I received an email from MF where I have had this pedal on backorder it says in part
"Your order will receive priority upon receipt in the warehouse, and we expect to be able to ship your order within 30 days."

[This message has been edited by mikeathome1 (edited 07-08-2008).]

Keep us posted when you receive it & try it out.

Mike,

I talked with TC Helicon last Friday and the units were shipped out last Thursday to the retailers. The rep said they should arrive at the retailers by Wednesday or Thursday of this week. If this is the case, I hope to have one by the weekend.

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

Gary
Are you buying one local or did you pre order also?
MF was changing the preorder date on a day to day basis but now they say preorder for 7-14.
I ordered mine on 6-16.
I guess I won't know until it gets here anything else is speculation on my part.

I've been checking my local GC asking when it will arrive. So far it's not in their system yet. But it usually doesn't show up in their system until they actually receive it in their warehouses. Musiciansfriend.com at first said June 30th they would be in stock and now they're saying July 14th.

TC-Helicon must be having some delay issues with the HarmonyM. I'd rather see them get it right before it ships then to ship it half-baked though. If the person Gary spoke with is being truthful then we should start seeing them show up in stores very soon hopefully.

Best,
Mike

I ordered one from Sweetwater and they shipped it Saturday. It is in town but hasn't been delivered yet.
DonM

I just ordered the last one (so they told me) from Sweetwater and got a shipping confirmation it should be here in a couple of days.

Cant wait to hear your opinions.

Mine shipped Saturday, arrived in town Monday, and it won't be delivered until tomorrow, because that's the "scheduled date". I called to see if they would let me pick it up, and they said it's in a crate that won't be opened until tomorrow. It has been setting there since 7 a.m. Monday.
Fed Ex has just slipped WAY down on my list.
DonM

http://www.voicetonepedals.com/harmonym.html

demos

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 07-08-2008).]

Just talked with my guy at GC today and he said there are two in route to his store. He expects to see them tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. I have one reserved for ME!

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

I got mine just now. Fedex has a new policy that they will not deliver until the scheduled date, and they wouldn't let me pick it up, so it set in the warehouse for 3 days.
Anyway, now I have to go to work early to try out the Harmony M. It looks SWEET!
DonM

Cant wait to hear your revie Don Oh Yeah!!

I've had that happen before usually on a friday so I have to wait all weekend with my new gear a mile from my house.
My delivery date is Fri.

I'm most interested in "the live engineer effects that automatically optimize your vocals with adaptive compression, EQ and de-essing. And all of this feeds into rich reverb and delay processors. While you focus on your music, Harmony-M backs you up with fully produced vocal sound."
If it does all that I'll be happy. You use the harmony sparingly through out the night.
How it sounds the rest of the time is important because now you could leave a couple extra pieces of gear at home.

I also await Dons' review!

Actually I went ahead and plugged it in here at the house. It sounds great. The Tone feature does make your voice sound good, and it is editable, though I haven't edited it.
It looks like I'll have to get the dedicated controller. A standard foot switch will work the bypass, but the controller is evidently necessary to access some of the control menus. I'll try it tonight before I decide.
DonM

Don while your at it tonight record some tunes with it for us ////

Thanx

dp

I'll try. Depends on if I get it set up to suit me.
DonM

Don does it have an xlr input I'm a little confused by some of the things I've read, it says " - 1⁄4” TRS mic level I/O in stereo or mono"

It has XLR mic input only. The two outs are 1/4". They are either stereo, or you can assign one to vocal, one to harmonies.
Gotta run. More later.
DonM

I plugged a mic into it, ran midi from the controller to the Midjay Thru to the Harmonizer, a 1/4-inch to a channel on the mixer (set flat)and everything worked great.
I didn't fool with the settings much, but it tracks as it should and sounds really good.
The vocal processing is excellent. I used an SM58. Didn't try anything else. I used the default effects (Hall) and the "Tone" setting.
Default midi channel is 1 so that didn't need setting.
I didn't even bother to set a keyboard split. I was going to but got started and liked the way it worked with it across the entire keyboard.
I made a couple of recordings. If I have time I'll try to post something tomorrow.
It's easy to control in real time. It has only two harmony voices unless you put it in Manual (Vocoder) mode. Most of the time I use only one above, and very seldom have a need for more than two. For my purposes it is excellent. It was great doing Happy Birthday in 3-part harmony Acupello.
It's a winner!
DonM

Thanks Don!
Do we know how lucky we are? I get up at 6 in the morning and there it is Don Masons review, after working all night he still found the time to go home and write a review.
A real pro that never has a bad word to say about anybody or anything.

thanks again Don! take the day off and go play some golf.


[This message has been edited by mikeathome1 (edited 07-10-2008).]

Thanx for the review Don......cant wait for some demo songs.......

I was out of town today and when I got home there it was the harmony m waiting at my door a day early.
Probably won't open it until Friday though.

Thanks for your opinion and take on it Don! I'm leaning in the direction of a HarmonyM myself. I actually purchased the new Digitech Vocalist Live Pro a couple of weeks back but I was disappointed with it so I returned it. After hearing the HarmonyM demos on TC-Helicons website it pert near convinced me right then and there that it was going to be a really good, to perhaps even a truly great product as well as a big seller and money maker for TC-Helicon. I'm glad it's turning out that way from your positive firsthand thoughts and opinion about it. My local GC should be getting them in soon hopefully too.

Best,
Mike

Thanks for the review, Don. How do you think it compares with the SD1 or SD5 harmonizer?

Glenn

Used the harmony M today. what a unit! so easy to operate and sounds great right out of the box.
That tone switch really sweetens up the vocal sound.
I'd say it's a nice little box for the price with some good presets but if you need more choices and control ya gotta spend more.

[This message has been edited by mikeathome1 (edited 07-12-2008).]

It doesn't have the gimmick voices that the SD1 and 5 have, but if you are looking for one or two-part harmony, with excellent effects and vocal processing, it is great.
I wouldn't use one instead of the harmonizer in the SDs, but I do use it with the Midjay.
DonM

Are you saying that you like the vocalizer in the SD1 "better??" than the HarmonyM unit Don?? If the answer is yes, you just put a big question mark in my possible HarmonyM purchase. Also, how does the HarmonyM compare to the VH's in the Korg's?? If there are better units in some arranger keyboards I will save the dough and just get an in-built VH on my next arranger purchase. Nevertheless, I will definitely try and demo a HarmonyM before making my final decision on whether to get one or not.

Best,
Mike

Mike for what it's worth, unless Yamaha do something really special with the T3, the only two built in harmonisers worth having are the Helicon in the PA series (better in the PA1/2) or the Roland in either the G70 or E80.

Certainly better than the Ketron and Yamaha(current) offerings.

From what I have read, the Harmony-M only gives 2 voices, whereas the Helicon in the PA2 gives you three (in PA800 2)..But I do think the G70 gives you 4. Fran or Diki could confirm that one.

The G70 (which I believe has almost the identical harmoniser that was in the Discover 5) is probably the easiest to use, and is, in my view, pretty much equal to the Korg version as far as soudn quality goes.

One big advantage with the PA2x is that it has built-in 48v phantom power for condensor mics.

Just for the record, I have owned the SD1+, Midjay, the Discover 5, PA1x/PA2x Tyros and the Helicon voiceworks rack. Just noting it to show I have experience with these units.

Dennis

Thanks Dennis. Two harmonies in the HarmonyM is a little bit limiting but it depends on a person's needs. Certainly the demos of the HarmonyM on the TC-Helicon website sounded pretty decent alright but I'm re-evaluating whether just two harmonies will cut it for my needs. I would really like to be able to get a choir effect and also a barbershop quartet, etc. In other words at "least" three harmonies but four would even be better. I would consider a Korg Pa2X but I would be losing 8 notes of polyphony (over a keyboard with 128 note polyphony) and when using the VH on the Pa2X I would be losing another 4 notes of polyhony when using a 4 voice VH preset. So that would take it down to 116. And with these ever more cpu and polyphony intensive new arranger keyboards the more polyphony the better. That's another reason I am excited about the Ketron Audya with its 197 notes of polyphony. Ketron may even surprise us by giving it 256 note polyphony. If the VH on the Audya turns out to be excellent - although I have my doubts after listening to previous demos of it - and if Ketron is able to keep the price down so people don't have to take a 2nd mortgage out on their house to buy one, then it may well be worth it to bide my time until the Audya actually ships to market before I consider divvying up the cash for a separate VH. I may be in for a loooooonnnnngggggggg wait though.

Best,
Mike

[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 07-14-2008).]

Mike, I'm saying that the harmonizer in the Ketron SDs is very good. They do everything I need. I feel no need to use an external unit with them, as I do Yamaha.
In addition, they do gimmick voices and choirs.
I'm using a Midjay most of the time now, and the Harmonizer in it is strictly a Vocoder, so the external unit is necessary for me.
It IS neat to have the Harmony M setting right on top of the keyboard where you can easily change presets, voices, adjust vocal processing etc.
Two harmony voices are enough for me; may not be for everyone.
DonM

Don would love to hear a few short demos when You get a chance using the Harmony M...

I was recently in a recording studio where 'voice doubling' was used to 'fatten up' the sound of the male voices in an Irish group I'm with. Quite a nice 'effect'. TC Helicon states-'Additionally, a separate double effect uses the widely respected TC-Helicon overdub algorithm to produce a thick sound typically reserved for studio recordings'.
My question for those that are now 'checking out this unit'
For a single voice, is this effect noticeable & worthwhile? What is your opinion?
Also can this doubling effect be used alone or with the harmony ? Thanks

It is a nice effect and is noticeable. It is either-or. You can use it alone, but not with harmony.
DonM

Hi Don
Thanks for your reply & info on this unit. I would really be interested in this unit if it had Harmony G & M in the one package (so I could also use it with my guitar), voice doubling anytime, a choice of different harmonies-I imagine there are units (digitech?)
that will do all this for many $$$
Gord

Hey, i'm a crazy person trying to do harmony effects on a funk tuba. not joking. DonM or other marvelous folks on here, does this thing track if you don't have midi or guitar in? are there controls to force key, or would you bring a little keyboard along to shove notes in key at it to force it to stay in key? Also, any idea of frequency response out of the thing? I play some notes at around 35hz and i'm wondering if it's going to even pick that up, let alone try to put out the 70hz octave above that... Thanks in advance!! -Miles

I'm not really sure if you could use this one, but if it were me, I'd go with one of the more expensive units that offer more functions therefore more control.
Either the TC Helicon voiceworks or the digitech makes a nice unit called, I think, the live 4 pro.

Part of the beauty of this thing, at least for me, is it's simplicity and lack of settings. It sounds good out of the box, no decisions to make. But of course it doesn't have all the functions of the bigger units.

[This message has been edited by mikeathome1 (edited 08-01-2008).]

I'm not sure about this, but are you Korg people SURE that the VP uses polyphony? It's an entire, separate circuit board, and I was never aware of any dropouts when using thick harmonies. (which is often!)
I think the processor stands alone, but I'm not sure about that.
Anyone know for certain?