the interface are all of the connectivity ports, including (from left to right), a power input jack, mini USB input for device updates, an auxiliary input, a port for an external pedal, and finally 1 x microphone XLR input & 1 x microphone XRL output port.

In addition, the Perform V can be used in a more, hands-off approach, with its ability to integrate with the TC Helicon MP-75 microphone or the MCA100 Mic Control Adapter, to convert any microphone. All of these solutions allow for external ‘Mic Control’, so you can roam around the stage whilst engaging and disengaging effects.

Also, there may be times when a hand-operated vocal effects unit is not ideal, i.e when you have an instrument in your hand, and because of this, you can add a ‘Switch-6‘ accessory foot pedal to let your feet take control instead.

Main Features

• Mic-mountable vocal processor
• TC Helicon App to program Perform V with new presets
• Hundreds of pre-made sounds to choose from
• Doesn’t require WIFI or Bluetooth
• Has 4 x Double, 4x Reverb, 4 x Echo types as default
• 3 customizable preset storage locations
• HIT function to build intensity in your performances
• Auto-chromatic pitch correction
• Adaptive Tone feature, for automated EQ, Compression, Gating & De-Essing
• Anti-feedback algorithm works in the background
• Has a built-in microphone
• Provides 48v phantom power
• Ability for remote control, using MP-75 & Switch-6 (explained below)
• Designed and built in Canada
• 3-year warranty program

Setbacks

• The unit features bright lights (behind the buttons), and although this increases the visibility, it also can be a little distracting at times if you have sensitive eyes… if only there was a dim button.
• Mic stand clip that comes with the unit is small and may be difficult to fit onto some microphone stands.

If you have no idea why anybody would want their voice to sound like a robot, or don’t get why you would want automatic harmonies added to your singing when you can just have a friend sing them, then this might be the vocal processor for you.

The quality seems to be decent, in the sense that it doesn’t seem to break down very easily, but there is one thing we’ve noticed in several reviews, and it is that the volume is unusually low, which can be devastating if you’re playing in a band and are trying to make yourself heard over electric guitars and drums. But if you are singing with acoustic guitars that aren’t that loud, it should work, or even if you’re two backup singers singing acapella.

A good thing about it is that you can attach it to your mic stand, which is very convenient.

As we mentioned previously, this vocal processor doesn’t offer any fun guitar effects, but it simply includes an equalizer and reverb plus volume control. It’s basically a mixer that you as a singer can control easily yourself.

The front panel functions as a three‑channel mixer and is dominated by a series of white back‑lit buttons, a master volume control and a data knob with indicator LEDs around it. If a channel does not have an input connected, its lights glow more dimly. The controls are used for setting levels, adjusting the reverb and tweaking the three‑band EQ, and the currently active level or EQ button shows blue so you always know what you are adjusting. The first two channels have mic/line inputs on ‘combi’ connectors, on which the use of a jack automatically switches the input to line sensitivity. Channel one’s jack input is also designed with a high impedance so that it can double as an instrument input.

Both of the mic inputs can have phantom power applied by means of a global switch on the rear panel, which also houses the two mic/line inputs, a thru XLR for channel two, and a main output that can be switched to carry the full mix (including the aux input and any added effects) or the output of channel one only. The PSU also connects here, and there’s a small power button along with a mini USB port, which is provided for firmware updates.

As expected, the sound quality doesn’t disappoint, with both clarity and level living up to expectations — in monitor applications you’ll run into feedback well before you run out of monitor level. If you overcook the input level, the Vocal Tone button will flash red as a warning. The reverbs sound pretty good (though you need to keep the level dialled back as it can quickly become excessive), and is also a useful EQ range. Switching in the Vocal Tone brightens up the sound in a pleasing way, and also scoops the mids slightly, but does also make feedback more likely.

Having reverb built into the monitor also helps and it means that you can use more of it if it helps you perform better without the reverb being sent on to the FOH system. TC are known for their high‑end reverb algorithms so it came as no surprise that these actually sound very good. It’s certainly good enough that you may choose to use the onboard reverb as your main vocal effect and then send the effected vocal to the FOH mixer. The Mic Control option is also very useful if you have a compatible microphone to allow remote effect switching, while the flexibility of signal routing also makes it possible to combine your own effected vocal with a monitor mix coming from the desk, so you can set up a ‘more me’ mix very easily.

The likes of DigiTech and TC Helicon have professional vocal processors that are aimed at singer/guitarists, and now Boss has got in on the act with the new VE-2, which can take an input from your electric guitar to control your harmonies – something that wasn’t available with its previous VE-20 and VE-5 models. Now, Boss is a company that needs no introductions when it comes to vocal harmonizer pedals, pedals or general music equipment. They’re famous for creating high-quality music equipment, which are designed and built to last for a lifetime.

Although Boss is under pressure by brands like TC Helicon when it comes to harmonizers, they are still holding their ground. Boss VE-2 is a cost-effective, simple, but also one of the most agile vocal harmonizer pedals out there. Let’s take an in depth look and see what it’s really made of.

The VE-2 offers 12 different harmony types to add to your own voice, each featuring one or two voices above and/or below it, plus a switchable variation option with more voices for richer harmonies. The pedal also comes with several vocal improvments such as delay, reverb and compression with or without frequency correction. We personally think that the Boss ve-2 sounds fantastic, particularly if you use it subtly, lowering the balance knob settings, so that it accompanies the main vocal, but doesn’t drown it out.

Right from the start, it’s perfectly clear the VE-2 is a vocal harmonizer pedal and not much more. Boss has other models which are far more dynamic and multi functional, but this one was designed to deliver the core of this effect. Even so, they did include basic reverb and delay effects. You can’t modify them too much, nor are there many types to select from. You can simply select either one, or mix the two of them. That being said, the quality of the pedals build is on that standard, somewhat expected Boss level.

The Boss VE-2 also has an interesting function, called ‘Auto Harmonist’… This is fantastic for singers who want to connect an instrument to the VE-2 such as a guitar, as the unit senses and detects the chord progressions used, to work out the musical key that the vocals should follow… Absolutely fantastic if you have key changes in the song, as this unit is able to listen to the change in chords (mid-song) and then adapt the harmonies accordingly.

For all the troubles of navigating the crowded control interface, your reward is a very solid core performance. We are talking pretty organic tone even when you go crazy with harmony modes. Built in delay and reverb are okay, but nothing to write home about. With that said, they won’t stand out as artificial if used lightly. When it comes to tracking, things are great.

The unit’s ‘Enhance’ component gives the singers immediate access to dynamic and subtle frequency correction at a touch of a button. The button specifically adds compression and analyses the vocal tone to automatically filter certain frequencies and boost others, helping to give a more refined, studio-quality sound.

The vocal harmonizer pedal has little trouble following you through complex chord progressions. Dropping it into hybrid mode yields some fairly interesting results. Depending on your settings, having that manually set key can help a lot. What matters the absolute most is that the vocal pedal tracks perfectly fine even in this mode. In essence, Boss VE-2 is everything it claims to be. Nothing more and nothing less. That is something we can appreciate.

Overall, we really like the Boss VE-2 unit. As we mentioned, not only does it provide a simple to understand interface with easy-to-use controls, but its delay, harmony and reverb effects actually sound pretty good. At the end of the day, Boss VE-2 represents a fairly affordable alternative to more complex designs out there. It’s simple, offers rock solid performance as well as reliability. We’d love to see a better organized control panel, but that is not too big of a deal all things considered.

Not only does the unit sound good, but it provides a good amount of variety for singers to play around with and find their favourite sounding tones and configuration combinations, which can be saved and referenced instantly simply by utilising the unit’s 3 preset memory banks. As far as who the VE-2 is ideal for, Boss have made a great decision in not only providing interface controls to control the musical key settings, but also in providing the auto harmony function for singer/songwriters who want to plug in their instruments instead.

If you’re an instrument player, you’ve probably heard of the company TC Electronics, as they are quite famous for their high-end guitar effect pedals like looper and overdrive pedals. TC Helicon, their subsidiary, seems to follow this tradition with some excellent vocal processors and some of the best vocal harmonizer pedal (spoiler alert: this isn’t their only product on my list).

The Harmony Singer is a compact harmony pedal that is highly rated. It is similar to the Harmony-G XT, but stripped down of extra features in favor of portability. It carries the same smart harmony effect that follows after guitar chord changes, but in a smaller foot print that is easier to carry and setup. It is simply the practical choice for singing guitarists who are looking to add harmonies without having to audition actual singers or carry bulky equipment.

TC-Helicon is probably one of the most popular brands when it comes to harmonizers. It’s not hard to see why when you take a look at Harmony Singer. This pedal features a compact yet a rigid body that can withstand use on and off the stage with ease. The top of the vocal pedal is where all of your controls are at, however, the front and either side is where you will find all the I/O ports.Right and left panels feature the instrument input and thru ports.

What’s awesome about TC Helicon Harmony Singer would have to be how intuitive the controls are. You will see three aligned knobs on the top panel which include Harmony, Level, and lastly Reverb. Harmony knob allows you to decide between four different types of voices, all featuring far and close setting. The range of the harmonizer effect is two voices above or below the input signal, with all of the other combinations available. When it comes to the Reverb feature, you’ve got four different options for this effect.

The pedal listens the chords you play and tracks your guitar, maintaining a perfect pitch. It’s simple to connect and set up, although it’s best if you keep it at the front of the chain if you have multiple pedals.

When the time comes to plug this vocal harmonizer pedal into your rig to give it a spin, you’ll pleasantly surprised by the resulting sounds. The first thing that catches your attention is the tone. It doesn’t present as being robotic like some other vocal harmonizers do, and it actually has a softness to it. The Close mode is a bit aggressive and in your face, but there are definitely applications where it works. The Far mode is a lot more subtle but still every bit as efficient.

At the end of the day, TC Helicon has created yet another great package for those who need little more girth in their music. The pedal works well, is very accurate and most importantly, simple to use. There are some quirks, but those are far from being a deal breaker.

Many companies have a kind of tiered approach to their pedals. Boss does not just offer the RC-300, for example, they put out the RC-3 and RC-30 too, which package basically the same core features into different-sized units, with some of the capability shaved off as you get smaller and smaller. It ain’t easy being a singing guitar player, but TC-Helicon’s new VoiceLive 3 aims to make your switching and effects easy by combining vocal and guitar processors, as well as a looper, into one ingenious package.

It may seem like I have a thing for TC Helicon, but trust me – when searching for the best vocal harmonizer pedals, you’ll be stumbling across many of their products. This Canadian company devoted itself to making professional, high quality vocal processors. There are many ways you can use the unit, thanks to the wealth of connections on its rear panel, but your basic guitar/ mic setup sends vocals via an XLR output to a PA, and guitar signal from a jack output to your amp – the signals are kept separate, so you won’t get vocal harmonies blaring through your guitar rig.

At first glance, the VoiceLive 3 Extreme looks like the original VoiceLive but with a slightly cooler makeover. The soft silver of the standard edition has been replaced by a solid black, and the upper portion has a kind tattoo-like decal in the background. The Extreme version offers more than these purely cosmetic changes – which are genuinely pretty good – but you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s just more of the same.

The VoiceLive 3 operates using presets – there are 250 factory patches, with plenty more slots to store your own edits, but you can switch effects in and out within a preset. Two footswitches scroll up and down through the presets list, but you also get an extremely useful Step footswitch, which lets you step through different seems in order – the idea being you can store different sounds within one preset for different song sections. With plenty of built-in options and great-sounding effects, this is the most advanced pedal on the list, but it comes at a significant increase in price, as well as complexity.

The effects are high quality, and the harmonies track your voice well – assuming you can sing in tune in the first place. Harmonies can be set to a fixed scale but – and here’s the good bit – they can also be set to automatically change with your guitar chords. The classy-sounding guitar effects are derived from sister company TC Electronic’s TonePrint pedals, and there’s a complete pedalboard’s worth that can be switched individually or collectively. You also get amp simulation in the signal chain, featuring a range of amps.

There was time when it was only guitarists who used stompboxes, but lately vocalists have been getting in on the act with specialised pedals that can generate harmonies, add reverb and even correct their out of tune warblings. TC Helicon’s pedals always go above and beyond. One look at TC Helicon’s VoiceTone Harmony-G XT proves that. Speaking of VoiceTone, it’s one of the best vocal harmonizer pedals you can get right now. Today we’re going to take a closer look and show you what it has to offer.

This could be considered the little brother of the VoiceLive Play GTX, as they both use the same harmony algorithm. Great, automatic vocal tone-shaping, with five different settings. The doubling on this unit is VERY nice; very human-like.

The very core of VoiceTone Harmony-G XT is the all new TC Helicon processor. It is the best they have to offer, and it is every bit as good as you would expect. The pedal is a double wide design that features a rugged body and great build quality. When you pick it up, it has some weight to it which definitely inspires confidence. The layout of controls and inputs is simple and to the point.

The Harmony-G XT is the successor to TC-Helicon’s Harmony-G vocal effect and takes some features from the more upmarket VoiceLive 2. It’s designed to provide a variety of effects to enhance any singing performance including, among others, harmony generation, doubling effects, reverb, delay, compression and automatic chromatic frequency correction.

It always amazes us how TC Helicon makes their controls simple to work with. Instead of layering multiple rows of knobs, they pretty much-reduced everything to the bare minimum. Top of the interface features four knobs. There’s Input level knob, Guitar, FX, and Harmony. Underneath those, there is a number of stealthy buttons which don’t stand out all that much. These are used to select presets, store presets, chooseeffects and more.

Operation of the Harmony-G XT revolves around 10 programmable presets arranged in five banks as variations A and B. You can step through the banks with the preset button and switch between the A or B variations with the left footswitch. Each preset can be built up from several elements.

Even though it’s pretty cool to look at, TC Helicon’s VoiceTone Harmony-G XT is even more interesting when actually used. Being a guitar controlled harmonizer with a fairly powerful processor, we were interested to see how well it tracks and anticipates changes in the melody. Needless to say, its performance was stellar in this regard. Not only can you feel trust in the pedal to do its job, but you don’t even have to hook in a microphone for it to work. The idea is that you play your guitar to generate vocal harmonies, although there’s also manual selection of scale and key for singers without an instrument or horn players. You can also use a guitar to manually set a key by playing a chord and holding both footswitches down.

TC Helicon did a great job with this pedal. It might not have the fancy features like some other pedals do, but it covers the core stuff flawlessly. If you’re looking for a no nonsense harmonizer that packs a little extra flavor, this is the one to pay attention to. This pedal offers creative possibilities for vocalists and may be particularly suited to solo acts that want to add a little interest to their music or just present a bigger sound to their audience. Bear in mind, though, that this type of pedal demands to be used with caution, vocal pitch shifting technology isn’t without odd-sounding artefacts and a shift of just a few semitones can appear unnatural if mixed too high in relation to the main vocal.

For those who aren’t particularly familiar with the brand Boss, they’re one of the leading manufacturers of effects pedals in the world, and are a subsidiary of the Roland Corporation. Founded in 1973, having over 46 years of experience in building industry leading effects pedals for bass, guitar & vox. This has resulted in the quality of their products consistently being high quality.

We’ve organized this best vocal autotune pedals review, in such a way as to not only gives the opportunity to clearly display its features, but the article also includes pros and cons to give you a quick and easy to digest overview of the product.

• All-in-one Vocal Effects Unit, with multiple vocal effects to choose from
• Vocal Harmony, Pitch Correction, Vocoder, Looper, Compressor, De-Esser, EQ, Reverb, Delay, Filtering, etc
• Guitar Input for optional harmony, pitch and vocoder control
• Also includes Thru output for sending unprocessed guitar signal to guitar pedal/amps
• MIDI input and USB-Midi for optionally guiding harmony, pitch correction from MIDI keyboard or DAW backing tracks
• XLR Microphone input with phantom power & adjustable sensitivity
• Boss DSP Engine for processing up to 9 effects simultaneously
• 99 user programmable preset patches
• Built to last with durable, strong die-cast metal casing
• Stereo XLR Outputs
• USB connection for editor/pedal programming and firmware updates
• Three assignable footswitches for real-time performance control
• Supports 2 external footswitches or an expression pedal
• Three assignable knobs for quick access to essential parameters (great whilst performing)
• Editor software (suitable for Mac/PC) for sound editing and patch management via USB
• 5-Year Warranty on Boss Pedals*

Each of the UI’s menus has micro-controls, where you can adjust every aspect of an effect, for example in the screenshot, you can see there are multiple types of Vocoder effects that can be chosen, including Standard, Vintage & Talk Box, and then levels, octaves, tones, attack, release, sensitivity settings can then be further modified to help define your sound.

Not only do you have this functionality, but you also have the ability to add up to 99 user programmable patches.

As for the physical unit, there are three assignable footswitches, for real-time performance control, including individual effects enabling/disabling, patch selection, looper & harmony functions and a whole lot more. Not to mention, the unit can support an expression pedal or two external footswitches, so it’s extremely adaptable.

From left to right, it has an Instrument Input & Thru, for those who want to plug their guitar in and control harmony and vocoder effects with their guitar (similar to a MIDI controller), with the Thru output allowing the unaffected guitar signal to be passed to your other effects pedals or amp.

It also includes a Microphone input, which has optional phantom power and sensitivity controls, great for condenser microphones which are more demanding.

Additionally, the VE-500 has stereo (L & R) output, a MIDI input, USB input (For editor programming and firmware updates) and a DC power input.

With the fact that it provides, harmony, reverb, pitch correction, delay, compression, EQ and even more, all in a strong, well build unit. It’s definitely an option you have to consider.

One of the aspects that we particularly like about the unit, is the editor, where you can go about making subtle or drastic configuration changes to your VE-500’s presets, and with room for a massive 99 custom presets, you’ll be able to store all your favourite combinations with ease.

Combining this with the 3 user-assignable footswitches, and 3 assignable toggle knobs, it’s certainly versatile.

However, the one downside to this unit has a small sized screen, which makes sound editing on the device, a rather difficult process. However this can all be done through the supplied PC/Mac editing software.

Overall, it provides incredible value for money, and with any of Boss’s Pedals, you get the company standard 5-year warranty.