Not sure which forum to put this query in because it's about the vocal fx unit (VE-20), and I thought it might get lost if I put it in the guitar fx section.
I just got a VE-20 for using during live performances (we do small gigs for a bit of fun... you know the sort of thing... pubs, parties, village halls).
The VE-20 presets give a good general starting point for different song styles, but I want to get stuck into making some more complex user-definer settings.
We play 60s to 90s rock / pop / punk, so I'd be really interested to know if anyone has any suggestions for vocal settings for any of the following... or anything else for that matter !
Hendrix, Stones, Cream, Who, Kinks, Deep Purple, Bad Co., Free, Neil Young, Steppenwolf, Quo, Skynyrd, Bowie, Undertones, Sham 69, Sex Pistols, Nirvana
...you get the picture.
Anyway, any help or advice much appreciated, and as I develop a few user settings of my own, I'll post them up.
I've been playing about with it for a couple of weeks, and have got a few rudimentary settings already... trying to replicate the sort of generic sounds for (e.g.) stadium rock bands, garage punk, etc.
Got to say that it's quite convincing, and the harmonies work really well.
In some respects, the beauty of this for me is its relative simplicity for a live gig. Just turn up, plug my mic into it, and an XLR-XLR extension lead to the PA, and off you go.
The traditional "stomp box" construction works a treat too... only 2 pedals and a rotary knob to select which sound you want.
As you say, the down-side is that there is no way to "back-up" the settings, but I've made a note of my user settings in case I have to send it back to the factory, etc., and it's a doddle to programme.
If anyone has one of these, and has figured out some user settings for particular styles of vocal, let me know.
I'll post a few of my own when I have figured out something worthwhile !
I've owned a Boss VE-20 for about six weeks now and really like it a lot. Because its so new I've pretty well had to figure things out on my own but it wasn't that hard.
I play guitar and sing and prefer to have have the controls near my hands rather than on the floor. It makes it much easier to change from song to song.
I've used # 31 and up to pre-set different notes so I don't have to play around with it as I preform. You can easily change the the letters on the screen. For example my # 31 now shows Pitch.....A. So I know that it was taken from #28 Pitch Control modified to suit my needs and saved in the key of A.
Spent all day fiddling about with it to get some good general setting which seem to work under most circumstances.
As with all fx units, I think "less is more"... the more options you layer one on top of the other, the more muddy it becomes... same with very high / low settings for each parameter.
Most of the settings have a huge range... far bigger than you would normally want to use, without the result sounding extreme.
In general, I've found that you don't want to stray too far from the mid-point (unless you're looking for something deliberately "freaky").
A prime example is the "gender" setting, which you can't really put more than +/- 2 or you start sounding like a chipmunk !
I'll put a few ideas up on this thread soon... just as soon as I've got my favourites nailed down.
Hi Stu, I'm pretty much in the same situation as you (musicwise) and have had my VE-20 for two weeks now. My observations are as follows:
1. I set up the unit on headphones at home, where it sounds perfect but when I use it through the PA it sounds much coarser and harsh. I'm sure/hope that this can be solved with the correct use of the pre-amp.
2. It would be great if the pre-amp was in a separate section so that when its edited for a particular room/gig all the sounds were updated instead of having to go through each one separately (this is a pain in the A).
3. Whenever you edit a user setting the new edits are "saved" without writing them, it would make more sense to me if they were only saved when you said "write" this way you could fiddle with a sound and then go back to the original settings just by going forward a sound and then back again. It's very easy to start fiddling and then forget what the original settings were. I know that you should copy the sound to a empty number first but I keep forgetting (old age).
4. Some way of storing sounds on a USB would be better than having to write them all down. Has anyone produced a chart yet with all the parameters on? If not I will produce one over the next few weeks and post it as a pdf. (can I post a pdf here?)
I will of course post some settings as soon as I have this beast under control.
Please feel free to correct me if you think that any of my observations are incorrect. You're never to old to learn.
I'm looking to do just some basic recording from my rode NT1-A into the VE20, then from this into an MBOX mini into macbook...
Now, I can get it sounding ok in headphones, but for recording it seems a bit... harsh? I'm wondering if there's any suggested pre-amp settings or levels anyone could recommend as a base for recording?
Hi folks, I found this thread while looking for info on VE-20 parameters (just bought one last week). Since there didn't seem to be a chart of preset parameters available, I went ahead and made one in spreadsheet form. It's a little rough and you might need a Google/Gmail account to view it, but all the data is there:
Some interesting things jump out, for instance all of the presets have delay settings but only some are active. Also, certain SFX (like Preamp) have a surprising number of customizable settings, while others (liek Strobe) only have one depth or speed setting.
It's useful to compare the reverb shapes/levels and dynamics settings between things like "hard rock" and "pop", you can get a pretty clear sense of what the designers were thinking when they made the presets, which can point you in the right direction for making your own.
I think this info should have been included with the manual, but whatever, hope the company doesn't mind me posting this. I think it's a great product and I'd recommend it to any singer.
A couple of things I'm curious about, if anyone can enlighten me, what exactly are the Depth and Enhance settings doing in the Dynamics effect? I assume it's a kind of compressor, and the Enhance adjusts the position of the "knee" or something like that? Also, if anyone has used this live, what's been your experience with reverb levels, master levels, sensitivity levels, etc? I know any live room will have its own natural reverb, so I'm looking for that sweet spot where it's full but not muddy, and the sound guy doesn't have to spend the whole set tweaking my vocal.
Thank you very much, stereo_son!
I was just about to go through the effort to create such an overview. Any way to download it in a spreadsheet that I can edit? (Sorry, have no experience of Google-spereadsheets, unable to download it).
Trying to understand the differences between different presets, will indeed be a good way to understand the possibilities. Unfortunately the documentation doesn't really explain the effects of the different parameters :-(
