Part 1 of 2

BACKGROUND
The trick with the harmonisers is not to have the harmony too loud because every now and then audio artifacts and octave jumps occur. These are incredibly difficult to avoid. Fortunately, at lower volumes, the listener's ear doesn't hear them and the harmony is still just as effective. I've used TC Helicon Harmony many times and I like it.

• Harmonisers are also useful for creating a track that user can learn to sing and then create their own vocal harmony.

PG Music include a songfile and an associated WAV file that can be used to practice with the harmonisers. This file is found in...

• \bb\Documentation\Tutorials – Audio Harmony
• The file is called LISTEN.MGU

CREATING HARMONY WITH TC HELICON IN REALBAND

1. Open the file Listen.MGU (mentioned above) in Realband and test that it plays.

2. Save it as an SEQ file. This is Realband's file format and saves BIAB information as well as Audio information.

3. If the file doesn't play it means that Audio and MIDI driver settings need looking at. Please create a thread in the Realband forum at the link below

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=33&page=1

4. In Realband, the harmonisers are under the "Generate" menu (IMAGE 1).


To create a harmony using TC Helicon...

5. Select the Audio track (i.e. click on it and then press CTRL+A to select the whole track -- see IMAGE 2 below).

Notice that the audio is on track #8 in the image. Check that this is the same for you.

6. Now click on the top harmoniser (the arrow points to this in IMAGE 1). This is TC Helicon.


I'll continue these instruction in the next post below

Part 2 of 2

TC HELICON HARMONY(cont'd)

7. After you select the top options, you'll be taken the screen on IMAGE 3 below. Set it as I've shown.

Notice that Audio is track #8 and that the first empty track on which to write the first harmony track is #10. For this reason, I chose "11" as my first harmony track (#5 on IMAGE 3)

8. Click OK

9. When you get to the next screen (IMAGE 4), set it as I've shown.

What to look at...

• I've turned down the volume of the input track 8 to zero (#1)
• #2 shows which setting refers to Harmony Down and which refers to Harmony Up.
• I've left the volume settings where they were. If you want to make volumes louder, slide these upwards.
• #4 I've set the "Harmony Down" to sound a little more masculine (the 'M' setting)
• #5 I've set the "Harmony Up" to be a little more feminine (the 'F' setting)
• #6 I've added a natural vibrato to "Harmony Up"

10. Leave everything else as is and click on "Generate" on the right side of the dialogue box. IMAGE 5 shows the harmony tracks written to Realband tracks 11 and 12.

After I played around with volume levels -- I raised all the MIDI volumes and lowered the Audio track volume a little...you'll find mp3 files of my results at the end of the post.

• NOTE: I only used Coyote WT to play the MIDI backing. With either Realtracks or a superior soft synth the mp3 files would sound much better.

The good news is that once creating harmony with TC Helicon is mastered, the second harmoniser on IMAGE 1 in the first post, is pretty much self-explanatory.

In other words... it's worthwhile learning TC Helicon.

Never even knew this existed , off to give it a wee try now

Thanks for posting !.

Oh my,
it's fun to discover these hidden gem features
here's another quick reference from long ago, may find some helpful tips ..
https://www.pgmusic.com/tutorial_audioharmonies.htm

The link is pretty old, surprised it's still around.
I think this was actually a Powertracks post back in the day.

Beatmaster: Hope it worked ok for you! Please let me know if my instructions are lacking any where and I'll adjust them.

rharv: I had no idea that webpage existed! I seriously enjoyed listening to "After The Storm". That's a great sounding piano! You've also managed to take TC Helicon to levels I have yet to achieve. You've given me some goals to work towards now. Thanks!

One thing I will add is that if you are recording a vocal, you should sing/record it without vibrato in your voice (just sing it straight). It makes for a cleaner harmony in the end. You can record the vocal twice (one with vibrato, one without), and use the one without vibrato to create the harmony. You can add harmony back in to the harmony tracks using the drop down after creating the harmony tracks. This should give you better results.

Noel,
As I thought about this,that was a 12 bit 32k sampled piano from my Roland S-series sampler (or maybe the W-30) back in the day. Probably late 80's.
It worked for this song I guess, but the piano sound is all a facade <grin> .. the sound set loaded from a 720k floppy.
Yeah, I'm that old

We have much nicer sounding pianos available now
.. maybe this one worked because the song was written using this sound and the whole mix was shaped around it (?)
I dunno, but thanks!