Harmonize Distortion or Distort Harmony?

[whitebison66]

I bought a NOS Digitech Vocalist VHMS for $30 and would love to use it in my effects setup.

What is the popular order between distortion and harmony? I've read a little about it on the web, and it seems to lean towards distortion, then harmonizer.

Your opinions?

 

[Rouse]

Harmonizer then distortion, harmonies like a clean signal or at least thats what I've heard.

 

[Xplorervoodoo]

Try both, then choose which sounds better to you, and use that.  :icon_thumright:

 

[nathan a]

In my head, I imagine that harmonizer then distortion would be best. Harmonize the clean signal. But, distorting the harmony could sound weird in an awesome way. Short answer: Play with it!

 

[Patrick from Davis]

The common dogma would be to harmonize after distortion.  If we look at a fuzz pedal (one of the extremes of distortion) you really can play only one or two notes before the distortion makes a mess of the signal, and it becomes sludge.  The distortion will make a mess of the detail that is added by the harmonizer, this is why reverb is last in most signal chains as well.  If the original signal is played, distorted, and then harmonized, the effect is preserved as best as possible.

This is just theory type talking and has nothing to do with sound.  The end result should be, as mentioned before, whatever sounds best to you.
Patrick

 

[kboman]

What PofD says makes sense to me too. Robert Fripp has used harmonizers for a long time, especially in King Crimson, and it always sounds like dist -> hrmnzr.

 

[dbw]

Harmonize distortion, distorting harmony will sound awful.

 

[dudesweet157]

I've got a Digitech Harmony Man (guitar harmonizer), and it says to run it in the effects loop of your amp, or run your OD pedals through it's own effects loop, effectively harmonizing your already distorted tone.  I tried running it the other way around, and it just sounded horrible.  BTW, latency on this unit is excellent, although you cannot do double stops or play chords with the effect, it still sounds great.

 

[GoDrex]

I really the dislike the sound of most harmonizer stuff. I haven't heard any smart harmonizers that can harmonize in key, but most harmonizer sounds are just too artificial sounding to me. Especially for guitar lines, it sounds bad. Just my opinion.

Anyone have any cool examples of guitar and harmonizer use?

 

[Patrick from Davis]

Owner of a Lonely Heart.
Patrick

 

[GoDrex]

Owner of a Lonely Heart.
Patrick

ok yeah that's a pretty good example - - though not something you can use very often, I think.

 

[m4rk0]

1:35 ish:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDuUm7tHKgM

 

[GoDrex]

yeah I'm not really a fan of too much of that kind of sound. When I hear it, I immediately think 'harmonizer' - - but I guess that's just me analyzing too much.

interesting that both examples are Trevor Rabin. I guess he made that his thing.

 

[m4rk0]

these are the only two rabin examples I could think of..
Trevor is so brilliant though! I wish he would make some rock music again

 

[whitebison66]

I just figured that for $50, it would be fun to mess with. A lot cheaper than an Eventide. I'd only use it for a bar or two anyway. When I get it hooked up, I'll report back.

 

[Patrick from Davis]

I suppose that, "Know Your Enemy," by Rage Against the Machine, would be another example of a song with a harmonizer part in it.  I still like the song, "Owner of a Lonely Heart," better though.
Patrick

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I used to have a really nice Digitech IPS 33B rackmounted Intelligent Pitch Shifter (poor man's Eventide) and I had it after my ADA MP! & eventually MP2 in the signal flow.  Anything after that will not track well.  Placing it before the pre-amp in the chain eliminated the ability to pan the outputs and I always had a lower interval and a higher interval on each side.

I ran all of my effects in my rack in parallel, having made a splitter box so that my signal chain never had more than one effect post the pre-amp in it.  I ran a dry channel straight to a Roland M-120 Line Mixer, then I had 2 separate channels from the IPS 33B going to the same mixer, each channel panned hard left/right, then I had a Digitech  DSP256XL that I used for DDL/Verb going stereo'd into the line mixer panned hard left/right, then an old ADA TFX4 rackmount that I used for Flange only, going into the same mixer.  The main outs of the mixer went to an ADA Microtube 200 poweramp that fed 2 custom ADA 4x12 cabinets.  The monitor out of the mixer fed an ADA Microcab emulator for feeding FOH.

 

[notafatboy]

whammy effects sound best after dis. but I use my boss Oc2 before distortion because the tone works better for me and it tracks better. but multiple high harmonies I would go after.