Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 15Aug2009

Mostly healed/cured up from my throat infection all week. I was a little scratchy, and tried to take it easy, avoiding the really high screechers. It helped that Warren wasn't there (he opted to join Jim on a streetcorner in Laguna instead), 'cuz I could play my capo-2 songs just without capo to put them down a bit, easing the burden on my voice. But about half-way through, I was warmed up enough to do the original keys again.

And it was my first time out with the new TC Helicon Harmony-G box, (which I'm thinking of naming "Harmione" -- get it?), which is basically a harmony-singing robot. It takes the mic and guitar as input, and, based on the guitar chord it's "hearing", it adds a cloned second (or third) voice track, pitch-shifted to an appropriate harmony note. It's simply amazing, and works really, really well for many songs, (though not so good for others, due mainly to misleading-ness in the guitar part).

I'll admit to having some trepidations about getting it in the first place -- first because it was unclear whether it could actually work at all, and second because it can certainly be seen as "cheating" in some way. But, the ends justify the means, and desire begats rationalization, so: (1) Very few people in the audience give you any points for "purity" -- they're just there for the music. I'm always hyper aware of *how* the music is being made, and am quick to detect "bogus" (i.e., taped or MIDI) tracks. But even then, I don't walk out -- I watch/appreciate the live human for the pieces he's contributing. Most of the bands on our cruise were using MIDI backup tracks, but nobody on the dance floor seemed to care. (2) When used sparingly (i.e., quietly) (which, admittedly, I can't promise I'll always do), most people won't recognize harmony as "another guy" -- they'll just hear it as "that guy's voice sounds really good". You get the same reaction with reverb (and compression, etc.). Which (3) (and I know this may be stretching it, but like I said, this is all just necessary rationalization), this is really only a (big maybe) step above. Reverb is supposed to be the sound bouncing off of walls, but, when there's no walls, the same effect is faked, at first with analog methods, and now, digitally. Which led to "digital delay", which sounds like a full-on echo, and is really a "cloned" track, played back a bit later in time. These harmonies are that, taken another step, and pitch altered, too.

OK, enough conscience-assuaging, how did it sound? I thought it was great. In fact, at times it sounded so cool that I could hear myself performing better in reaction to it -- like the way I perform better at SCP because of the great acoustics there. This whole pushing buttons with my feet thing is new, so I'm clumsy at it, but I got the hang of it from time to time, and only really blew up a song once.

The weirdest part was that, apparently because of my newfound sensitivity to harmony, there were times that I was hearing (hallucinating?) harmonies over my voice, even when the box was off. I had to keep checking the lights, but nope, it was off. That got me thinking that, if I could hear 'em in my head, that must mean that they'd sound good for real, so sometimes I'd take a risk and fire up the box on a line here and there of a song that I hadn't previously "marked" for harmony. And got a away with it, too. Pretty magical. Or mind altering. Or both.

Anyway, the whole first half was pretty dead, which was OK 'cuz it let me experiment with the box a bit. It also adds "effects" to the (even solo) voice -- essentially different kinds of reverb (big room, small room, echo, etc.). It changed "the sound" quite a bit at first, but I got it dialed in to sound "right" (or I adapted to it) after a while. By the half-way mark I was wondering where everybody'd gone, and thinking that I'd only had like three tips in the jar. But then it busted wide open -- it got dark, which seems to improve my mood, my sound, the "atmosphere", something. And people started to show up -- and stay a while. Had a big group in the back clapping loudly for 50's tunes. I couldn't see 'em way back there without my glasses, but they walked past me to drop in some tip money and say thanks, and turned out to be several middle-aged Asian couples. You just never know.

So I ended up with $67 in tips, and a great time. The box is a huge success as far as I'm concerned, and I've only scratched the surface -- adding harmony to my currently-deliberately-harmony-free set list means it's only used on some songs. Once I get good at it, I can add songs that I couldn't do before, because of their reliance on vocal harmony to "sound right". And it has advanced features that let it do songs that won't "work" with the predefined presets, so there's all that to investigate.

I guess I'm excited to have something else to play with/learn about. Until now, learning a song was all about learning the guitar part. Now, there'll be that, but there will also be a "how do the vocals work" component to figure out. More puzzles = more fun. And I daresay that I'll/we'll sound more like a "real band". The near-record tips seem to say that nobody was particularly put off by the "fakeness". I will have to try not to go overboard with it, though...