Waves Harmony: “Real-Time Vocal Harmony Playground”
Photo courtesy of Waves.com
I have just had a little play around with the new plugin that Waves has to offer: Harmony. This plugin provides what I would describe as a beefed-up version of their Vocal Bender plugin. Eight-part harmonies are incredibly easy to generate from just one vocal track. Harmony can also be used as a creative effect for doubling, layering, vocal stacks, and many things besides just creating harmonies– I love it!
Harmony makes it possible to have both “male” and “female” backup vocals at the same time by giving independent control of the pitch, frequency, panning, delay, filtering, and modulation for each voice. Additionally, quick-harmony pre-sets (450 factory presets), which are intended for non-music theory users, can assist you in coming up with voicings that you might not have thought of otherwise.
This plugin is definitely a time saver for any mixer, allowing different ready-to-go pre-sets to be auditioned. These pre-sets, or even the ones that you create yourself, can also be used in real-time to produce backing vocals when you are singing live.
The plugin has three operating modes: Automatic: Harmonies will be generated in the chord of your choice. Playable MIDI: Gives you real-time control on a MIDI keyboard. Graphical: Draw and modify harmonies on the visual display.
As with all Waves plugins, Harmony can be used on PC and Mac computers. It retails for $149, but, again, as with all Waves plugins, you will rarely pay this price due to their 365-days-a-year sale that we have all grown to love (or hate, depending if you’re a plugin addict like me). When writing this article, it was on “sale” for the decent price of $39.99.
Please also note that when you buy Waves plugins, you enter into their update plan, so this great price may end up being a bit more in the long run!