TC Helicon VOICELIVE 3 Reference Manual

English Reference Manual

VoiceLive 3

Safety information 1

Important safety instructions 2
EMC / EMI 4
Explanation of graphic symbols 5

Before you begin 6

About this document (VoiceLive 3
reference manual) 7
Getting support 8
VoiceSupport 9
Please register your VoiceLive 3 10

Introduction 11

Welcome! 12
Concepts 13
Top panel overview 18
Footswitches overview 21
Back panel inputs and outputs 27

VoiceLive 3 overview 30

Setting up 31
Diagram legend 32
Diagrams 33
Quick troubleshooting tips 38

Getting to know VoiceLive 3 39

A guided tour 40
There’s no place like Home 41
Using the Control knob 42
Using the Arrow buttons 43
What is a Preset? 44
Using Steps 45
Using Preset Genres and Favorites 46
What is NaturalPlay? 47
Using Global Key/Scale 48
Setting Key/Scale manually 49
Let’s try Harmony! 50
Using the HIT footswitch 51
Using individual effects 52
Change a button from Latched to
Momentary mode 53
Remapping a footswitch 54
Talk/Tuner Mode 56
Guitar Effects 57
Editing HIT 58
Using ALL HIT 59
HIT – Dynamic versus Snapshot 60
Storing Presets 62
Tapping tempo 64
Using Global Tempo 65
Editing an Effect 66
Defining and using Global Effects 68
MIDI Sync 71
USB Audio 72
Using the Mix Controls 75
Tips and tricks for working with layers
and effects 77
Footswitch tab: Remapping footswitches 78
Expression Pedal tab: Getting the
most out of your expression pedal 79

Editing the Vocal Layer 81

Introduction 82
Harmony effect block / tab 83
Double effect block / tab 85
Vocal Delay effect block / tab 86
Vocal Reverb effect block / tab 88
HardTune effect block / tab 90
Synth effect block / tab 92
Transducer effect block / tab 93
Vocal µMod effect block / tab 94
Choir effect block / tab 95
Vocal Rhythmic effect block / tab 96
Stutter effect block / tab 97
Vocal Buttonmap tab 98

Editing the Guitar Layer 100

Introduction 101
Amp effect block / tab 102
Drive effect block / tab 104
Guitar Delay effect block / tab 105
Guitar Reverb effect block / tab 106
Comp(ression) effect block / tab 107
Wah (Wah-Wah) effect block / tab 108
µMod effect block / tab 109
Octaver effect block / tab 110
Guitar Rhythmic effect block / tab 111
Guitar Buttonmap block / tab 112

Product VoiceLive 3

Product (firmware) version 2.1.00 Build 346

Document Reference manual

Document version / date 2015-10-20

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) a

The Looper 113

Introduction 114
Loop button parameters 115
Basic loop concepts and terms 118
Entering and exiting Loop mode 119
Your first loop 120
The Utility menu 124
Loop limits 129
Loop import 130
Loop Mixer 133
Loop export 135
Loop management 136
Loop Triggers 138
Looping and MIDI Sync 140

Se tup 141

Introduction 142
Input tab 143
Output tab 147
Guitar tab 149
MIDI tab 151
Tone tab 155
System tab 161
Mic Control and Footswitch tabs 165
Mic Control tab 166
Footswitch tab 168
Pedal Calibration tab 173
Product info tab 174

Appendix 175

MIDI CC List 176
System Maintenance/Factory Reset 177

Technical Specifications 178

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) b

Safety information

Safety information

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 1

Safety information

Important safety instructions

1. Read these instructions.

2. Keep these instructions.

3. Heed all warnings.

4. Follow all instructions.

5. Do not use this apparatus near water.

6. Clean only with a dry cloth.

7. Do not block any ventilation openings. In­stall in accordance with the manufacturer’s
instructions.

8. Do not install near any heat sources such
as radiators, heat registers, stoves, or oth­er apparatus (including amplifiers) that pro­duce heat.

9. Do not defeat the safety purpose of the po­larized or grounding-type plug. A polarized
plug has two blades with one wider than
the other. A grounding-type plug has two
blades and a third grounding prong. The
wide blade or the third prong is provided for
your safety. If the provided plug does not fit
into your outlet, consult an electrician for
replacement of the obsolete outlet.

10. Protect the power cord from being walked
on or pinched, particularly at plugs, con­venience receptacles, and the point where
they exit from the apparatus.

11. Only use attachments/accessories speci­fied by the manufacturer.

12. Use only with a cart, stand, tripod,
bracket, or table specified by the
manufacturer, or sold with the ap­paratus. When a cart is used, use
caution when moving the cart/apparatus
combination to avoid injury from tip-over.

13. Unplug this apparatus during lightning
storms or when unused for long periods
of time.

14. Refer all servicing to qualified service per­sonnel. Servicing is required when the ap­paratus has been damaged in any way,
such as power-supply cord or plug is dam­aged, liquid has been spilled or objects
have fallen into the apparatus, the appara­tus has been exposed to rain or moisture,
does not operate normally, or has been
dropped.

Caution

You are cautioned that any change or modifi­cations not expressly approved in this manual
could void your authority to operate this equip­ment.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 2

Safety information

Service

► All service must be performed by qualified

personnel.

► There are no user-serviceable parts inside.

Warning

► To reduce the risk of fire or electric shock, do

not expose this apparatus to rain or moisture
and objects filled with liquids, such as vases,
should not be placed on this apparatus.

► This apparatus must be earthed.
► Use a three wire grounding type line cord like

the one supplied with the product.

► Be advised that different operating voltages

require the use of different types of line cord
and attachment plugs.

► Check the voltage in your area and use the

correct type.

Voltage Line plug according to standard

110 to 125V UL817 and CSA C22.2 no42.
220 to 230V CEE7 page VII, SR section 107-

2-D1 / IEC83 page C4.

► This equipment should be installed near the

socket outlet and disconnection of the device
should be easily accessible.

► To completely disconnect from AC mains, dis-

connect the power supply cord from the AC
receptacle.

► The mains plug of the power supply shall re-

main readily operable.

► Do not install this device in a confined space.
► For use at an altitude of 2000m or lower.
► Do not open the unit – risk of electric shock

inside.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 3

EMC / EMI

Safety information

Electromagnetic compatibility /
Electromagnetic interference

This equipment has been tested and found to
comply with the limits for a Class B digital de­vice, pursuant to part 15 of the FCC rules.

These limits are designed to provide reasonable
protection against harmful interference in resi­dential installations. This equipment generates,
uses and can radiate radio frequency energy
and, if not installed and used in accordance with
the instructions, may cause harmful interference
to radio communications. However, there is no
guarantee that interference will not occur in a
particular installation.

If this equipment does cause harmful interfer­ence to radio or television reception, which can
be determined by turning the equipment off and
on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the
interference by one or more of the following
measures:

For customers in Canada

This Class B digital apparatus complies with Ca­nadian ICES-003.

Cet appareil numérique de la classe B est
conforme à la norme NMB-003 du Canada.

► Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna.
► Increase the separation between the equip-

ment and receiver.

► Connect the equipment into an outlet on a cir-

cuit different from that to which the receiver is
connected.

► Consult the dealer or an experienced ra-

dio / TV technician for help.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 4

Safety information

Explanation of graphic symbols

The lightning bolt triangle is used to

alert the user to the presence of unin­sulated “dangerous voltages” within
the unit’s chassis that may be of suffi­cient magnitude to constitute a risk of
electric shock to humans.

The exclamation point triangle is used

to alert the user to presence of import­ant operating and service instructions
in the literature accompanying the
product.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 5

Before you begin

Before you begin

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 6

Before you begin

About this document (VoiceLive 3 reference manual)

This reference manual will help you learn under­standing and operating your VoiceLive 3.

You can download the most current version of
this reference manual from:

tc-helicon.com/support/manuals/

To get the most from your TC-Helicon pro duct,
please start by reading the printed quick guide
that came with the product. Then proceed with
this reference manual. Read it from start to fin­ish, or you may miss important information.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 7

Before you begin

Getting support

If you still have questions about the product af­ter reading this reference manual, please get in
touch with TC-Helicon Support:

tc-helicon.com/support/product/

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 8

Before you begin

VoiceSupport

VoiceSupport is the application that allows you
to fully unlock the potential of your TC-Helicon
product and stay in touch with the latest news,
tips and tricks.

VoiceSupport key features include:

► Professionally authored preset libraries
► Direct access to product manuals
► Drag & drop Preset management
► Customizable content about your products
► Firmware upgrades
► Account management
► Access to TC-Helicon support

You can download VoiceSupport for Microsoft
Windows and Mac OS X from:

tc-helicon.com/products/voicesupport/

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 9

Before you begin

Please register your VoiceLive 3

To register your VoiceLive 3 using the VoiceSup­port software, launch VoiceSupport and click on
the ACCOUNT button.

You can also go to

account.tc-helicon.com

Registration of your product is NOT required to
use VoiceSupport, download presets, update
firmware or contact support.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 10

Introduction

Introduction

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 11

Introduction

Welcome!

First, thank you so much for taking the leap and
purchasing VoiceLive 3. We at TC-Helicon are
honored that you chose to spend your hard­earned money on our vocal, guitar and loop
processing system – and we are confident that
VoiceLive 3 will fundamentally change your per­formances.

As you discovered in the Quick Start Guide (the
short manual that came in the box), VoiceLive 3
is easy to use at the top level but offers unpre­cedented depth in both control and editing. We
recommend you treat your VoiceLive 3 like any
other new instrument and dedicate some time to
learning how to use it.

Yes, that means RTFM!

Read the… full manual.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 12

Concepts

Introduction

Before we dive into the countless features of
VoiceLive 3, let’s establish some basic terms
and concepts.

Layers & footswitch mapping

VoiceLive 3 is built on the fundamental concept
of “layers”. From a design perspective, there are
thee Layers to work with:

► Vocal
► Guitar
► Looping

You may switch between Layers using the Layer
footswitch, which we will discuss in more detail
later in the manual.

our massively popular VoiceLive 2 unit: “I love
it – but I want the ‘X’ footswitch to be where the
‘Y’ footswitch is”.

We also recognize that Layers and remappa­ble footswitches can be a bit daunting to learn.
This is why we have designed the system to be
consistent and straightforward. Once you have
learned how to remap one footswitch, you know
how to remap them all.

Essentially, when you tap the Layer footswitch,
the effects associated with the six effect
footswitches (labeled µMod, Delay, Reverb, HIT,
Double/Comp, Harmony/Drive) will change from
vocal effects to guitar effects or looping controls.

You can even remap footswitches within a Lay-
er or from one Layer to another. This approach
solves one of the most common requests from

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 13

Introduction

Global Effects

VoiceLive 3 allows you to define a specific Pre­set as the “Global” Preset. This defines all of the
effects and parameters within that Preset and
allows them to be easily applied to other Presets.

What does that mean for you? Easier, quick­er Preset creation and access to consistent
sounds!

Here is an example:

“I want to use this great reverb on a whole bunch
of Presets. How do I do that?”

► First, edit the guitar reverb on your Global Pre-

set (by default, this is Preset no. 491). Editing
guitar settings is explained in greater detail in
“Editing the Guitar Layer”.

► Then go to each Preset where you would like

to use the same Reverb, go to the Reverb
settings and change the Global parameter to
“On”.

Done! This Preset will now use the Reverb set­tings from the Global Preset.

Global effects are available for each and every
effect in the Vocal and Guitar Layers. There are
endless possibilities for Global effects handling,
but here are a couple we think you might like:

Use the same guitar effects
across all Presets

This essentially turns VoiceLive 3’s Guitar Layer
into a series of stomp-boxes that you only need
to set up once.

“How do I do that?”

► Simply edit ANY Preset until all of the guitar

effects and footswitch assignments are how
you like them.

► Enter the Setup menu and navigate to the Sys-

tem tab using the horizontal Arrow buttons.

► Dial the Control knob until the line saying “All

Guitar FX Global: Off” is highlighted.

► Turn Mix knob 3 or Mix knob 4 under the dis-

play until “Off” changes to “On”.

Done! Every Preset will now have the same

guitar sounds.

Make sure a particular effect
always sounds the same

Want a certain Delay available in every Preset?
No problem.

► Just edit the Global Preset’s Delay setting.
► Go to each Preset where you would like to use

the same Delay, go to the Delay settings and
change the Global parameter to “On”.

Always use the same guitar amp model,
but have everything else change

► Easy! Adjust the Global Preset’s Amp setting

the way you want it.

► Go to each Preset where you would like to use

the same Amp, go to the Amp settings and
change the Global parameter to “On”.

Updating Global settings

The Global system is “opt in”. This means each
Preset carries its own individual settings until
you change an effect to Global. Once that hap­pens, the current Preset and Global Preset set­tings become shared.

Once you have changed an effect to Glob­al ON, any edits you make within that Pre­set affect the Global settings as well. This

means you don’t have to bounce back and forth
between the Global and current Preset to make
changes to Global effects.

Set All Guitar FX Global to “On” to use the

same guitar effect in all Presets
Setting Global to on links an effect to the
settings defined in the Global Preset

It also means that you need to be aware of the
above, so you don’t accidentally edit a Global
setting, thinking you are only editing the current
Preset. With great power comes great respon­sibility!

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 14

Introduction

For more information, see “Defining and using
Global Effects”.

Multi-track looper

Looper – Main view

Having access to multiple, independent loops al-

lows for a lot of flexibility and functionality when

looping. Our multi-track looper has some really

amazing performance features that will help you

to make great loops.

The Swap feature allows you to record two loops

and alternate between them with the push of a

footswitch. This is particularly useful for record-

ing different “sections” of a song, (like a verse

and chorus) and quickly moving between them.

the “beat box” segment in order for there to be
“enough” to play your guitar part over. Now, you
can record unequal length phrases!

Record your 1 bar “beat box” on one Loop Track,
then record your 8 bar guitar section on another.

There are a few different Sync modes in the
Looper – so be sure to read the “The Utility
menu” to familiarize yourself with the way they
affect your loops.

Looper – Swap feature

Loop length no longer matters. In some loop-

ers, your longest Loop Track will dictate the

length of all others, which can be a big hassle.

Imagine a “beat box” style rhythm that is 1 bar

long and a guitar progression that is 8 bars long.

In the past, you would have to record 8 bars of

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 15

Introduction

Store loops

Those of you who have jumped on board with
looping have likely made a really, really good
loop in the past – only to see it vanish into thin
air when you power off the device. VoiceLive 3

allows you to store your creations right in
the box!

Loop Utility menu with Save function

Not only can you store your loops – you can

assign a stored loop to a Preset. This, in our

opinion, is a game changer.

Imagine recording a really cool ambient loop,
synced to the tempo of your song, while you are
at home – and then fire it off at your gig. If the
band is using a click track, everything will line up
perfectly with what you are playing, including all
of your time-based vocal and guitar effects!

This storage ability removes a lot of the repetitive
nature of building loops live in front of an audi­ence. Sure, it’s neat the first time you see some­one build a loop live, but then it gets a bit boring.
It often takes a while to get all of the “bits” of the
loop recorded. You can do that work in advance
and then add to things in real-time during per­formance.

If you are working with pre-produced stems or

backing tracks, you can even record them into

the looper and use VoiceLive 3 as your complete

playback system!

Complete guitar effects

With VoiceLive Play GTX, we introduced our first
“complete” guitar effects suite. Previously, we
had provided Chorus, Reverb, EQ and Compres­sion blocks. VoiceLive Play GTX added Amp/
Distortion and Delay to the options, greatly ex­panding the sound possibilities for guitar play­ers.

VoiceLive 3 takes that ball and runs with it. In
fact, it pulls a Forrest Gump and runs straight out
of the stadium and across the country!

Guitar effects in VoiceLive 3

The guitar effects in VoiceLive 3 come from
some of TC Electronic’s most successful effects,
like Corona Chorus, Hall of Fame Reverb, Vor tex
Flanger and Flashback Delay!

When you couple those beautiful effects with
great amp modeling, Drive/Boost, Compression,
Rhythm/Tremolo, Wah-wah and Octave Down,
you can truly manipulate your guitar and vocal
sounds as a cohesive unit.

Imagine your time-based vocal and guitar effects
being perfectly in sync, without having to set up
complex timing systems or tapping tempo on
multiple devices. Everything just lines up!

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 16

Introduction

Advanced monitoring

More and more people are jumping into the In
Ear Monitor (IEM) pool. It’s a great thing to do –
but it can often require a fairly complex setup.

VoiceLive 3 offers two features that make cus­tom monitor mixing really easy for you.

Monitor IN

Using the Monitor IN XLR connection, you
can bring a “monitor or cue” mix into your
VoiceLive 3, blending it with your own vocal, gui­tar and loop sounds. The incoming monitor IN
does not get passed back out of the unit – so you
can rest assured that it won’t cause feedback.

Headphone Mix

VoiceLive 3’s headphone mix is independent of
the output mix – allowing you to hear “what you
want” in your headphones or IEMs, without af­fecting what comes from the main outputs.

This monitoring capability can literally eliminate

the need for expensive belt packs, transmitters,

secondary mixers and other gear required for a

custom IEM solution. Using our included Guitar/

Headphone cable, you only use one cable to

connect your guitar and headphones/IEM’s to

the unit!

Headphone Mix

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 17

Introduction

1 2 3

4

5

11

12

Top panel overview

Click or tap on an interface element to jump directly to its description.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 18

Introduction

Below is a brief description of the top panel con­trols and buttons. Full functionality for each will
be described in more detail later.

Genre button

Use the Genre button to find
Presets based on their musical
genre or featured effects. For
example, you may want to re­strict the Presets “visible” to you in VoiceLive 3
to those that are defined as “Rock” or “Country”
in nature.

Use the knob right under the genre indicator to
select the desired Genre (e.g. Rock), and press
the Genre button again. When browsing Pre­sets, you will only see Presets assigned to this
Genre, and the name of the selected Genre will
be shown in the lower left corner of the display.

To remove the filter, tap the Genre button, set
Genre to “All” and tap the Genre button again

Setup button

Press the Setup button to ac­cess all system setup settings,
including Input, Output, MIDI,
Tone, Guitar and more.

For more information, see “Setup”.

Press and hold the Setup button to enter the

automated microphone and guitar gain setting

mode.

Store button

Use the Store button to store

Presets. Tap once to activate

the store procedure. Tap again

to confirm. For more informa-

tion, see “Storing Presets”.

Home button

Use the Home button to return

to the “top level” interface. The

screen will show the number of

the current Preset and any ef-

fects associated with the current Layer.

Control knob

Use the Control knob to move

through Presets and scrolls up/

down when in an edit screen.

When the “Home” screen is

shown, you can press the Control knob to add

or remove the current Preset from the Favorite

genre. For more information, see “Using Favor-

ites”.

Vocal button

Use the Vocal button to enter
the Vocal edit screens. This is
where you can make changes
to the vocal effects for the cur­rent Preset.

For more information, see “Editing the Vocal Lay­er”.

Guitar button

Use the Guitar button to enter
the Guitar edit screens. This is
where you can make changes
to any of the guitar effects for
the current Preset.

For more information, see “Editing the Guitar
Layer”.

Looper button

Use the Looper button to enter
the Loop options screen. Here
you can control several general
Loop options.

When you’re in the Vocal or Guitar layer and have
a Loop playing, the small red LED next to the
Looper button will flash. This gives a visual indi­cation that a loop is running.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 19

Introduction

For more information, see “Loop button param­eters”.

Mix knobs

From the Home screen, turn­ing any mix knob enters the
Mix screens (Main, Head­phones and Effects).

For more information on the Mix screens, see
“Using the Mix Controls”.

Within an Edit page, the mix knobs adjust pa­rameter settings. Each mix knob controls the pa­rameter shown right above it in the display.

Arrow buttons

When you are on the Home
screen, you can use the Ar­row buttons to move through
Presets.

Level LEDs

Read the level LEDs as follows:

► If you play your guitar with-

out singing, the LEDs show
your guitar level.

► If you sing and don’t play

guitar, the LEDs show your
vocal level.

► If you play and sing, the LEDs show a com-

bined level.

When you are on an Edit screen, use the Arrow
buttons to move between tabs.

NP LED

The NP LED lights when Nat­uralPlay (chord) information
is received via Guitar, MIDI,
Aux, Looper or RoomSense.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 20

Introduction

2

4 5 6

Footswitches overview

Click or tap on an interface element to jump directly to its description.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 21

Introduction

Below is a description of the footswitches on
VoiceLive 3. Some switches will be discussed in
more detail later in the manual.

Preset up / Preset down footswitches

► Tap the Preset Up/Preset Down

footswitches to move through
Presets.

► Hold the Preset Up/Preset

Down footswitches to quickly
scroll through Presets.

► Tap both footswitches simul-

taneously to enter Talk/Tuner
mode.

About Talk/Tuner mode

Talk/Tuner mode mutes guitar out-

put, activates the guitar tuner and

bypasses all vocal effects so you

can speak to your audience.

You can still tap the Preset Up and Down Preset

buttons while in Talk/Tuner mode to change pre-

sets. This is great for changing presets while ad-

dressing the audience to queue sounds for your

next song.

Layer footswitch

To switch between the Vocal and
Guitar effects layers, tap the Lay­er footswitch.

► Vocal Layer active: Layer

footswitch LED lights blue.

► Guitar Layer active: Layer

footswitch LED lights red.

To access the Loop Layer, hold
the Layer footswitch.

► Loop Layer active: Layer

footswitch LED lights purple.

To return from the Loop Lay­er to the previously active Layer
(Vocal or Guitar), hold the Layer
footswitch.

To exit Talk/Tuner, press any button other than

Preset Up or Preset Down.

For more information, see “Talk/Tuner Mode”.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 22

Introduction

Here are a couple of examples showing how the
effects footswitches might look when each Lay­er is active:

Vocal Layer with Reverb, Double and Harmony
activated.

Guitar Layer with µMod (let’s say it’s Flanger for
this example), Delay and Drive activated. If you
were previously on the Vocal Layer, you would
tap the Layer footswitch to move to the Guitar
Layer, changing the footswitch LED color from
blue to red.

Vocal Layer with some guitar effects remapped

to vocal effect footswitches. You may find that

you would like to “hang out” on a particular

Layer (Vocal or Guitar) and have access to a key

effect or effects from another Layer. Remapping

footswitches allows you do to just that. This is

best referred to as a “mixed Layer”. This is a

more advanced operational mode that we will

cover later.

Step footswitch

► To move to the next Step with-

in the current Preset (e.g. from
1 to 2), tap the Step footswitch.
Not all Presets have Steps.

► To move to the previous Step in the current

Preset (e.g. from 2 to 1), tap the Preset Down
footswitch.

► To enter the Step management screen, hold

the Step footswitch.

Step management

Step management

You can use the current Preset or a different Pre­set as a Step.

If you are using the current Preset, make sure
that it sounds the way you want it to before you
enter Step management.

Adding a Step to a Preset

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 23

Introduction

If it is a different Preset, enter Step management
and then use the Preset Up and Preset Down
footswitches to locate the Preset you would like
to add as a Step.

Adding a different Preset as a Step

► To accept changes, tap the Step footswitch.
► To delete the current step, tap the Layer

footswitch.

► To cancel, press the Home button.

The Step footswitch can be globally reassigned
to several different functions – such as Tap Tem­po, HIT, Set Key, any Vocal or Guitar effect and
more. We have found that remapping Step to
enter/leave the Looper can be incredibly useful
in performance, when you need quick access in
and out.

µMod footswitch

Tap the µMod footswitch to turn the

micro-modulation (µMod) effect on

or off.

The µMod block encompasses effects such as

Chorus, Flange, Detune and Rotor.

This effect can be configured and used sepa-

rately for the Vocal and Guitar layer. For more

information, see “Editing the Vocal Layer” and

“Editing the Guitar Layer”.

Delay footswitch

Tap the Delay footswitch to turn the
Delay effect (also known as echo) on
or off.

The Delay block encompasses effects such as ¼
Note, Multi-Tap and Ping Pong.

This effect can be configured and used sepa­rately for the Vocal and Guitar layer. For more
information, see “Editing the Vocal Layer” and
“Editing the Guitar Layer”.

Tempo tapping

► To access tempo tapping, hold the Delay

footswitch.

► Tap the footswitch in time with your song.

A few taps are enough.

► When you are happy with the tempo, stop

tapping.

For more information about Steps, see “Using
Steps”.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 24

Introduction

Reverb footswitch

Tap the Reverb footswitch to turn
the Reverb effect on or off.

The Reverb block encompasses ef­fects such as Hall, Club, Room and Plate.

This effect can be configured and used sepa­rately for the Vocal and Guitar layer. For more
information, see “Editing the Vocal Layer” and
“Editing the Guitar Layer”.

HIT footswitch

Tap the HIT footswitch to activate or

deactivate HIT. HIT can control:

► Vocal HIT (blue)
► Guitar HIT (red)
► All HIT (purple)

HIT is covered in greater detail in “Using the HIT

footswitch”.

Double/Comp footswitch

On the Vocal Layer, tap the Double/
Comp footswitch to turn the Double
effect on or off.

Double encompasses effects such
as 1 Voice Tight, 2 Voices Wide and 4 Voices
Wide.

For more information, see “Double effect
block / t ab”.

On the Guitar Layer, tap the Double/Comp
footswitch to turn the Compressor on or off.

For more information, see “Comp(ression) effect
block / t ab”.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 25

Introduction

Harmony/Drive footswitch

On the Vocal Layer, tap the Har­mony/Drive footswitch to turn
the Harmony effect on or off.

Harmony encompasses effects
such as High (3rd up), Low (4th below) and Low &
Lower (4th below and 6th below).

For more information, see “Harmony effect
block / t ab”.

On the Guitar Layer, tap the Harmony/Drive
footswitch to turn the Drive effect on or off.

Drive encompasses effects such as Boost, Boost
& Drive and Drive.

For more information, see “Drive effect
block / t ab”.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 26

Introduction

Back panel inputs and outputs

VoiceLive 3 offers extremely robust input and
output routing. Using the Monitor IN/THRU and
dedicated Guitar outputs effectively, you can
greatly reduce the amount of gear you need to
take to a performance.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 27

Inputs

Introduction

1. DC Power connector

2. XLR and ¼” Combo jack input

3. ¼” Guitar input

4. 1/8” Stereo Aux and XLR Monitor input jacks.
Please note that Aux input and Monitor input

are mutually exclusive. Only one may be used
at a time.

5. MIDI Input

6. Footswitch. Connect a TC-Helicon Switch-3
or Switch-6 here. You can also connect a
second expression pedal here – see “Working
with a second expression pedal”.

7. Expression pedal input

8. USB Host port

VoiceLive 3 inputs overview

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 28

Introduction

7

Outputs

you connect the Guitar Out(s) to your amp(s),
guitar sounds will be removed from the Main
outputs.

6. MIDI Out: The MIDI Out jack sends MIDI
Control Change messages (MIDI CCs) relat­ed to footswitches and buttons pressed on
VoiceLive 3. If no CC is sent, there is likely no
CC assigned to that particular action.

Currently, Vocal & Guitar effects ON/OFF and

their respective levels are represented by MIDI
Control Change messages.

If you experience hum from your guitar amp or
PA, try pressing the GRND LIFT switch, located
between the Headphone out and the Left XLR
output.

VoiceLive 3 outputs overview

1. Guitar THRU: If you only need chord detec­tion and want to pass your dry guitar signal
onto a different processor or record a dry gui­tar track, use the THRU jack to pass your gui­tar signal to your amp.

2. Monitor THRU: The Monitor THRU jack al­lows you to receive an incoming Monitor IN
signal from a mixer and pass it on to another
monitor.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 29

3. Headphone out: Connect headphones or
in-ear-monitors to the Headphone out and use
the Headphone Mix to set up your personal
mix.

4. Main Outputs: The Main Outputs carry Vo­cals & Effects. If nothing is connected to the
Guitar outputs, Main outputs also carry Guitar
signals.

5. Guitar Outputs: The Guitar outputs carry the
Guitar signal. If only one output is connected,
guitar output is automatically in MONO. When

VoiceLive 3 overview

VoiceLive 3 overview

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 30

Setting up

VoiceLive 3 overview

Instead of jumping directly into a whole bunch of
descriptions of parameters and fine tuning con­trols, now is a good time to back up a bit and ap­proach VoiceLive 3 from a “Let’s use this thing!”
perspective.

First, if you haven’t read through the Quick Start
Guide that came in the box, we suggest you do
so now.

The minimum gear you will need from here is:

► Your VoiceLive 3
► A microphone – either

► Dynamic (e.g. a TC-Helicon MP-75 or MP-

76, SM58, or OM5)

► Condenser (e.g. a Beta 87A or enCore 300)

► An XLR cable (microphone cable) to connect

your microphone to VoiceLive 3

► A guitar or MIDI keyboard, if applicable
► Headphones
► The Guitar/Headphone cable that came with

your VoiceLive 3.

If you would prefer to use VoiceLive 3 via your
PA, you will need one or two additional XLR ca­bles to connect VoiceLive 3’s XLR outputs to in­puts at your mixer.

A lot of PAs are mono and only require one XLR
connection. If you have a stereo PA, you will want
to connect both VoiceLive 3 XLR outputs to your
mi xer.

Connecting VoiceLive 3
to your mixer/PA

► Determine whether your mixer/PA is stereo or

mono.

► Connect the appropriate number of cables

from VoiceLive 3’s XLR outputs to the mixer/
PA inputs (1 for mono, 2 for stereo).

! If your P.A. is Stereo, you will need to pan one

channel left and the other one right in order to
receive the benefits of VoiceLive 3’s stereo ef­fects.

► Watch the “Craig’s Corner” episode about

connecting to a mixer:

youtube.com/watch?v=qq0AOtafIjs

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 31

VoiceLive 3 overview

XLR Male XLR Female

Combo Jack

MIDI Jack

1/4 inch jack

XLR Male XLR Female

Combo Jack

MIDI Jack

1/4 inch jack

Power Input

Mini USB

1/8 inch jack GRND Lift

USB Type A

USB Type B

XLR Male XLR Female

Combo Jack

MIDI Jack

1/4 inch jack

Power Input

Mini USB

1/8 inch jack GRND Lift

USB Type A

USB Type B

XLR Male XLR Female

Combo Jack

MIDI Jack

1/4 inch jack

XLR Male XLR Female

Combo Jack

MIDI Jack

1/4 inch jack

Power Input

Mini USB

1/8 inch jack GRND Lift

USB Type A

USB Type B

XLR Male XLR Female

Combo Jack

MIDI Jack

1/4 inch jack

Power Input

Mini USB

1/8 inch jack GRND Lift

USB Type A

USB Type B

XLR Male XLR Female

Combo Jack

MIDI Jack

1/4 inch jack

Power Input

Mini USB

1/8 inch jack GRND Lift

USB Type A

USB Type B

XLR Male XLR Female

Combo Jack

MIDI Jack

1/4 inch jack

Power Input

Mini USB

1/8 inch jack GRND Lift

USB Type A

USB Type B

Combo Jack

MIDI Jack

1/4 inch jack

Mini USB

USB Type B

Combo Jack

MIDI Jack

1/4 inch jack

Mini USB

1/8 inch jack GRND Lift

USB Type A

USB Type B

Diagram legend

The following icons are used in the diagrams in
this manual.

Mixing Board

Microphone

Acoustic Guitar

Electric Guitar

Keyboard or other instrument

Monitor Mix

P.A.

Guitar/Keyboard amp

XLR cables

TRS and TS cables

1/8” cable (guitar cable)

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 32

VoiceLive 3 overview

Diagrams

On the following pages, you will see some con­nection diagrams. We have set things up to give
you clear and concise representations of what
goes where.

There are a few things we would like you to keep
in mind as you look at the diagrams:

1. Inputs to VoiceLive 3 will be to the left of the
back panel image.

2. Outputs from VoiceLive 3 will be to the right of
the back panel image.

3. There are two boxes on the bottom of each
diagram.

► The VoiceLive 3 box on the left shows

“what you hear” from your VoiceLive 3
headphone output.

► The P.A. box on the right shows “what you

hear” from the P.A. speakers.

4. We don’t account for other inputs/instruments
when showing “what you hear” from the P.A.,
so you won’t see pictures of drums etc.

5. In a lot of cases, “what you hear” will be the
same for both VoiceLive 3 headphone output
and P.A. – but it can also be different.

3

5 5

4

Reading the diagrams in this manual

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 33

VoiceLive 3 overview

Stereo PA connection for vocals (and guitar if applicable)

This diagram shows a “Stereo” output mode.
Stereo sends a Left and Right signal via the XLR
outputs to your PA or mixer.

This allows you to enjoy the full benefits of stereo
audio effects.

Setting Output Mode to Stereo

Changing VoiceLive 3 from Mono
(default) to Stereo output:

► Press Setup.
► Use the < or > Arrow buttons to move to the

Output tab.

► Use the Control Knob to move the selection

bar until XLR Output Mode is highlighted
(white).

► Turn the Mix Knob directly below the XLR Out-

put Mode box on the screen until the mode
changes to Stereo.

► Press Home to exit.
► When choosing Stereo, ensure the PA is ac-

tually outputting a stereo signal. It’s common
for a PA to have two speakers or speaker sets
– but still be mono.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 34

VoiceLive 3 overview

Dual Mono PA connection for vocals (& guitar if applicable)

This diagram shows a “Dual Mono” output
mode. Dual Mono sends two mono signals from
the XLR outputs on VoiceLive 3. One XLR carries
the vocal sounds and the other XLR carries the
guitar sounds.

This allows you to balance the vocal and guitar
levels via your mixer. Dual Mono can be espe­cially effective at a venue with a sound tech. The
guitar and vocal signals are separated and can
be controlled independently, making the tech’s
mixing job easier.

Setting Output Mode to Dual Mono

Changing VoiceLive 3 from Mono
(default) to Dual Mono output

► Press Setup.
► Use the < or > Arrow buttons to move to the

Output tab.

► Use the Control Knob to move the selection

bar until XLR Output Mode is highlighted
(white).

► Turn the Mix Knob directly below the XLR Out-

put Mode box on the screen until the mode
changes to Dual Mono.

► Press Home to exit.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 35

VoiceLive 3 overview

Stereo vocals and a guitar amplifier

You may want to make a quick adjustment to the
guitar output if you are connected to an amp.
It might be desirable to turn off VoiceLive 3’s
speaker simulations while preserving all of the
other guitar effects. This will allow the “charac­ter” of your amp to stay the same from Preset to
Preset.

Follow the instructions in “Stereo PA connection
for vocals (and guitar if applicable)” to change
your output mode to Stereo.

Turning speaker simulation off

► Press Setup.
► Use the < or > Arrow buttons to move to the

Guitar tab.

► Use the Control Knob to move the selection

bar until Speaker Sim Enable is highlighted.

► Turn the Mix Knob directly below the dis-

play until the setting for Speaker Sim Enable
changes from On to Off.

► Press Home to exit.

Turning speaker simulation off

This setup is great if you have got a guitar amp
and want to send VoiceLive 3’s guitar sounds to
that amp instead of to the PA.

For Mono vocals via the PA and guitar sounds
via a guitar amplifier, follow the diagram above,
but connect only the Left XLR output from
VoiceLive 3 to your PA and set the output mode
to Mono.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 36

VoiceLive 3 overview

The kitchen sink – everything hooked up

Stage

Monitor

Aux

Send

SWITCH-3

PA

Speakers

Computer

or

DAW

It’s unlikely that you will have absolutely every­thing seen here hooked up to VoiceLive 3 – but
this diagram can serve as a general connection
diagram that you can use to configure your per­sonal setup.

The setup shows:

1. Microphone

2. Guitar

3. Music Player

4. Incoming Monitor (or cue) mix from the
Front Of House mixer

5. Monitor THRU to another monitor

6. Headphone out (possibly using the head­phone/guitar cable and In Ear Monitor’s)

7. XLR Outputs carry stereo vocals to the PA.

8. Guitar Outputs carry stereo guitar sounds
to amps

9. Switch-3 and an Expression pedal for extra
controls

10. MIDI IN for NaturalPlay chord information
from a keyboard (NaturalPlay will “listen” to
Guitar/Keyboard over the AUX input and will
automatically switch between Guitar/Key­board if they are both plugged in)

11. MIDI OUT to control a DAW, perhaps with
backing tracks and/or show control soft­ware

Loop and Metronome sounds generated by
VoiceLive 3 are not shown, but any Vocal Loops
will be sent out via the XLR outputs and Guitar
loops will be sent out via the Guitar outputs.

The Metronome can be heard in the XLR Main
Mix and headphone mix or just the headphone
mix, depending on your mix settings.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 37

VoiceLive 3 overview

Quick troubleshooting tips

After following the VoiceLive 3 Quick Start Guide
and referring to the diagrams in “Setting up”, you
should hear your voice and instrument(s) via your
VoiceLive 3.

Here are a few troubleshooting ideas if you are
not hearing sound.

“I’m not hearing my voice!”

Do the Level LEDs near the Control Knob light up
when you sing?

No?

► Try a different cable.
► Try a different microphone.
► Did you go through the Auto-Gain procedure

described in the Quick Start Guide?

► Press and hold the Setup button.
► Follow the on-screen instructions.

► Are you using a condenser microphone?

► Press Setup.
► Navigate to the Input tab.
► Change the Input Type parameter to “Con-

denser”.

Yes?

► Is your PA receiving signal?

► Check your PA manual for details on how to

check input levels.

► Turn up channel input trims until you see

signal.

(If you have a separate mixer/amplifier)

► Is the PA turned on?
► Are the speakers connected?

“I’m not hearing my guitar.”

► Check that your guitar is turned all the way up.
► Have you connected your guitar to an amp?

► Is it turned on?

► If you are in Dual Mono mode, make sure both

of the channels on your PA/mixer are turned
up and unmuted according to your PA/mixer
manual.

► Are you in Tuner mode?

Accidentally pressing the Preset up/Preset

down footswitches simultaneously will enter
Tuner mode, muting guitar output.

If you see a guitar tuner on the screen and the

Preset up/Preset down LED’s are lit solid red,
you are in Tuner mode. Press Preset Up or
Preset Down to exit.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 38

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 39

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

A guided tour

While some product manuals take a path through
all of the functions and features, we are going to
lead you on a tour of VoiceLive 3 from a practi­cal use standpoint. If you follow along on your
VoiceLive 3 while reading the following pages,
you will get a good grasp of most of the key fea­tures in the box.

It may seem as though we jump around through
various menus and operations – but trust us that
this is a good way to get to know the unit while
making practical changes in the process. Stick
with us!

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 40

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

There’s no place like Home

Using all the features described on the follow­ing pages, you might find yourself deep in some
sub-menu or parameter list. Don’t panic! Just
press the Home button, and you will return to
VoiceLive 3’s “Home” screen. The Home screen
shows…

► The number of the current Preset.
► The name of the current Preset.
► The effect blocks currently assigned to the

six footswitches labeled µMod, Delay, Re­verb, Hit, Doub le / Comp and Harmo ny / Drive
on the currently active Layer (Guitar or Vocal).

For more information on accessing and edit-

ing effect settings, see “Editing the Vocal Lay­er” and “Editing the Guitar Layer”.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 41

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Using the Control knob

► While on the Home screen, the Control Knob

moves through Presets.

► Turning the knob clockwise (right) will move

up through Presets.

► Turning the knob counterclockwise (right)

will move down through Presets.

► Pressing the control knob while on the Home

screen will set the current Preset as a Favor­ite. For more information, see “Using Preset
Genres and Favorites”.

► On an Edit or System screen, the Control

Knob acts as a vertical scroll control. Use it to
navigate up or down through parameters and
settings.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 42

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Using the Arrow buttons

Use the two small Arrow buttons located be­neath the Control knob to move through Presets
and edit pages.

► While on the Home screen, use the Arrow but-

tons to move through Presets.

► To select the next Preset, press the right

Arrow button.

► To select the previous Preset, press the left

Arrow button.

► On an Edit or System screen, the Arrow but-

tons allow you to move left and right through
the “tabs” in that menu.

For example, the Vocal edit screen has a sep-

arate tab or “page” for each vocal effect. The
Arrow buttons move from left to right through
these tabs.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 43

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

What is a Preset?

VoiceLive 3 and many other TC-Helicon devices
are based on the concept of “Presets”. Essen­tially, a Preset is a record of all the settings for a
group of effects that you can recall quickly and
easily.

The Preset concept is extremely flexible. A Pre­set can be general purpose – like a simple Re­verb or Harmony sound. But a Preset can also
represent a specific song or portion of a song via
multiple effects and settings.

A good modern analogy for a Preset is a user ac­count on a computer. Even though each user has
access to the same hardware (CPU, RAM etc.)
each user can change their desktop wallpaper,
icons on the desktop, program behaviors and
much more. When each user logs in, the com­puter recalls all of their custom settings.

Depending on how you like you to work with ef­fects, you may find that you like to use a few gen­eral purpose Presets and turn effects on and off
manually during your performance. Or you might
be the kind of guy or girl who likes to spend a
bit more time in advance of the performance to
create Presets for all sorts of things. Or you may
be somewhere in between. Any amount of edit­ing or Preset manipulation is fine! You can get as
“programmer” or “seat of the pants” as you like.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 44

Using Steps

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

A Step is, at its core, a Preset within a Preset.
Here’s how it works…

Let’s use a typical song pop song structure as
an example.

► Verse
► Chorus
► Verse
► Chorus
► Bridge
► Chorus

Now, let’s assume that you want a complete­ly different sound for your Verse, Chorus and
Bridge sections. The HIT function is great if you
need two variations within a song – but here,
you’ll obviously need more.

Now the easiest way to accomplish this is to
make a separate Preset for each song section.
This means that on stage, you now have to re­member where those presets are and move be­tween them for each part of the song. It’s totally
doable – but a bit more work that necessary.

So, let’s assume that you have created the three
different presets that represent your three song
sections. You’d now create “Steps” within your
Verse Preset like this:

► Step 1: Verse
► Step 2: Chorus
► Step 3: Verse
► Step 4: Chorus
► Step 5: Bridge
► Step 6: Chorus

As you perform, you simply press the STEP
button once for each song section as it comes
along. It’s a much simpler way to manage sev­eral presets in a song!

For more information about creating and delet­ing Steps within a Preset, see “Step manage­ment”.

Enter the STEP.

If you treat the Verse Preset as your starting
point (perhaps name it simply with your song
name), you can add Steps to that initial Preset
to cover the other sections of your song, in the
order that they are needed.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 45

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Using Preset Genres and Favorites

If you are playing classical pop, you may not
care much for Presets that have been optimized
for Alternative rock – and vice versa. And if you
have created or fine-tuned ten Presets for your
show, you may now want to scroll through the
hundreds of other Presets that you are working
with in the studio. Genres to the rescue!

As described earlier, the Genre feature allows
you to filter the Presets in VoiceLive 3 based on
the musical genre or primary effect.

Using Genres

► Tap the Genre button.
► Use the Mix Knob to scroll through available

Preset Genres.

► When you have found a Genre you would like

to explore, tap the Genre button again to con­firm and exit.

Pressing any other button – like HOME – to

exit Genre selection mode will not select the
current Genre. Make sure you use the Genre
button to exit the menu and confirm your se­lection. The Genre button will be flashing to
remind you to press it.

After selecting a Genre, you will notice that

scrolling through Presets gives you fewer op­tions than before. Presets are now filtered and
only show options contained in your chosen
Genre.

To return to seeing all Presets:

► Tap the Genre button.
► Use the Mix Knob to change the Genre to

“All”.

► Press Genre again to exit.

Using Favorites

There is a special Genre called
Favorite which you can assign
Presets to. Favorites can be used to quickly make
a set-list or showcase of Presets, helping you to
navigate more quickly through VoiceLive 3.

► To add a Preset to the Favorite Genre, simply

press the Control Knob down while on the
home screen.

A small “FAV” tag will be shown in the bottom

right corner of the display, indicating that the
current Preset is now flagged as a Favorite.

If you now enter the Genre menu and select

the “Favorite” Genre, only Presets that you
have selected as Favorites will be available
as you change Presets – just as with other
Genres.

► To remove the Favorite flag from a Preset,

simply press the Control Knob again.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 46

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

What is NaturalPlay?

A device creating harmony voices and correcting
what you are singing to the right scale is a won­derful thing. But how do you tell that device what
key the next song is in? Do you have to program
it as part of a Preset? Do you have to set it up for
each song? What if you get it wrong on stage?

NaturalPlay to the rescue! If you have a guitar
connected to VoiceLive 3, it will automatically
guide key and scale for any Harmony voices or
HardTune effects. You don’t need to make any
changes to the system for this to work. Just play
your guitar normally (chords work best) and sing!

Similarly, if you connect a MIDI-enabled key­board using a MIDI cable, VoiceLive 3 will follow
your playing to determine key/scale for Harmony
voices and HardTune.

If you sing to pre-produced tracks and don’t
have a guitar or MIDI keyboard connected,
VoiceLive 3 will read key/scale information from
a music signal present at the Aux jack – this
might be a song from an MP3 player or smart­phone. Finally, VoiceLive 3 can also read key/
scale information from the Monitor In jack.

As you see, NaturalPlay has you covered – no
matter what your setup is.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 47

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Using Global Key/Scale

If you do not have an instrument or a pre-pro­duced song that can guide VoiceLive 3’s Har­mony and HardTune features, you may want to
make a small change to the System setup so you
can define the key and scale for the song you are
singing and change Presets without having to
change the Key setting each time.

► Press Setup.
► Use the < and > Arrow buttons to navigate to

the System tab.

► Using the Control Knob to highlight Global

Key/Scale.

► Change the Global Key/Scale to ON.

This will set one global key/scale for all Pre-

sets in VoiceLive 3.

► You can change this global key/scale “on the

fly” later.

► Press Home to exit.

Using Global Key/Scale

Once you get more familiar with VoiceLive 3, you
may want to turn Global Key/Scale off in order to
save a different Key/Scale per Preset.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 48

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Setting Key/Scale manually

If you are a singer without an instrument, you
may not want to rely on sone external input. In­stead, we’ll set the Key/Scale for your song man­ua lly.

For simplicity, let’s sing “Happy Birthday” in C
using our Major 2 scale.

You will need to find C as your starting note (un­less you have perfect pitch – then you are awe­some).

To set the key/scale:

► If it isn’t selected, select the Vocal Layer by

pressing the Layer footswitch.

► Press and HOLD the Harmony footswitch un-

til the Set Key/Scale screen appears.

► Press the Preset up/Preset down footswitch-

es until the key reaches C.

► If the scale is not already “Maj 2”, tap

the Step button repeatedly until the display
shows Maj 2.

► Let the Key/Scale screen “time out” and dis-

appear (by not doing anything for a few sec­onds).

Depending on the song you are singing, “Major
2” (MAJ2) may not be right for you.

To learn which scale Harmony notes are gen­erated based on your input note, check out our
Scale Chart.

support.tc-helicon.com/entries/21051886­Scale-chart-for-TC-Helicon-products

Setting Key and Scale

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 49

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Let’s try Harmony!

Navigate to Preset No. 2 (“Classic 3rd up”) using
the Preset up/Preset down switches or the Con­trol Knob.

► Make sure that you are on the Vocal Layer.

The LEDs around the footswitches should be

blue. If they are not, press the Layer button.

► You should see the Reverb, HIT and Harmony

footswitch lit in blue.

If Harmony and HIT are not lit, press the HIT

button.

Even if you play an instrument that could be
used for NaturalPlay, you may want to try setting
the key/scale manually. Why? The manual set­tings can give a slightly different harmony out­put than the one you get when playing chords
(NaturalPlay). You may prefer one or the oth­er depending on the song you are playing and
singing. It is not uncommon for advanced users
to utilize NaturalPlay for some Presets and Key/
Scale for others.

Preset 2 (“Classic 3rd up”)

If you are a guitar playing singer, you can play
your guitar and sing now. You should hear a har­mony following your lead vocal and also hear
some guitar effects.

If you are a singer, and if you have set the key/
scale correctly in the previous step, the harmo­nies should follow your lead melody correctly.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 50

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Using the HIT footswitch

As you sing your song, with guitar or without, try
tapping the HIT footswitch. In this Preset, HIT
will activate and deactivate the Harmony effect
each time you press the button – once on and
once for off.

HIT off

music. It may take a while to get the hang of
things if you have never used footswitch based
effects before. Don’t worry if you are not very
good at it right away!

As you sing your song, with guitar or without, try
tapping the HIT footswitch. In this Preset, HIT
will activate and deactivate the Harmony effect
each time you press the button – once on and
once for off.

HIT on. Note the additional (highlighted) effects

Practice using HIT to turn the Harmony on and
off at interesting points in the song. This skill is
essential for using the effects “in time” with your

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 51

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Using individual effects

Next, turn off Harmony using the HIT button. Try
tapping the Double button to add the Double ef­fect to your voice. Do the same with Delay and
µMod. Try a few of the effects together and see
what it sounds like.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 52

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Change a button from Latched to Momentary mode

When you are turning effects on and off using
the footswitches, the default behavior for each
switch is to work in “latched” mode. This simply
means that you press the button once to turn the
effect on and again to turn the effect off.

Latched mode works for a lot of cases, but there
are probably times when you would like an effect
to be active as you hold the button down – and
inactive as soon as you release it. This is called
“Momentary” mode.

Since we just experimented with turning effects
on and off, let’s change the way one of those ef­fect footswitches operates.

► Press the Vocal button.
► Press and HOLD the right Arrow (>) to “jump”

all the way to the last Vocal tab.

This is a common behavior for the Arrow but-

tons. If you press and hold, you will jump to
the far side of the effects/Preset pages. This
can save you some time while editing.

Curious about all those tabs and their param-

eters? Don’t worry – we will cover all the Vocal
effects later!

► Now press the left Arrow (<) to navigate to the

Buttonmap tab.

► Use the Control Knob to scroll down and high-

light the line starting with “HIT”.

Selecting HIT in the buttonmap menu

► Use the Mix Knob right below “Mode” to

change the mode of the HIT footswitch from
Latched to Momentary.

Changing Mode to Momentary

► Press the Home button.

This will take you back to the main (or home)

screen.
Now, press the HIT button, just like you did be­fore. Notice how the blue light only comes on
while you hold the button down? That’s Momen­tary mode.

to activate. Practice activating harmony for a
single word or short phrase. It’s much easier in
momentary mode!

Before you move on, go back into the Vocal But­tonmap screen and change HIT back to Latched
mode.

Changing Mode back to Latched

Try singing the same song again, pressing/hold­ing the HIT footswitch when you want harmonies

Buttonmap menu

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 53

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Remapping a footswitch

Since you have just seen the Buttonmap page,
this is a good time to remap a footswitch to a
different effect.

Since there are 11 vocal effects and 9 guitar
effects in VoiceLive 3, but only 6 footswitch­es, the ability to assign new functions to these
footswitches gives you a lot of flexibility.

Let’s remap µMod to HardTune. Later, you can
remap any footswitch as you wish, for this exam­ple, please follow along.

► Press the Vocal button.
► Navigate to the Buttonmap tab using the <

and > buttons.

► Use the Control Knob to highlight the line

starting with “µMod”. It’s at the top of the
page.

As you can see, the µMod is assigned to the

µMod effect.

► Use the far left Mix Knob to remap the µMod

footswitch to HardTune.

If you look at the top left corner of the screen,

you should see HardTune there, µMod will be

gone.

µMod footswitch remapped to HardTune

When you press the µMod footswitch, you will
see that HardTune is now controlled by that but­ton.

Remapping can be performed for any effect in
VoiceLive 3. Vocal and Guitar effects are not re­stricted to their “home layers”. This means that

you can remap a vocal effect to the guitar
Layer – and vice versa.

Since the Buttonmap page is available in each
Preset, for both vocal and guitar layers, you can
create a custom button mapping for every Preset
in VoiceLive 3.

Here are some Buttonmap examples:

► Remap a Guitar effect to Shift, so you have

easy access to the Octaver effect.

µMod footswitch remapped to Octaver

► Change a Vocal effect to Synth, so you can

use the Talkbox effect.

Reverb footswitch remapped to Synth

Remapping the µMod footswitch to HardTune

► Press Home.

► Move Guitar HIT from the Guitar Layer to the

Vocal Layer, so you can change multiple gui­tar sounds/effects without leaving the Vocal

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 54

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Layer. To control multiple Vocal and Guitar ef-

fects simultaneously without having to leave
the current Layer, you can assign Vocal HIT
to the HIT footswitch and Guitar HIT to the
footswitch right next to it (Double)

Double footswitch on the Vocal Layer remapped
to Guitar HIT

Remember that remapping a Guitar effect to

the Vocal Layer needs to be done via the Vocal
Buttonmap.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 55

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Talk/Tuner Mode

Before you get too far into playing your guitar
through VoiceLive 3, it’s a good idea to become
familiar with the Talk/Tuner mode.

The tuner offers a couple of neat features for
both guitar and vocals – so non-instrumentalists
might want to read this section, too.

To enter Talk/Tuner mode, press both the Preset
up and Preset down footswitches simultaneous­ly for two seconds. Both footswitches will light
up in red, and the tuner will be displayed.

When you enter Talk/Tuner mode, the guitar will
be muted, so you can tune without your audi­ence hearing it, and any vocal effects will re­moved from the signal. The vocal effects are re­moved so you can talk to your audience without
effects cluttering up what you are trying to say.

While in Talk/Tuner mode, you can still use the
Preset up and Preset down footswitches to
change Presets. This is especially handy if you
are tuning, changing guitars or addressing the
audience between songs and want to have the
next needed Preset loaded when you are fin­ished.

Exiting Talk/Tuner mode

To exit Talk/Tuner mode, simply press both
the Preset up and Down button simultaneously
again. When exiting, there is no need to hold for
two seconds. You can also press any of the ef­fect footswitches to exit Talk/Tuner mode.

Setting the Talk Trim parameter to OFF allows
you to also mute the microphone in TALK/TUN­ER mode. For more information, see “Talk Trim
parameter”.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 56

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Guitar Effects

For those of you playing guitar, this is a good
time to try out the various guitar effects in
VoiceLive 3. If you are a vocalist without a guitar,
go get a coffee or follow along to learn about the
Guitar Layer…

Press the Layer footswitch. You should notice
that VoiceLive 3’s LEDs turn RED – indicating
you are now on the guitar Layer. Look at the
screen, too. You will see that the effect names
have changed, and there is a small guitar icon in
each of the boxes (there are small microphone
icons in each Vocal Layer box).

process. You are now in Guitar Edit mode, and
you can move to the Buttonmap screen from
there.

There is a separate Buttonmap screen for both
the Vocal and Guitar Layer – but that’s a can of
worms we can open later.

Guitar Layer active

While playing your guitar, tap some of the
footswitches to turn the various guitar effects on
and off.

Change a guitar effect to Momentary mode as
described in “Change a button from Latched to
Momentary mode”. However, press the Guitar
button instead of the Vocal button to begin the

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 57

Editing HIT

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Return to the Vocal Layer by pressing Home.
If you are on the Guitar Layer (indicated by red
LEDs), press the Layer button until the Vocal Lay­er is active.

You can easily edit the effects contained within
the HIT function. It is possible to have effects ac­tive when HIT is on or off. We refer to these two
states as “HIT on” and “HIT off”. Think of them
as two variations of a Preset.

► Press the HIT button a couple of times.
► Take note of which effects come on and off

when HIT is active (HIT on) and inactive (HIT
off ).

► Now, let’s add an effect to the “HIT on” flavor

of this Preset.

► Activate HIT.
► Now, turn on an effect that is currently off. For

this example, try µMod.

► Press HIT. Notice that µMod (and Harmony)

turns off.

Preset 2 – HIT off

► Press HIT again. You will see that µMod

comes back on, in addition to Harmony, which

was previously activated by pressing HIT.

Tips and tricks for using
HIT effectively

► If you would like an effect to be ON regardless

of the HIT button’s state, just activate it for
both HIT ON and HIT OFF. For some effects
such as Reverb, it is common to leave them
on all the time.

► HIT can control any or all of the effects for

both guitar and vocals, or guitar/vocals simul­taneously.

► Use the process described above while on the

Guitar Layer to change the effects associated
with Guitar HIT.

► If you save the Preset, your new HIT assign-

Preset 2 – HIT on

ment will be saved and you can control both

µMod and Harmony with the single HIT button

the next time you use the Preset.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 58

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Using ALL HIT

What’s better than being able to have separate
HIT footswitches for the Guitar and Vocal Layer?
How about one footswitch to rule them all? This
feature is called ALL HIT, and you can easily as­sign it to a footswitch as described in “Remap­ping a footswitch”.

► Press the Vocal button.
► Press and HOLD the right Arrow (>) to “jump”

all the way to the end of the available effects
pages.

► Use the < or > button to locate the Buttonmap

page.

► Use the Control Knob to scroll down and high-

light the line starting with “HIT”.

► Use the Mix Knob to change the HIT assign-

ment from Voc HIT to ALL HIT.

HIT footswitch remapped to ALL HIT

HIT footswitch remapped to ALL HIT

► Press Home.

Now the HIT footswitch controls HIT for both
Guitar and Vocal effects in this Preset. When you
press HIT, you will see that it now lights up pur­ple instead of blue, indicating that it’s controlling
both vocal and guitar hit. There’s also a “wrench”
icon instead of a microphone – showing you that
you are no longer just controlling Vocal effects.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 59

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

HIT – Dynamic versus Snapshot

VoiceLive 3’s default HIT behavior is “dynamic”,
which means you can make edits to the effects
contained within the HIT variation of the Preset
by simply turning them on and off as described
under “Editing HIT”. It’s a very quick and intuitive
way of combining effects – especially while ed­iting a Preset.

That being said: While on stage, you may want
to turn an effect on or off during the song – but
still have HIT activate and deactivate the specific
effects you have defined.

Let’s see an example:

Using HIT in “Dynamic”
mode (default)

You have saved the Preset with Reverb active all
the time (ON) and Harmony only when you have
turned on HIT (HIT ON).

You start the song with HIT turned off, so you
just have Reverb (but no Harmony voices) on
your voice. You decide that it would be nice to
have some delay for a particular section, so you
turn Delay on. Then, the chorus section of your
song comes up – so you press HIT to activate
Harmony. Reverb stays on and Delay goes off –
just as you would expect.

Now when you press HIT again, Harmony turns
off – but Delay comes back on with the Reverb.
This may not be what you want.

Using HIT in “Snapshot” mode

You might want HIT to ALWAYS turn on/off only
those effects you have saved for HIT within the
Preset.

That’s where “Snapshot” mode comes in. No
matter what effects are active at the time: HIT will
always override them and just turn on/off what
you have saved.

Typically “Dynamic” can be a great editing mode,
while “Snapshot” can be a more “fool-proof” live
performance mode.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 60

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Changing HIT mode from
Dynamic to Snapshot

► Press the Setup button.
► Use the < or > buttons to navigate to the Sys-

tem page.

► Use the Control Knob to scroll down to the HIT

Behavior parameter.

► Change HIT Behavior from Dynamic to Snap-

shot.

Changing HIT Behavior from Dynamic to
Snapshot

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 61

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Storing Presets

Since we are talking about storing a change to
your Preset – let’s do it.

Tapping the Store button accesses the Store
screen, where you may name, assign and save
your Presets.

In the upper part of the Store screen, you will
see the current name of the Preset. Use the Mix
Knobs under the display to control the following
functions:

Cursor (assigned to Mix Knob 1)

Use Mix Knob 1 to move the cursor (the current­ly selected character). This is handy for quickly
navigating to a position in the Preset name.

Letter (assigned to Mix Knob 2)

Use Mix Knob 2 to select the letter, number or
symbol for the current cursor position.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 62

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Ins(ert) / Del(ete) (assigned
to Mix Knob 3)

► Turn Mix knob 3 clockwise (right) to insert an

empty character (a blank) to the left of the cur­rently highlighted character.

► Turn Mix knob 3 counter-clockwise (left) to the

left to delete the currently highlighted charac­te r.

Store to (assigned to Mix Knob 34)

Use Mix Knob 4 to select the Preset number
where the current Preset will be stored.

► If you want to save the Preset where it current-

ly is, do not change this value.

► If you would like to save the Preset to another

location, change “Store To” to another num-

ber.
The name of the selected Preset slot will be

displayed in the upper part of the screen.

Using Store To is handy when you would like to
make several Presets with similar sounds. You
can create a “master” Preset and store it so a
few different locations using Store To. You can
then edit those copies further if you wish.

Storing Presets and HIT Behavior

When you have set HIT Behavior to “Snapshot”
mode, you must save the Preset for each HIT
state – on and off – in order for your changes to
be stored. Prepare both variations of the Preset
(on and off) and store them, like this:

► Turn HIT off.
► Turn the effects on that you would like to use

when HIT is off.

► Press the Store button twice.
► Turn HIT on.
► Turn the effects on that you would like to use

when HIT is on.

► Press the Store button twice.

Store menu

When you are finished naming and assigning
your Preset, simply press Store again to com­plete the operation.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 63

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Tapping tempo

You can use Tap Tempo to have the tempo-based
effects align with the tempo of your song.

► Press and HOLD the Delay footswitch.
► You should see the Delay footswitch pulse

with a purple LED, and the current tempo (in
beats per minute) will be displayed.

► Tap the Delay footswitch in time with the song

you are performing (or about to perform).

► After a few beats, stop tapping the footswitch

and wait for the Tempo display to disappear.

► If it is not already on, activate the Delay effect

with its footswitch.

► You should hear your Delay “taps” trail off in

time with the music.

There is another function in the tap tempo win­dow that you may find handy. Let’s try it.

► Enter Tap Tempo mode the same way you just

did.

► You will notice that the Preset up and Preset

down footswitches are lit solid blue.

► These footswitches allow you to increase or

decrease the tempo in 1 BPM increments.

► For example, press the Preset down footswitch

to decrease the tempo.

Manually adjusting the Tap Tempo can be handy
if you want to set a specific tempo, e.g. when you
have to follow a click track. And of course, both
methods can be combined: Use tapping to “get
close” to the desired tempo and use the Preset
footswitches for fine-tuning.

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Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Using Global Tempo

Depending on how you would like to man­age tempo within VoiceLive 3, you can choose
whether tempo information is recalled from each
individual Preset or managed globally.

If you would like to store specific tempos within
your Presets, simply set the tap tempo as de­scribed in “Tapping tempo” and save the Preset.

If you would like to set one tempo and have all
Presets “follow” it, you will need to head into the
System menu.

► Press the Setup button.
► Use < or > to navigate to the System tab.
► Use the Control Knob to scroll down to the

Global Tempo option.

► Use the Mix Knob to change the value to ON.
► Press the Home button.

Global Tempo on

Now, any tempo you tap will immediately be
effective and be used for whatever Preset you
choose.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 65

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Editing an Effect

Now that we have heard some sounds, let’s edit
an effect in a Preset. You can choose to edit ei­ther the Vocal or Guitar effects, whichever you
like.

To edit the Vocal effects within a Preset, press
the Vocal button.

Editing Vocal effects

To edit the Guitar effects within a Preset, press
the Guitar button.

Editing Guitar effects

Both effect layers (Vocal and Guitars) have a se­ries of “tabs”. There is a tab for each effect with­in a Preset, and there are a couple of extra tabs
for other Preset options like Button Mapping and
Expression Pedal assignment.

All the effect edit screens that you can access
using these tabs have a similar structure. On

top of each edit screen, you will find simple and
easy-to-use controls, while scrolling down us­ing the Control Knob will show more parameters
that offer more advanced parameters for deep­er editing.

On the top level, most effects have four main pa­rameters:

1. Style: Style sets the “sound” of the effect.
For example, you might choose a “Hall” or
“Studio” reverb type.

2. Parameter 1: The first parameter shown var­ies from effect to effect and will have a dif­ferent name – it will not be called “Parame­ter 1”. To continue with the Reverb example,
Decay time is located here.

3. Parameter 2: Again, this control will vary
from effect to effect, but is commonly the
Level control, which controls the overall vol­ume of the effect.

4. Control: control sets the “state” of the effect
and how it is controlled.

► Off: The effect is inactive.
► On: The effect is active, regardless of the

status of the HIT button.

► HIT On: This effect is active only when the

HIT button is ON.

► HIT Off: This effect is active only when the

HIT button is OFF.

You may also change this control by press-

ing the footswitch associated with this effect
(if it is mapped to a footswitch). This can be a
quick way to set up several effects to come on
or off when HIT is pressed.

The concept of “HIT on” and “HIT off” can be a
little confusing at first – but you will soon get the
hang of things. A user suggested this analogy:

“It can be useful to think of HIT on as “throw­ing a bunch of effects onto a table” and HIT off
as “knocking or wiping a bunch of effects off of
the table”. Effects that are on simply can’t be
knocked off the table – and effects that are off
can’t be put onto it using HIT.

Back to editing…

► Turn off ALL effect blocks but one. It doesn’t

matter which effect you leave on, so long as
you can clearly hear the effect. For this exam­ple, we assume that you are using the Harmo­ny effect in the Vocal Layer.

► Press the Vocal button.
► Navigate to the Harmony tab.

Switching off all effect blocks except for
Harmony

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 66

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

► Change the Style parameter using the Mix

Knob directly below “Style” on the screen.
Notice how the sound of the effect changes. It
can be a subtle change or a drastic one, de­pending on the Style.

Changing the Harmony Style parameter

Once you have chosen a Style that you like,

you are 90% of the way there. We will skip
over to the Level parameter now.

► Using the Mix Knob directly below the “Level”

parameter, change the level (volume) of the ef­fect. Find a setting that sounds good to you.

► Now, turn on another effect. It still doesn’t

matter which one. Notice how the two effects
interact with each other.

Navigating to the Delay tab

► Use the < or > Arrow buttons to navigate to

the effect you just activated. In the image
above, that’s Delay.

► Try changing the Style of the newly activated

effect. Find a style that sounds good with the
other effect you had turned on.

► Adjust the Level control of the new effect to

blend it with the first.

From here on in, EVERYTHING is advanced,
specific editing. Try manipulating the other pa­rameter on the screen, be it decay time, lead lev­el, speed or whatever is shown there. Notice how
it changes the sound of the effect.

Use the Control Knob to scroll down. You will see
many, many different controls and parameters
on each effect tab. DON’T PANIC!

own one of our other products, like VoiceLive 2,
you may recognize some or all of the advanced
controls.

If you don’t recognize anything, there are two
paths you can take:

1. Don’t touch anything you don’t recognize.
Slowly back away from the advanced menu.
There be dragons in that cave!

2. Turn every parameter as far as it will go in
each direction and see what happens!

Whether you choose #1 or #2: It’s totally fine. We
can’t tell you how fast or far to venture into the
depths of VoiceLive 3. All we can do is recom­mend that you treat VoiceLive 3 like any other in­strument or skill you would try to learn and give
things some time.

From our own experience, you know it’s a good
time to venture deeper into the menus and con­trols when you say to yourself: “Hmm. This
would sound perfect if only the [X] was a bit
more/less [Y]…”

Once you start thinking like that, you will know
that your skills have moved beyond using Style,
and you will likely find the experience of editing
advanced parameters more thrilling than daunt­ing.

Typically, advanced parameters are defined and
loaded with the Style you choose and should
sound pretty darned good as they are. If you
have got some audio engineering experience or

Remember to go through the Store procedure af­ter you have made changes to a Preset. Changes
are not stored automatically. If you edit a Preset
and switch to another Preset without storing, all
changes you made will be lost.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 67

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Defining and using Global Effects

Each effect in VoiceLive 3 can load and use
Global settings. Global settings make editing ef­fects much easier and faster, but you need to un­derstand the concept to use it effectively.

How do Global Effects work?

First, you define a “Global Preset” in the Sys­tem menu. This Preset is the Preset from which
any other Preset can “pull” settings for any ef­fect. Think of this Global Preset as a template
or master.

In the screen shot below, you will see that Preset
491 has been defined as the Global Preset. You
can change this to any other Preset if you like.
However, we recommend making yourself fa­miliar with editing the Global Preset and turning
Global ON in other Presets before you reassign
the Global Preset.

Global Preset set to Preset no. 491

Tip: Keep your Global Preset safe

We suggest placing the global Preset in a loca­tion quite far from your other Presets in the box,
so you don’t accidentally overwrite it. Any Pre­sets that depend on the information in the Global
Preset will be affected if you delete or change it.

If you invest some time into creating effects that
you like in your Global Preset, you can then ac­cess these effects in any other Preset by simply
setting one parameter.

We have defined a Global Preset for you already
(the factory default is 491), but you can make
your own.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 68

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Defining the Global Preset

► Press the Setup button.
► Use < or > to navigate to the System tab.
► Use the Control Knob to highlight “Global Pre-

set”

► Use the Mix Knob below “Global Preset” to

change its value to represent the Preset num­ber you would like as your Global Preset.

Using an effect from
the Global Preset

► Select a Preset that you would like to link to

the Global Preset.

► Press the Vocal or Guitar button (depending

on which effect you would like to edit).

► Navigate to the effect tab for the effect that

you would like to link to the Global Preset –
e.g. Delay.

Delay effect block settings

► Use the Control Knob to scroll down to the

“Global” parameter. It should say “Off”.

Setting Global to On for the Delay block

► Settings from the Global Preset will be applied

to this effect immediately.

► You will also see that the tab name has

changed from “Delay” to “Delay-GBL” – indi­cating that this particular effect is using Global
settings.

Global set to Off in the Delay block

► Change it to “On” using the mix knob right be-

low the parameter.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 69

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Important: The link between
the Global Preset and other
Presets goes both ways

Before you make any tweaks to the effect you
have just made Global, there is something you
should know.

If Global is ON in any Preset and you make
changes to the settings of the respective effect,
this will change the settings of the Global Preset
(and all other Presets where that particular effect
is set to Global on).

That can be really handy – or a disaster, if you
are not prepared for it.

Using the Global Preset to copy
effect settings into a Preset

As you just read, the link between the Global Pre­set and other Preset goes both ways. However,
you can also use this feature temporarily to copy
effect settings from the Global Preset to another
Preset and then edit them independently.

► Select a Preset.
► Select an effect that should use the settings

from the Global Preset as a starting point.

► Set Global for this effect to on.

This will copy the settings for this effect from

the Global Preset to the current Preset.

► Set Global for this effect to off again.

This “breaks the link” between Global and

current Preset, allowing you to modify the set­tings locally.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 70

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

MIDI Sync

MIDI sync allows you to send tempo information
from an external device (computer, keyboard,
sampler etc.) to VoiceLive 3 and have it maintain
the same tempo as the Master device.

To enable MIDI Tempo, navigate to the SETUP –
MIDI menu and turn MIDI Tempo ON.

Setup – MIDI menu

VoiceLive 3 can act as a MIDI Tempo slave onl y.
It cannot generate or send MIDI Tempo.

For more information, see “Looping and MIDI
Sync”.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 71

USB Audio

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

USB Audio in VoiceLive 3 acts similarly to the
equivalent function in other TC-Helicon devices.
It utilizes the generic USB Audio drivers in Win­dows and OS X to provide 2 Channel Stereo In­put and Output.

Notes about USB Audio

USB Audio is always Stereo / 16 bit / 48 kHz in
both directions.

Audio sent to the device can be used in two
ways:

Using USB Audio as an Aux

To use USB audio as an Aux, simply connect
VoiceLive 3 to your computer using a USB ca­ble and designate it as the audio output device
in your computer. With this setup, a stereo audio
signal will be streamed to VoiceLive 3 that you
can sing/play along with. This audio signal will
also guide NaturalPlay if no guitar or MIDI signal
is present.

Using USB Audio as Input(s)
to VoiceLive 3 effects

In this mode, the audio signal coming in over
USB will be sent down the vocal and guitar sig­nal paths. The signal on the LEFT side of the
USB Audio stream is processed via the vocal
path. The signal on the RIGHT side of the USB
Audio stream is processed via the guitar path.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 72

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

USB Input Mode

To control the way USB audio is handled inside
the unit, you have three modes to choose from.
They are located directly beneath the “INPUT
TYPE” parameter on the SETUP > INPUT page
under the “USB MODE” parameter.

Stereo setting

The Stereo setting works as described un­der“Using USB Audio as an Aux”. Incoming USB
audio is routed to the XLR and Headphone out­puts. This is best used when you want the au­dience to hear the USB audio signal, too. Natu­ralPlay is driven by this input if there’s no Guitar
or MIDI data.

DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)
Tracking setting

This mode operates in the same was as Ste­reo with one exception: Incoming audio is not
passed to the XLR outputs. It is still present in
the headphone output. This allows you to listen
to tracks from your recording software, sing/play
along, then record the vocal and guitar back to
your DAW without the guide tracks.

DAW Insert setting

Use this mode for “post processing” a previously
recorded vocal or guitar from your DAW.

Typically, a dry vocal or guitar part (i.e., a part
that may have been edited and re-timed, but
has no effects) is sent to the USB L (vocal) or
USB R (guitar) output from your DAW to your
VoiceLive 3 where it heads down the signal path
and gets effects added to it.

Notes about DAW Insert mode

To receive and record the processed audio back
in your DAW, you will need to create a new “des­tination” track.

Please note that sending and processing audio
via USB will introduce latency, so you’ll likely
have to “nudge” the processed track back a bit
to line it up with the other tracks.

USB Output Mode

In DAW TRACKING mode only, you may change
the USB OUTPUT MODE setting (on the Setup
> Output tab) from SAME AS XLR to Dry Vox L/
Guitar R. This will send your dry, unprocessed
vocals to the Left USB out channel and the pro­cessed guitar signal to the Right USB channel.

Attempting to change this parameter in the oth­er USB INPUT modes will result in a <LOCKED>
message.

Please note that if you want guitar and vocal re­corded on separate tracks in your DAW, you’ll
need to perform two passes of performance,
each recorded to a separate new track, once for
singing and once for guitar playing.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 73

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Setting up USB Audio

Setting up USB Audio in Windows

When Windows detects a new audio device, it
will automatically set the device as “Disabled”.
The Audio Device Manager also “Hides Disabled
Devices” by default. This means that you may
not see VoiceLive 3 in your “Playback” or “Re­cording” devices tabs.

To fix this, right-click on the Playback or Record­ing tab and uncheck “Hide Disabled Devices”.
Then, click on VoiceLive 3 in both your Playback
and Recording tabs and “Enable” the device.

Here’s a video that shows you how:

youtube.com/watch?v=8-M5WBc3qJE

This will allow you to use VoiceLive 3 as your in­put and output device.

devices. If you are using VoiceLive 3 with no oth­er audio devices connected to your DAW – i.e.,
like a regular external audio interface –, then you
should choose a WDM, Direct Sound or “Generic
Low Latency ASIO Driver” (Cubase) setting.

It is not advisable to use WASAPI – especial­ly with Audacity – since it puts the audio into
“Loopback mode” and feeds input into output.

Round-trip audio latency

There is roughly 70 milliseconds of round-trip
latency through VoiceLive 3. When you have re­corded vocal/guitar parts to tracks in your DAW,
you’ll need to offset them accordingly in order for
them to line up with other audio.

Programs like Cubase allow you to offset tracks
individually. Otherwise, manually “sliding” the
track works very well.

hear the metronome from Ableton coming from
the VoiceLive 3. Then, activate the internal MET
in VoiceLive 3 on the Loop Layer. In Ableton,
go to the Setup/MIDI page and use MIDI Send
Offset until you hear the audio metronome from
Ableton and the internal VoiceLive 3 metronome
line up perfectly. It may take some experimen­tation, but +70ms or so is a good starting point.

DAW Audio + MIDI Data Timing

Setting up USB Audio in OS X (Mac)

Your Mac should automatically detect VoiceLive 3
as an audio device when it is connected, and in­stall the correct driver. You will then have to open
the Audio MIDI Setup utility and set your Voice­Live 3 as the “Playback” and “Recording” de­vice(s), depending on how you’d like to use VL3
in your setup.

If you are using MIDI data/sync from a DAW
such as Ableton alongside USB audio (as you
might do when performing live), you may need
to adjust Ableton’s MIDI offset in order to have
the USB audio line up correctly with the internal
VoiceLive 3 metronome. The USB audio takes a
tiny fraction of time to go “through” VL3 to the
outputs, so you’ll need to delay MIDI data from
your computer to compensate.

DAWs

The best way to achieve the above is to send an
When using a Digital Audio Workstation, you’ll
need to choose the driver type for your audio

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 74

audio metronome (along with MIDI clock) from

Ableton via USB to your VoiceLive 3. You should

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Using the Mix Controls

As you probably have realized by now, there is a
lot going on under the hood of your VoiceLive 3.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could control the levels
of the signals going in and out of VoiceLive 3?

As it turns out, you can – and you do not even
have to press any buttons.

► While on the Home screen, touch (move) any

of the four Mix knobs right below the display
to enter the Mix screen.

There are actually three separate mix pages or

“tabs”:

► Main Mix
► Headphone Mix
► Effects Mix

Select the mix you want to control using the Ar­row buttons under the Control knob. The last se­lection will be remembered, so when you use the
Mix knobs later, you will be editing the previously
selected mix.

Main Mix

Main Mix controls the sounds that come from the

XLR Out and Guitar Out jacks.

Main Mix controls

Use the Mix knobs to adjust the levels of the

signals shown on screen. Scroll down using the

control knob to see and adjust additional levels.

► Guitar
► Looper
► Aux
► Main Out
► Metronome

Keep in mind that if you are connecting the Gui-

tar Out jack to a guitar amplifier, you likely want

a fixed output level. In the Guitar tab of the Set-

up menu, you will find a parameter called Output

Mode that controls this.

Output Mode set to Unity Gain

► If you wish to vary the output level of the Guitar

Out (e.g. when you are connecting VoiceLive 3
to a mixer or recording interface), change the
setting to Variable Level.

Output Mode set to Variable Level

You can set the levels of both Aux and Metro­nome signals to Off if you wish to remove their
sounds from the XLR outputs and only use them
over your headphones or IEMs.

► If you set Output Mode to Unity Gain (this is

the default), this will set one master output
volume for the guitar signals coming from the
Guitar Out jack.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 75

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Headphone Mix

Headphone Mix allows you to independently set
the signal levels for the headphones or IEM con­nected to the Headphone jack. In other words:
You can have a headphone or in-ear-monitoring
mix that is independent of what goes out to the
XLR outputs.

Headphone Mix controls

Use the Mix knobs to adjust the levels of the
signals shown on screen. Scroll down using the
control knob to see and adjust additional levels.

► Guitar Trim
► Loop Trim
► Metronome
► Headphones
► Main (Trim)
► Monitor
► Aux Level

►
► RoomSense
► Room Limit
► Room LoCut
► HP Limit (Headphone Limiter)

limitation this imposes is that you cannot set the

Guitar or Loop controls in the Main Mix to Off

and still hear them in your headphones.

Headphone Limiter parameter

Use the Headphone Limiter parameter to set the

limiter level for the headphone output.

0 dB allows for maximum potential headphone

output. Levels below 0dB (-3dB etc) will restrict

or “limit” the maximum potential headphone out-

put. When using in-ear monitors, you may want

to set the limiter in order to prevent hearing dam-

age by transient loud noises such as feedback.

Effects Mix

Effects Mix allows you to adjust the overall
sound of your presets.

► Voices: Controls the overall level of any voices

generated by VoiceLive 3. This includes Har­mony, Double and Choir.

► Voc Reverb: Controls the overall level of the

Vocal Reverb effect across your presets. If you
find yourself in a venue that has a lot of (or
very little) natural Reverb, you may not have
the time to adjust the Reverb settings in all
your Presets manually. Instead, use this con­trol to better match the Reverb settings in your
Presets to the physical space you are in.

► Guitar Reverb: Performs the same function

as Voc Reverb for the Guitar Reverb in all your
Presets.

The Guitar Trim and Loop Trim controls allow you
to increase or decrease the levels of Guitar and
Loop relative to the Main Mix settings. The one

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 76

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Tips and tricks for working with layers and effects

As we discussed in “Concepts” and “Footswitch­es overview” , VoiceLive 3 is comprised of three
“Layers”: Vocal, Guitar and Looper.

Tapping the Layer button will give you access to
the Layer you would like to control: Guitar or Vo­cal. Press and hold the Layer button to access
the Looper.

Keep in mind that as we discuss editing Vocal
or Guitar effects, the editing process is inde-

pendent of the Layer you are currently con­trolling.

Put another way: You can have the Vocal Lay­er active (blue LEDs will show that you can use
footswitch to control the vocal effects), but sim­ply press the Guitar button (the blue one on the
top panel) to enter and edit the Guitar effects.

General Vocal & Guitar Layer usage

The basic concepts of accessing effect settings
and going from simple to advanced editing are
explained in “Editing an Effect”.

In addition to the effects tabs in the Vocal and
Guitar edit screens, you will find the Buttonmap,
Expression and Preset tabs.

Editing Vocal effects while on the Guitar Layer

As there are no effects linked to the Looper Lay-

er, we will cover Looper operations in a separate

section of this manual.

Editing Guitar effects while on the Vocal Layer

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 77

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Footswitch tab: Remapping footswitches

We have already made some changes on the
Buttonmap tab in “Remapping a footswitch” – so
you have seen it before. Let’s dig a little deeper
into it now.

► Enter the Vocal or Guitar edit screen.
► Navigate to the Mic Control or Footswitch tab.

Earlier in the “VoiceLive 3 overview”, we re­mapped a footswitch and changed the Mode
from Latched to Momentary.

On the Footswitch tabs, each effect footswitch is
represented by sets of two lines. Use the Control
Knob to select a set, for example µMod.

The first word in the first column is the name of
the effect footswitch, as it is printed on the de­vice. The name of the effect currently assigned
to this footswitch is shown directly below it.

For now, you should see µMod with µMod direct­ly underneath. If you are on the Guitar edit page,
you will see µMod and G µMod respectively.

► Press the Home button to return to the Home

screen.

You will see that the effect you have chosen is

now shown in the top left corner of the screen
and will activate if you press the µMod button.

Typically, remapping footswitches is great for

three situations:

► “That darn button is in the wrong place! I hate

where it is and want to move it!”

► “I would like footswitch access to an effect

that isn’t already assigned to a button.”

For example, you might want access to Synth

– so you decide to remap the Delay button.

► “I want access to a guitar effect on the vocal

page.”

For example, remapping the Double footswitch

to Guitar HIT will give you access to guitar ef­fects on the Vocal Layer – right beside Vocal
HIT.

Parm1 and Parm2

By now, you know how to remap footswitches
and choosing between Latched and Momentary
mode. But what are the other two parameters –
Parm1 and Parm2 – good for?

Parm 1 and Parm 2 are part of the Loop Trig­ger Buttonmap. If you assign Loop Trigger to a
footswitch, you need to choose which loop and
which track you would like to trigger when you
tap that footswitch.

► Parm 1 defines which Loop Slot you are using

(see “Basic loop concepts and terms”).

► Parm 2 defines which track (or combination of

tracks) you would like to trigger when pressing
the button.

The available options are Loop A, Loop B,

Loop C, A&B or A&C.

Learn more about the Looper in “The Looper”.

► Assign another effect to the µMod footswitch

by turning the Mix Knob directly below the pa­rameter.

It doesn’t matter if the effect you choose here

is already mapped to another button. For ex­ample, if you choose Harmony, you will now
have Harmony mapped to both the µMod but­ton and the Harmony button (default). That’s
OK – it just shows how remapping works.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 78

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Expression Pedal tab: Getting the most out of your expression pedal

If you have connected an expression pedal to
your VoiceLive 3, you can define what the ex­pression pedal should control in each Preset.

Being able to define the expression pedal “tar­get” in each Preset gives you a lot of flexibility
from one pedal.

Setting the Expression Pedal target

► Use the Expression pedal parameter to choose

from many controllable “targets”.

► Use the Exp MinPos parameter to define the

parameter value that should be associated
with the minimum (down) position of the ex­pression pedal.

► Use the Exp MaxPos parameter to define the

parameter value that should be associated
with the maximum (up) position of the expres­sion pedal.

The MinPos and MaxPos parameters can be
useful when you would like to limit the effective
range of the pedal.

For example, if you assign the expression ped­al to control harmony volume, you may want the
harmonies to turn down slightly when you rock
the pedal all the way back – but not turn them off

completely. To achieve this effect, you would set

MinPos to something higher than 0% (try some-

thing like 50 or 70%). This allows you to make

large (easy to perform) movements with the ped-

al without changing the level of the harmonies

too drastically.

Setting Expression Pedal MinPos and MaxPos

It can be useful to limit the expression pedal

range for parameters such as Guitar Volume,

Harmony Volume, Delay Feedback, Rhythmic

Depth etc.

Working with a second expression pedal

If you want to, you can use a second expression

pedal with your VoiceLive 3. Connect this sec-

ond Expression pedal to the Footswitch jack.

As opposed to the expression pedal connected

to the Expression jack (which can be used dif-

ferently in each Preset), the pedal connected to

the footswitch jack only has a global setting – it

will control all Presets in the same way. To use a

second expression pedal:

► Press Setup.
► Navigate to the Buttonmap tab.

► Select the Footswitch Jack parameter and set

it from Switch-3 to Expression pedal.

Calibrating your expression pedal

If you are connecting an expression pedal, it
must be calibrated.

► To enter the calibration screen, press the Set-

up button.

► Use the < and > arrows to navigate to the

“Pedal Calibration” tab.

Expression Pedal Calibration

► Follow the on-screen instructions.

The Preset tab

The Preset tab allows you to make changes to
the Preset as a whole.

Most importantly, you can adjust the overall lev­el of the Vocal or Guitar signals within a Preset.
This allows you to balance your Presets so they
all have the same apparent volume.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 79

Getting to know VoiceLive 3

Preset tab for the Vocal Layer

Preset tab for the Guitar Layer

When you are adding effects to the (Vocal or
Guitar) signal path, each of these effects inevita­bly adds some gain (volume) to the signal chain.
This means that after adding several effects,
your Preset may end up louder than it started.
At this point, you may want to compare the ap­parent level of the current Preset to other Pre­sets in VoiceLive 3 – and then use the Level Trim
controls on the Preset tab for Vocal or Guitar to
make adjustments.

to one side and then add effects. There’s a De-

lay Pan control in the Delay edit parameters too.

Try panning the lead vocal to the far right and the

Delay Pan to the far left for interesting results.

There is also a Pan control available in both the
Vocal and Guitar Preset tabs that allow you to
pan the vocal or guitar signal left or right. The
default setting is “C” (for “Center”). It can be
especially useful to assign Guitar Pan to an ex­pression pedal if you would like to create stereo
guitar loops, which we will discuss later.

Additionally, you can create some interesting vo­cal sounds by panning the lead vocal completely

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 80

Editing the Vocal Layer

Editing the Vocal Layer

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 81

Editing the Vocal Layer

Introduction

Press the Vocal button to enter the Vocal edit
screen.

For more information about editing Style, Level,
Control and other parameters associated with
each effect, see “Editing an Effect”.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 82

Editing the Vocal Layer

Harmony effect block / tab

Harmony is TC-Helicon’s most popular effect –
and some might argue the most impressive one,
too.

The Harmony effect creates harmony vocals
from your lead voice. This harmony can contain
up to four voices, each with different intervals,
key/scale sources, pan, humanization and other
settings.

Harmony can be used to add a single voice of
harmony, up to a larger “group” sound depend­ing on your application.

Harmony effect block parameters

The Harmony effect block has the following pa-

rameters that allow you to adjust the effect:

► Harmony Style
► Lead Level
► Level
► Hit Control
► Humanization Style
► Humanization Amount
► Vibrato Style
► Vibrato Amount
► NaturalPlay Source
► Tuning
► Mode (for each voice)
► Voicing (for each voice)
► Level (for each voice)
► Gender (for each voice)
► Pan (for each voice)
► Portamento (for each voice)
► Portamento Smoothing (for each voice)
► Attack
► Release
► Hold Release
► Low Gain
► Low Frequency
► High Gain
► High Frequency
► Mid Gain
► Mid Frequency
► Mid Bandwidth
► Global

Tips and tricks for working
with the Harmony effect

► “Subtle” is often better when using any Har-

mony effect. Typically, when we hear com­plaints about the created voices sounding
“robotic” or “fake”, it can be attributed partial­ly to the Harmony voices being overly loud in
the vocal mix.

► Level settings of -6 or dB lower can often yield

great results, even if the voices aren’t imme­diately obvious.

► “High” and “Low” styles are the most com-

monly used harmonies in popular music. If you
are a male or have a lower voice, try “High”.
If you are female or have a higher voice, try
“Low”.

► When using a multi-voice Harmony style like

“High & Low” or “High & Higher”, try adjust­ing the Pan and Level parameters in the Vocal
Edit screen to adjust the location and volume
of each voice.

► To expand on the above, try turning on Voice

3 and Voice 4. Set each to copy the settings
of the existing two voices. Pan them oppo­site to the existing voices and reduce their
level slightly. This puts one “High & Low” pair
on the Left and Right of the stereo field with
“High” being slightly dominant on one side
and “Low” on the other.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 83

Editing the Vocal Layer

High Low Lead High Low

Harm. (1) Harm. (2) Voice Harm. (3) Harm. (4)

< Left Right >

Panning Harmony Voices

To further expand, try adjusting the Smoothing
and Humanization parameters for each of the
four voices, so that each voice ends up a bit dif­ferent from the other.

► On the Buttonmap tab of the Setup menu,

you can remap the Step footswitch to various
controls. Try remapping the Step footswitch
to Harmony Hold. When the Harmony effect
is active, press the Step footswitch (now as­signed to Harmony Hold) to “fix” the current
harmony note and hold it. You can then sing
other notes as the Harmonies continue to sing
the note you held.

► We suggest to also changing the Step But-

ton Mode to Momentary to avoid accidentally
turning Harmony Hold on and letting it hold a
note indefinitely. You will find that brief use of
the effect is typically the best approach.

NaturalPlay, Scale, Fixed

& Pedal Modes

VoiceLive 3 offers a completely new way of com-

bining harmony voice modes that allows you to

make some really great sounds.

In previous products, all harmony voices were

defined by a single “type” – i.e., they were guid-

ed by an instrument (NaturalPlay) or defined by a

fixed key and scale. In VoiceLive 3, you can de-

fine a different method of harmony note output

for each voice!

The new “Mixed Mode” harmonies allow you to,

for example,

► set one voice to follow your guitar (Natu-

ralPlay),

► the second voice to follow a key/scale,
► a third voice to only sing a single “Fixed” note

and

► a fourth voice to only sing the “root” note

of any chords you are playing on your guitar
(Pedal).

Mixing NaturalPlay, Fixed, Pedal and Scale
modes in one Preset

Keep in mind that when you are using mixed
mode harmony, you will need to define the cor­rect key/scale (Scale) or note (Fixed) and play
your instrument (NaturalPlay/Pedal) in order for
the combination of voices to sound good togeth­er. Otherwise, a Fixed voice could be singing a
completely inappropriate note for your song.

Harmony can suffer from “warbles” when sound
other than your voice is picked up via your micro­phone. Check out this “Craig’s Corner” video for
a bit of TC-Helicon Harmony history and some
advice on reducing warble:

youtube.com/watch?v=pT-CCTmv2ZM

This flexibility allows you to create some very so-

phisticated setups and vocal arrangements.

You can mix and match any of the available

modes for the four harmony voices. You could

have three NaturalPlay voices and a fixed voice,

Changing Step Button Mode to Momentary

or two scale-based voices, one fixed and one

NaturalPlay voice. It’s completely up to you!

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 84

Editing the Vocal Layer

Double effect block / tab

Often referred to as “Doubling” or “Double
Tracking”, the Double effect mimics a singer
recording multiple versions of the same vocal
passages and playing them back simultaneous­ly. The small differences in timing and pitch that
result from the two recordings create a more full
and “doubled” sound.

It’s quite common in contemporary music for
some sort of Double effect to be active during
the entire song, albeit with varying intensity.

Double effect block parameters

The Double effect block has the following pa-

rameters that allow you to adjust the effect:

► Double Style
► Humanization Amount
► Level
► Hit Control
► Humanization Style
► Portamento
► Portamento Smoothing
► Level (for each voice)
► Panning (for each voice)
► Gender (for each voice)
► Voicing (for each voice)
► Portamento (for each voice)
► Portamento Smoothing (for each voice)
► Lead Level
► Global

Tips and tricks for working
with the Double effect

► “Tight” Double styles will have less pitch and

timing variation than “Loose” styles will. Tight
styles therefore tend to be a bit more subtle
even at higher effect levels.

► Try turning the “Lead Level” parameter to OFF

when using one of the “Wide” styles. This will
effectively remove your voice from the middle
of the stereo field and helps recreate the wide­panned vocal style that can be heard on many
recent recordings.

► Adding some “1 Voice Tight” Double effect

when using the Harmony effect can add some
presence to your lead voice, preventing it from
being overpowered by the Harmony.

► Adding some “4 Voices Wide” Double effect

when using the Harmony effect can signifi­cantly enhance the “group” sound of the Har­mony voices, especially when using two or
more Harmony voices.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 85

Editing the Vocal Layer

Vocal Delay effect block / tab

Delay is often referred to as “echo” and emulates
sound “bouncing” or repeating at regular inter­vals. As opposed to Reverb – whose reflections
of sound can be somewhat chaotic in the rep­resentation of a physical space – Delay is much
more consistent in its sound output.

Typically, Delay is used either as a special effect,
with levels high enough to be clearly heard, or as
a more subtle companion to Reverb.

Using Delay as a special effect can create very
interesting highlights within a performance but
can, like Reverb, become distracting or over­whelming when used too heavily.

Stereo Delays can be especially interesting if you
are performing with a stereo PA or for studio re­cording.

Delay effect block parameters

The Delay effect block has the following parame-

ters that allow you to adjust the effect:

► Delay Style
► Feedback amount
► Level
► Hit Control
► Source
► Tempo
► Filter Style
► Ducking
► Division Left
► Delay Left
► Division Right
► Delay Right
► Feedback Left
► Feedback Left to Right
► Feedback Right
► Feedback Right to Left
► Low Cut Frequency
► High Cut Frequency
► EQ Insert
► Ducking Threshold
► Ducking Amount
► Ducking Time
► Lead to Delay Level
► Panning
► Harmony to Delay Level
► µMod to Delay Level
► Choir to Delay Level
► Lead Level
► Width
► Trails

► Global

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 86

Editing the Vocal Layer

Tips and tricks for working
with the Vocal Delay effect

► Make sure to set the correct tempo for any

Preset with Delay, either

► via tempo tapping (see “Tapping tempo”) or
► on the Delay Edit tab.

Delay timed to your song sounds great, while

off-time delays can sound terrible.

► Experiment with different amounts of the

Feedback parameter. More Feedback cre­ates more echoes, while very low amounts of
feedback can create “Call and Answer” style
effects.

► Try out the various Filter Style options within

the Delay Edit screen. They allow you to make
the “echoes” of your Delay sound different.
These filter styles can add interesting effects
to your delays – such as megaphone, radio or
lo-fi sounds – or mimic the sound of classic
analog and digital hardware delays.

Filter Style parameter

► When using Delay on both your guitar and

vocals, experiment with using the same OR
different divisions on each Delay to crate in­teresting rhythmic landscapes.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 87

Editing the Vocal Layer

Vocal Reverb effect block / tab

Reverb is one of the most basic effects. You will
probably find some form of Reverb at every live
performance and on every recording.

Essentially, Reverb simulates a physical space
and how the sound of your voice is positioned
in it. Typically, Reverbs are defined by the space
they are trying to replicate or the device/proces­sor/medium used to generate the reverb effect.

With the above in mind, you will see Reverb
styles in our products with names like “Amster­dam Hall” or “Hockey Arena” when represent­ing a physical space. You might see “Plate” or
“Spring” when referring to the type of device
used to create a particular kind of Reverb.

Reverb tab

Reverb effect block parameters

The Vocal Reverb effect block has the following

parameters that allow you to adjust the effect:

► Reverb Style
► Decay
► Level
► Hit Control
► Early Reflections
► Reverb Tail Level
► Predelay
► Ducking
► Low Color
► High Color
► High Factor
► Diffuse
► Modulation Speed
► Modulation Depth
► Ducking Threshold
► Ducking Amount
► Ducking Time
► Lead to Reverb
► Harmony to Reverb
► Delay to Reverb
► Choir to Reverb
► Lead Level
► Width
► Global

Tips and tricks for working with
the Vocal Reverb effect

► “Timing” your Reverb to the song you are per-

forming can really enhance your overall son­ic “landscape”. Try picking shorter Reverbs
(lower decay time) for faster songs and longer
Reverbs (higher decay time) for slower songs.

► A 1.3 second Decay Time is very common for

mid-tempo popular music.

► Timing a Reverb so that it “breathes” with

your song can sound great. By “breathing” we
mean that the Reverb ends on a beat, or every
other beat, for example.

► Use this calculator to figure out what Reverb

time to set in order to “time” your effect to the

song:
nickfever.com/delay-calculator/
Use the chart provided on this page to deter-

mine which note division to use. If, for exam-

ple, you would like your Reverb to end on ev-

ery other beat, use the ½ note result.

► Overuse of Reverb can make your vocals

sound washed out and hard to understand.

► Underuse of Reverb can result in a flat sound-

ing vocal. However, it’s very common in con-

temporary pop music to use very little or no

Reverb, opting instead for Doubling, HardTune

and other effects. Listen to popular records

from your favorite genre and analyze how they

are using reverb.

► When using Reverb on both vocals and guitar,

it can be useful to use the same settings or at

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Editing the Vocal Layer

least the same “Style” for each, so the listener
gets the impression of vocals and guitar being
in the same simulated physical space.

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Editing the Vocal Layer

HardTune effect block / tab

This effect has become very, very common in
recent years. Most people remember when Cher
released the song “Believe”, featuring the first
commercially represented use of heavy and ro­botic-sounding pitch correction.

Since the release of “Believe”, there have been
many advances in pitch correction technolo­gy, allowing both extreme and subtle or trans­parent vocal correction. It’s a misnomer to only
equate vocal pitch correction with AutoTune™
and T-Pain™. Subtle use of pitch correction is a
staple of almost every recording, and many live
performances too.

HardTune effect block parameters

The HardTune effect block has the following pa­rameters that allow you to adjust the effect:

► HardTune Style
► Gender
► Shift
► Hit Control
► Key Source
► Rate
► Amount
► Window
► Manual Key
► Manual Scale
► Note Select
► Note Enable
► Global

A neat little bit of music history…

The Beatles used pitch correction on their al­bums! How?

Back then, a control called “VariSpeed” on their
tape recorders was used to manipulate the play­back speed – and therefore the pitch of recorded
material. Often, it was done for effect, but Vari­Speed was used for all sorts of purposes.

It’s fun to keep that fact in mind when people
disparage modern music for its use of pitch cor­rection or any other effect or recording tech­nique. The Beatles used every tool available to
them at the time, just like today’s musicians do!

Here is an interesting article about the Beatles
and their use of VariSpeed:
ofbuckleyandbeatles.wordpress.com/
2010/12/05/
beatles-production-tricks-part-ii-varispeed/

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Editing the Vocal Layer

Tips and tricks for working
with the HardTune effect

► When you want the “HardTune” sound, choose

the “Pop” style.

► It takes some practice to sing the right way

and get the most out of HardTune. Practice
sliding and gliding from note to note, in order
to emphasize the jumps in pitch provided by
the “Pop” setting. After a while, you will be
able to enhance the effect as you sing.

► When you are using HardTune with a wedge

monitor or in-ear monitors (IEMs), it’s totally
normal to hear some “phasing” type sounds
as your natural voice interacts with the cor­rected voice output from VoiceLive 3.

Check out this “Craig’s Corner” video for more

about phasing:

youtube.com/watch?v=KWrEIuiDXsA

► If you would like subtle correction that still re-

spects any key/scale you have set for Harmo­ny, try the “Correct Natural” style.

► To emulate some of the effects used on the

Beatles recordings, try the “Gender Bender”
style and turn the Gender control down a few
clicks to slightly lower the sound of your voice.

► Any time the HardTune effect is active, Glob-

al Pitch Correction settings in the Setup
menu are temporarily overwritten. When the
HardTune effect is turned off, any settings
from Global Pitch Correction will reactivate.

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Editing the Vocal Layer

Synth effect block / tab

Synth effects are created when a “carrier” sound
modifies a signal (your voice) to create an inter­esting combination of the two elements.

Common use includes the classical guitar “talk
box”, where the notes played on an electrical
guitar dictate the pitch and sound of the voice
output, regardless of what you sing. You don’t
have to use a guitar though – it could also be
sounds from a keyboard or other instrument.

VoiceLive 3 offers polyphonic (more than one
note at a time) Synth effects, so you can play
chords on your instrument and have them act as
the “carrier” sounds. It’s a really great effect to
have fun with!

We have also included several “carrier” sounds
in VoiceLive 3, so you may use the Synth effect
block without an instrument signal.

Synth effect block parameters

The Synth effect block has the following param­eters that allow you to adjust the effect:

► Synth Style
► Gender
► Level
► Hit Control
► Carrier
► Lead Mix
► Note Source
► Carrier Shift
► Carrier Mix
► Resonance
► Global

Tips and tricks for working
with the Synth effect

► When using the Synth block to generate the

well-known talk box effect of the seventies, it

really pays to know exactly the notes you want

to output and practice them ahead of time. It

sounds great when you play the right melody –

but the effect can lose its luster pretty quickly

if you meander around or play the wrong notes

for the song.

► With the above in mind, there’s nothing wrong

with shredding a crazy solo either!

► Synth effects tend to best be used as an ac-

cent during a particular passage of a song,

not full-time.

► Manipulating the way you sing/speak words

into the microphone while Synth is active

can greatly increase the effectiveness of the

sound. Elongating vowels and/or over-pro-

nouncing consonants will really make the ef-

fect stand out.

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Editing the Vocal Layer

Transducer effect block / tab

The Transducer effect is often referred to as
“Megaphone” or “Distortion”, but it really cov­ers any manipulation of gain structure and EQ
filters. Distortion and filter effects are common
across Rock, Pop, Country, Hip Hip, EDM and
other genres.

Transducer effect block parameters

The Transducer effect block has the following
parameters that allow you to adjust the effect:

► Transducer Style
► Routing
► Post Gain
► Hit Control
► Distortion Type
► Distortion Amount
► Low Cut
► High Cut
► Threshold
► Pres Gain
► Pres FC
► Pres Bandwidth
► Global

Tips and tricks for working
with the Transducer effect

► The first and most important tip is that any

distortion or EQ filter effect can be very prone

to feedback, so bear this in mind when con-

necting your VoiceLive 3 to a 50,000 watt sta-

dium PA or the system at your local pub!

► Use of Gate within the Transducer advanced

edit parameters can reduce the chances of

feedback when the effect is active. Set the

threshold such that the gate “opens” to let

your voice through but closes (mutes) very

soon after you finish singing.

► This “Craig’s Corner” video covering feed-

back can help a lot for both general PA use

and Transducer effects:
youtube.com/watch?v=VlN1RJ4gcAo

► Changing the Buttonmap setting for the

footswitch assigned to the Transducer ef-

fect from Latched to Momentary allows you

to quickly add doses of the effect to specific

words or phrases in your song. Simply remap

one of the Vocal Layer footswitches to Trans-

ducer and change its Mode to Momentary –

see “Footswitch tab: Remapping footswitch-

es”.

µMod footswitch remapped to Transducer

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Editing the Vocal Layer

Vocal µMod effect block / tab

Pronounced “Micro Mod”, the µMod block in­cludes effects like micro-pitch shifting (hence
Micro Mod), Flanger, Chorus, Rotor and more.

These effects can be subtle, like “Thicken”, or
quite extreme with “Tube Up” or “Alien Voice­over”.

Vocal µMod effect block parameters

The Vocal µMod effect block has the following
parameters that allow you to adjust the effect:

► µMod Style
► Level
► Hit Control
► Speed
► Detune
► Depth
► Width
► Phase
► Wave
► Inverse Phase
► Delay Left
► Delay Right
► Low Cut Frequency
► High Cut Frequency
► Feedback Left
► Feedback Right
► Cross Feedback Left
► Cross Feedback Right
► Lead to µMod
► Harmony to µMod
► Global

Tips and tricks for working
with the Vocal µMod effect

► Try combining µMod set to one of the “Clone”,

“Wider” or “Thicken” styles with your Harmo-

ny or Double effects to increase the depth of

sound.

► Songs like “Believe” by Lenny Kravitz use

Flanger to create its iconic sound.

► If you use styles like “Cylon” or “Alien Voice-

over”, it’s probably best to use them for small

sections of a song or for a fun effect while ad-

dressing the audience, rather than a full-time

effect.

► The advanced controls allow you to determine

which other effects, like Harmony, are sent to

the µMod block. This allows you to add µMod

effects to whichever components of the signal

you would like and keep other signals “clean”.

Lead to µMod and Harm(ony) to µMod
parameters

► Remember that 0 dB means “high volume” –

not “no volume”!

► Most level controls max out at 0dB, but a few

– such as Guitar Trim in the Headphone Mix –

can go higher.

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Editing the Vocal Layer

Choir effect block / tab

Formerly a part of the Harmony effect block,
Choir was split into its own effect in the TC-Heli­con VoiceLive Touch 2. Separating these effects
gave us the opportunity to provide more styles
and parameters for controlling the Choir sound.
We have defined Choir as its own effect block in
VoiceLive 3 too, so you have extra control over
the way it sounds.

Choir makes a great companion to Harmony, es­pecially when you are trying to create a “group”
sound. You can use Choir by itself too, which can
give its own unique flavor to the vocal.

Choir effect block parameters

The Choir effect block has the following parame­ters that allow you to adjust the effect:

► Choir Style
► Level
► Hit Control
► Lead to Choir
► Harmony to Choir
► Global

Tips and tricks for working
with the Choir effect

► When using Choir with Harmony, start with a

low level setting and move up from there. Us-

ing too much Choir level can make the overall

output sound a bit robotic or “effected”.

► With the above suggestion, keep in mind that

high levels of Choir can be used to create a

very pronounced effect sound – which could

be just what you want.

► The “Speaking” style can be used with any

kind of Hip Hop, Rap, Spoken Word etc. to

add a sense of a group saying something to-

get her.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 95

Editing the Vocal Layer

Vocal Rhythmic effect block / tab

Rhythmic effects use VoiceLive 3’s tempo to
chop, break up, pan or otherwise manipulate
your voice in time with the music.

Depending on how you set the depth and target
controls, Rhythmic can be mild or wild and apply
to either your lead vocal or the Harmony voices.

Vocal Rhythmic effect
block parameters

The Vocal Rhythmic effect block has the follow­ing parameters that allow you to adjust the ef­fect:

► Rhythmic Style
► Target
► Depth
► Hit Control
► Division
► Type
► Global

Tips and tricks for working with
the Vocal Rhythmic effect

► Using Vocal Rhythmic in combination with

Guitar Rhythmic can create some really inter-

esting sounds.

► Try increasing and reducing the “Depth” pa-

rameter to alter the relationship between the

lead or harmony voices and the Rhythmic ef-

fect.

► Setting the “Target” parameter to Harm Level

and using a long division makes the Harmony

voices swell and fade slowly.

► Try changing the Type parameter to create

dramatic variations in the output sound.

► Rhythmic can benefit from momentary use,

applying the effect to brief sections of your

vocal. Try remapping the Rhythmic effect to

a footswitch and set its mode to Momentary.

µMod footswitch remapped to Rhythmic, Mode
changed to Momentary

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 96

Editing the Vocal Layer

Stutter effect block / tab

Stutter is essentially a small sampler, used to
make a quick recording of your vocal and play it
back repeatedly, in time with the music. Depend­ing on the division setting, the sample used for
the Stutter effect can be longer or shorter.

Stutter is great for Pop, Hip Hop and EDM
genres, but can find a home in any style of music
when used creatively.

Stutter effect block parameters

The Stutter effect block has the following param­eters that allow you to adjust the effect:

► Stutter Style
► Division
► Direction
► Hit Control
► Path
► Capture
► Global

Tips and tricks for working
with the Stutter effect

► It takes some practice to learn when to press

the stutter button in relation to your singing

in order to get a good working sample. Take

some time to experiment with the timing of

footswitch pressing and the division parame-

ter to see how the two interact.

► There is a Direction parameter that can play a

reversed version of the sample. Try changing

it from Forward to Reverse.

► Stutter is much easier to control and integrate

into your performance when the button is set

to Momentary operation. When remapping

Stutter to a footswitch, remember to set that

footswitch to Momentary.

► Stutter can be used in a similar fashion to Har-

mony Hold – see “Tips and tricks for working

with the Harmony effect”. Try starting the stut-

ter effect on a note, then sing around that stut-

ter note with your lead voice while the stutter

runs. It can help to mimic the stutter sound

with your lead voice while you do this. Phras-

es like “yeah”, “nah-nah” etc. can work well.

VoiceLive 3 – Reference manual (updated 2015-10-20) 97