Live vocal gear help

[GuidingBlackbird]

Hi!
I'm trying to replicate the sound of my recorded vocal when I sing live. The guy who mixed my latest release gave me a guide I could follow to try to achieve that, but I'm really not good with gear, so need a little help.

This is what he told me to to:
"Use a DI to split the signal in 2, then attach a fuzz pedal and a reverb (guitar pedals work great) through one signal and keep the other clean.
Then you blend them about 70-30.
If you also combine a compressor, you can use it as a boost, so that your vokal gain effekt gets louder when you press it down. That way you don't have to worry about the sound guy understanding different parts live."

If someone could help me with links to products I could use I would be very happy and grateful.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

[Drew Stephenson]

I think you'd need a mic splitter and a re-amper rather than a DI.
A DI takes an unbalanced instrument level signal, pads it down to a microphone level and makes it a balanced signal (whilst often providing a straight-through option).
You want to do the opposite and take a balanced mic signal and raise it to an (unbalanced) instrument level signal to feed into a guitar pedal. You might then need a DI to get it back to a balanced mic level for the main desk.
I wonder if a dedicated vocal processor unit might be a better option if you don't already have suitable fuzz and compressor pedals.

[Sam Spoons]

As a (retired) live sound guy this advice gives me the twitches

Live sound and studio recording are very different particularly in that studio guys rarely have to deal with feedback and anything that randomly adds boost/distortion to a system that may be close to feedback anyway is throwing the poor live sound guy a curve ball of massive proportions. Anything you do use must be run past the sound guys at soundcheck if you want to avoid an audio disaster mid gig.

A couple of things, a DI won't accept a mic signal so you can't use one to split the signal, a mic splitter will but then the signal won't be strong enough to drive guitar pedals so you would need some kind of mic preamp before the split, it's getting complicated.

So, my advice would be to use some kind of vocal processor, Boss and TC Helicon are the big names and something from the TC VoiceLive range should be capable of doing what you want (you may need to add a fuzz pedal into the fx loop). Then, maybe, get the engineer to help you set up the sounds (but still beware of 'unexpected' level boosts and talk to the live sound guys before the gig).

Welcome the the forum BTW.

edit :- Drew types faster...

[Ian Evans]

If you're using a splitter, avoid using any sort of digital pedals as there will be delay added to the signal through the pedal. When you combine the two signals the result will have a load of unintended filtering that you didn't plan.

And, as Sam says, distortion on live vocals usually reduces the feedback threshold of the PA system - the result being that the vocal has to run at a lower level.

[MarkOne]

I have a Boss VE20 that could do all of the things you need.

The lead singer in my previous band used to add things like that to her vocal chain with one. Notably the “telephone voice” effect on Mr Brightside.

[GuidingBlackbird]

Thank you for the advice guys!
And thank you for welcoming me to the forum. Don't know I got any wiser about what to do, except looking into the BOSS pedal. I have tried some TC Helicon vocal pedals, but did not love them to be honest. After reading your advice it sounds like a huge hassel to do it the way I got recommended.
I don't know if this matters to the setup, but I got som additional advice I forgot to mention.
Don't know if it makes any more sense, but here you go:
He said to use the reverb and fuzz/distortion pedal through an aux, and then blend it with "ordinary" sound. He meant the use for the DI was to reverse the polarity phase.

Thank you again.