MIDI Harmony Box
By Stephen DillDecember 10, 1998
Did you ever wish you that you had a tuner for your voice, so you could always sing in perfect pitch? What about backup singers who could sing in perfect harmony to your lead vocal? Or would you like to sing along with MIDI files on your computer, in multiple part harmonies? Well, that's all possible with a new device from TUNE 1000 (www.tune1000.com) called the MIDI Harmony Box.
The MIDI Harmony Box (MHB) takes a single input vocal and sings it at pitches specified by MIDI. It creates up to four harmonies of the input vocal (depending on how many MIDI notes are played), and automatically detects the pitch of the input so you don't even have to sing in tune.
The Specs
The MHB fits into a single rack space and has a simple, easy-to-use interface. It has both an XLR mic and a 1/4" line input for the lead vocal; the mic input is bypassed when the line input is used. It has both L and R outputs, though it does not support stereo sound. It also has a footswitch input, which can be used to bypass the harmonies and just play the lead vocal.
For MIDI, the MHB has all three In, Out and Thru jacks, but the MIDI Out is not used (the MHB does not create any MIDI data of its own). On powerup, the MHB defaults to receive on MIDI channel 5, though you can change its MIDI channel with a SysEx message.
There are three knobs on the front panel to control signal levels. The Input control varies the input level for the microphone and line inputs, the Lead Vocal control varies the output level of the original input signal, and the Harmony control varies the level for all four output harmony voices. There are also two signal LEDs on the front panel to tell you when vocal and MIDI signals are present.
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Uses
TUNE 1000 created the MIDI Harmony Box as part of a MIDI karaoke system where you can sing multiple-part harmonies along to a MIDI sequence played on your computer. TUNE 1000 sells hundreds of MIDI files, using the Karaoke MIDI format which stores the lyrics as part of the MIDI file. When connected to a compatible keyboard that supports this format, the lyrics will display on the LCD of the keyboard as the sequence plays. Pretty cool.
As a musician, I don't care much for karaoke (no offense to those of you who do). But when I first heard the MHB demonstrated at NAMM, I though to myself, "Wow, I could use this thing for backup vocals at band practice and in the studio." So I plugged a keyboard into the MIDI In of the MHB and tried it with real-time MIDI.
Evaluation
First let me start out by saying that I haven't played with many other vocal harmonizers, so I won't pretend to be an expert on the subject. If you are a professional singer, ignore my ranting and go try one for yourself. But if you're new to harmonizers, here's what I thought of it:
The interface was very easy to use. Just plug in a MIDI cable from the keyboard (or computer), plug a mic into the front panel, and patch the audio out to a mixer. Turn everything on, and set the keyboard to transmit on channel 5. With only three knobs (Input, Lead Vocal, and Harmony levels) it was no problem to get the levels right.
However, playing it was a bit of a disappointment. Sure, it sounded great at NAMM with a lot of background noise, but in the silence of my studio the harmonies of my voice always sounded pretty synthesized.
There was a range of about an octave around the input vocal where the harmonies sounded most realistic. When the harmonies were too far above my input vocal, it sounded like a stringed instrument was playing along with each of the harmonized vocals. When I tried to harmonize too low, I noticed a number of overtones that didn't belong there.
The MHB passed through unpitched articulation clearly, though it didn't do anything to harmonize it. So when I went from an unpitched sound to a pitched sound, the harmonies would suddenly cut in. For example, on "chah" the "ch" was not affected by the MHB but all of a sudden the "ah" came through in harmony.
The MHB had no problem detecting the pitch of the input vocal and playing the harmonies at the proper pitches, so I didn't even have to sing in tune. When I played a single note but raised and lowered the pitch of my voice, I noticed some strange effects in the overtones but the fundamental pitch of the harmony stayed the same.
The harmonies might work if there was fairly loud backing music, or if you are specifically looking for a synthesized voice sound. I definitely wouldn't try it for a cappella music though.
I also noticed a slight delay in generating the harmonies, and a weird cutoff when I released a key but kept singing. However, it did keep up well enough for slow-paced songs.
Conclusion
The MHB was intended for MIDI karaoke, and I think it would be great for that. It has a very simple interface, and will even correct the pitch if you are singing out of tune. And I'd imagine that it would be lots of fun to sing along with some of TUNE 1000's MIDI files if you're into that kind of thing.
For more musical purposes, it would make a fun toy for quiet backup vocals either in the studio or live with a street price around $300. If you want a professional vocal box for studio work and have a bigger budget to work with, I suggest you look at other harmonizers (Eventide, DigiTech, Korg, and others) that might provide you with more functionality as well as better sound.