Jan 31, 2011 1 user review on DigiTech MV-5 Midi Vocalist. Hello, Harmonies, Detune, Choral, Vocoder. Analog (1995). Rack-mount, was the delight of Pro studios at the time.
I like the look of this unit. , you ask, 'It looks pretty ordinary to me' In fact, compared to many effects units it is extraordinary on two counts. The first is that it doesn't have an LCD display. The second is that it has large, illuminated, user-friendly buttons.
These two features tell me that the Digitech MV-5 MIDI Vocalist is going to be friendly not fiddly to use, that I am going to get results with it quickly, and that I am going to be able to exploit it to its fullest potential. Maybe it's just me going through a phase since I threw out my studio computer (shock horror!) and started listening to the music I was trying to create, but I really do feel the time has come for manufacturers to concentrate on giving us the features we need in a unit rather than simply making the feature list as long as possible, with the result that many pieces of equipment are so complex that 95% of their features never get used. Let me put it on record from the start that this unit does what it does cleanly and simply. You do need the manual to get started because it performs tricks other effects units cannot, but once you have about ten minutes experience under your belt then you can let your creativity take over and have fun! The Digitech MIDI Vocalist is an intelligent pitch changer. This means that it 'understands' the rules of harmony and can add harmonies to a lead vocal appropriate to the key of the song.
Brian May soundalikes may substitute 'guitar' for 'vocal' in the previous sentence. As an intelligent pitch shifter, and one bestowed with a certain amount of good taste, this is not a unit for weird delayed feedback pitch shift effects, although you can certainly get these sounds with the aid of a delay unit and a little bit of mixing console know how. Up to four harmonies are allowed in four distinct and useful modes of operation.
Taking a look at the front panel first, the most obvious feature is the group of six buttons set into a musical staff with a treble clef. If you were thinking that the positions of the buttons on the staff meant something then you had been fooled too. It's just a design feature, but the fact that they slope at an angle does represent the relative pitches of the harmonies, if not the actual notes. These six buttons allow the user to select four harmonies spaced above or below, or in unison, with the input note. It's a quick and easy way to create the harmony voicing you are looking for and the MV-5 will select the actual pitches for you.
Bypassing for the moment a group of six buttons which select the mode of operation and the key of the song - more on these later - we come to three rotary controls which set the input level, the output level of the lead vocal (the input signal) and the level of the harmonies. It's so simple it couldn't be simpler. A front panel XLR is provided, without phantom power, for a microphone input. For those of you who are as interested in the back of equipment as in the front panel, the principal features are a line input, stereo outputs and the normal trio of MIDI sockets.
A socket is provided for the Digitech FS-300 footswitch which can control the Set Key, Harmony Mode and Bypass functions. A single momentary action footswitch may be used to control Bypass only. Also on the back is the input for the wall wart power supply.
I'll continue to complain about these devices as long as manufacturers use them because, as well as being inconvenient, I know that the easiest way to destroy equipment is to get your warts mixed up, which seem come in an endless variety of voltages and polarity. There is a fortune waiting for the inventor who can come up with a powering system that is as convenient for the manufacturer (who can sell identical units worldwide) as a wall wart and works for the user too. Now that we have got the hardware out of the way, let's look individually at the four modes of operation.
Chordal Harmonies To produce chordal harmonies, the MV-5 needs two inputs. One is your voice, or lead instrument, and the other is MIDI information from your keyboard. In this instance the keyboard isn't used to make sounds, just to tell the MV-5 which harmonies to create. In a studio situation you would probably record the lead vocal onto tape and spend as much time perfecting it as you need with the MV-5 quietly biding its time in the rack.
Then you could record basic chords into your synchronised sequencer which you would then play back via MIDI into the MV-5. The MV-5 will look at the chords you play, and select harmonies based on these chords and the settings of the Harmony Voicing buttons on the front panel. As you record the harmonies to tape you will probably drop in and out of record so that harmonies only go where you want them, since the MV-5 in this mode will always create harmonies according to the last MIDI data it received. As well as being useful in the studio, the MV-5 could be exploited in a live situation, let's say a singer/keyboard player performing solo in a bar. In this situation, the keyboard is being used for accompaniment, as well as transmitting MIDI data on the chords being used, to the MV-5.
Here we have potential for confusion, since any fancy arpeggios, grace notes or glissandi could fool the MV-5 into creating the wrong harmonies. Obviously a little bit of extra care is necessary in playing, along with tasteful use of the bypass footswitch. To help matters though, the MV-5 can be instructed to respond over a range of MIDI notes only and ignore all others.
This is easy to do, and it would only take a moment to reset the zone between songs. If you are wondering whether the MV-5 has a full understanding of harmony, or whether it can only handle Status Quo songs, then take a look at the list of chord types.
The great thing is that even if you don't know a flattened fifth from a sharpened chinagraph, the MV-5 does and the harmonies will always fit in with the chords you are playing. Scalic Harmony While Chordal mode will nearly always work, it tends to produce harmonies that are a bit static. In fact, they are only as static as the MIDI notes you send to the MV-5, but one's fingers always seem tempted to the same notes as long as they seem to be working. Scalic mode on the other hand doesn't always work, depending on the nature of the music, but it will produce much more activity in the harmony lines. If you think of Chordal mode as a choir backing a solo voice, and Scalic mode as a more interactive style of harmony, then you won't go far wrong.
Alternatively you can think of Chordal as 'Amazing Grace' mode, and Scalic as 'Eagles' mode. (It's OK - they're trendy again!). In Scalic mode, you don't need to play chords all the way through a song. A single chord containing the important notes of the scale at the beginning will be enough to tell the MV-5 which key you are in and which scale type you require.
If you change key or scale type during the song, then you will need to input another chord or the harmonies will be off. Notice that once you have specified a key, the MV-5 handles all the chord changes that are customary in that key for the type of scale selected. See the separate panel for a list of scale types.
Highlights of the scale type list, apart from the common-as-muck major and minor varieties, are the Dorian scale which adds the minor 3rd and flattened 7th that are appropriate for blues style harmonies, and also the whole tone scale which creates instant musical impressionism in the style of Debussy. As in Chordal mode, the Harmony Voicing buttons set the spacing of the harmonies. I didn't mention it earlier, but normally the MV-5 pitch corrects harmonies so that if you singing is out of tune at least the backing vocals are OK (as long as you sing within about a quarter of a tone of the correct pitch). But sometimes too much perfection can get a bit boring (don't I just know it!) and you might wish for a little sliding of the notes to give a more relaxed feel.
If so, then all you have to do is send an upward MIDI pitch bend command to the MV-5 and it switches into a mode where the harmonies track the vocal precisely.