TC-Helicon VoicePrismPlus User Manual

USER’S MANUAL
SUPPLEMENT

VOICEPRISM PLUS

VOCAL FORMANT PITCH PROCESSOR

FEATURING

VOICECRAFT

HUMAN VOICE

MODELING

CARD

THE LIGHTNING FLASH WITH ARROWHEAD SYMBOL, WITH-

IN AN EQUILATERAL TRIANGLE, IS INTENDED TO ALERT
THE USER TO THE PRESENCE OF UNINSULATED ‘DAN­GEROUS VOLTAGE’ WITHIN THE PRODUCT’S ENCLO­SURE THAT MAY BE OF SUFFICIENT MAGNITUDE TO
CONSTITUTE A RISK OF ELECTRIC SHOCK TO PERSONS.

THE EXCLAMATION POINT WITHIN AN EQUILATERAL TRI-

ANGLE IS INTENDED TO ALERT THE USER TO THE
PRESENCE OF IMPORTANT OPERATING AND MAINTE­NANCE (SERVICING) INSTRUCTIONS IN THE LITERATURE
ACCOMPANYING THE PRODUCT.

INSTRUCTIONS PERTAINING TO A RISK OF FIRE,

ELECTRIC SHOCK, OR INJURY TO PERSON

IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS:

READ AND SAVE THESE INSTRUCTIONS

WARNING - WHEN USING ELECTRICAL PRODUCTS,

BASIC PRECAUTIONS SHOULD ALWAYS BE TAKEN,

INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING

:

1. READ ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE USING
THE PRODUCT.

2. DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT NEAR WATER - FOR
EXAMPLE NEAR A BATHTUB, WASHBOWL,
KITCHEN SINK, IN A WET BASEMENT, OR NEAR A
SWIMMING POOL.

3. THIS PRODUCT SHOULD BE USED ONLY WITH A
CART OR STAND THAT IS RECOMMENDED BY
THE MANUFACTURER.

4. THIS PRODUCT, EITHER ALONE OR IN COMBINA­TION WITH AN AMPLIFIER AND HEADPHONES
OR SPEAKERS, MAY BE CAPABLE OF PRODUC­ING SOUND LEVELS THAT COULD CAUSE PER­MANENT HEARING LOSS. DO NOT OPERATE FOR
LONG PERIOD OF TIME AT HIGH VOLUME OR AT
AN UNCOMFORTABLE LEVEL. IF YOU EXPERI­ENCE ANY HEARING LOSS OR RINGING IN THE
EARS, CONSULT AN AUDIOLOGIST.

5. THIS PRODUCT SHOULD BE LOCATED WITH SUF­FICIENT AIR SPACE FOR PROPER VENTILATION.

6. THE PRODUCT SHOULD BE LOCATED AWAY
FROM HEAT SOURCES SUCH AS RADIATORS,
HEAT REGISTERS, OR OTHER HEAT PRODUCING
PRODUCTS.

7. CLEAN ONLY WITH A DAMP CLOTH. BEFORE
CLEANING THE UNIT, TURN OFF THE POWER
AND UNPLUG THE POWER CORD FROM THE
OUTLET.

8. THE POWER SUPPLY CORD OF THE PRODUCT
SHOULD BE UNPLUGGED FROM THE WALL OUT­LET DURING LIGHTNING STORMS OR WHEN
LEFT UNUSED FOR A LONG PERIODS OF TIME.

9. DO NOT DEFEAT THE SAFETY PURPOSE OF THE
GROUNDING-TYPE PLUG. A GROUNDING TYPE
PLUG HAS TWO BLADES AND A THIRD GROUND­ING PRONG. 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 APPLI­ANCE.

11. USE ONLY WITH ATTACHMENTS/ACCESSORIES
SPECIFIED BY THE MANUFACTURER.

12. THE PRODUCT SHOULD BE SERVICED BY
QUALIFIED SERVICE PERSONNEL WHEN:

A. THE POWER SUPPLY CORD OR THE PLUG HAS

BEEN DAMAGED; OR

B. OBJECTS HAVE FALLEN, OR LIQUIDS HAS BEEN

SPILLED INTO THE PRODUCT; OR

C. THE PRODUCT HAS BEEN EXPOSED TO RAIN;

OR

D. THE PRODUCT DOES NOT APPEAR TO OPERATE

NORMALLY OR EXHIBITS A
MARKED CHANGE IN PERFORMANCE; OR
E. THE PRODUCT HAS BEEN DROPPED, OR THE
ENCLOSURE DAMAGED.

13. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SERVICE THE PRODUCT
BEYOND WHAT HAS BEEN DESCRIBED IN THE
USER MAINTENANCE INSTRUCTIONS. ALL
OTHER SERVICING SHOULD BE REFERRED TO
QUALIFIED SERVICE PERSONNEL.

IVL PART # SUP0129 R1.1

FOR PRODUCT SAFETY AND CONFORMITY, REFER TO VOICEPRISM PLUS USER MANUAL, APPENDIX F.

INTRODUCTION

Thank you for choosing the VoicePrism Plus! This remark­able tool contains these exciting features:

· TC-Helicon Voice Modeling dedicated to the Lead
voice, with parameters such as Vibrato, Scooping, Warp,
Spectral Effects, Breath, Rasp and Growl.

· World Class Digital Effects and Signal Processing
from TC-Electronic of Denmark.

· Two Dynamics Banks, Four EQ Banks assignable to either
the Lead or Harmony voices.

· S/PDIF and AES/EBU Stereo Digital Inputs and Outputs.

· 24 Bit Internal Processing.

If you already own a TC-Helicon VoicePrism, the VoiceCraft
upgrade expansion card containing all of the above special
features is also available. You can easily upgrade to the
VoicePrism Plus in a matter of minutes.

Only updated VoiceCraft features are included in this
supplementary manual: you may need to refer back
to your original VoicePrism User Manual for func­tions that have been retained from the VoicePrism.

Text conventions:

Bold, all capitals:

front panel BUTTON AND KNOB control names.

Underlines, all capitals:

MENUS (accessed by the front panel buttons).

Italic, all capitals:

CONFIGURABLE PARAMETERS (assigned to the

softknobs).

Underline, small capitals:

P

ARAMETER SETTINGS

(twist the softknobs

to modify).

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Introduction

VoicePrism Plus User Manual

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS 4
USER INTERFACE 5

WHAT'S NEW 5

FRONT PANEL 5
REAR PANEL 6

PRESET SCREEN 7
VOCALS BUTTON 9

LEAD 9
VOICE MODELING EFFECT CATEGORIES 10

VM SPECTRAL 11
VM WARP 12
VM GLOTTAL 13
VM INFLECT 15
VM PITCH 16

EFFECTS BUTTON 17
COMPRESSOR/EQ BUTTON 18

ASSIGN 18
EQ1/EQ2, COMPRESSOR, NOISE GATE 18

MIX BUTTON 19
STEP BUTTON 19
BROWSER BUTTONS 19
UTILITY BUTTON 20

MIDI CONFIGURATION 20
DIGITAL I/O 20
ROUTING 21
VERSION 22

APPENDIX A: MIDI 23
APPENDIX B: GLOSSARY 30
APPENDIX C: INDEX 32
APPENDIX D: ABOUT DIGITAL I/O 34

ABOUT S/PDIF 34
ABOUT AES/EBU 34
ABOUT DITHERING 34

APPENDIX E: TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS 36
APPENDIX F: PRODUCT SAFETY AND CONFORMITY 38

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Table of Contents VoicePrism Plus User Manual

USER INTERFACE

WHAT'S NEW

FRONT PANEL

Whether you are upgrading your original VoicePrism with the
new VoiceCraft card, or you have purchased a VoicePrism
Plus, the front panel controls are the same. All improvements
and new features are neatly contained within the internal
software, so you can avoid the hassle of learning new con­trols. The LED’s of

44.1K and 48K illuminate to indicate

Digital Signal status as follows:

Solid

41.1

K

OR 48K - means locked with either

internal or external frequency

Blinking

44.1K XOR 48K - means not locked but using

internal frequency

Blinking

44.1

K

AND 48K - means not locked but using

external frequency (which is unknown if we have
no lock).

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User Interface

VoicePrism Plus User Manual

REAR PANEL

Behind the four-screw plate lies the new VoiceCraft Human
Voice Modeling Card, which provides the VoicePrism Plus
two additional connections for Digital I/O, S/PDIF and
AES/EBU. Digital signal configuration and routing are modi­fied by pressing the

UTILITY button on the front panel. You

can scroll to either the

DIGITAL I/O page or the ROUTING page to

edit these parameters, using the

MENU TAB buttons.

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User Interface VoicePrism Plus User Manual

DODI

AES/EBU

VOICECRAFT EXPANSION CARD

S/PDIF

PRESET SCREEN

You will notice a slight change in the preset screen from the
original VoicePrism. On the original VoicePrism, if you incor­porated the Thickening effect on the lead voice, a block
marked

TH would appear in the signal path diagram after the

lead voice block. With VoicePrism Plus, when you incorpo­rate Voice Modeling (VM) in your preset, this block appears
as

VM, as Voice Modeling is used to create a Thickening

effect. For details on VM, refer to the

VOCALS button section.

The original VoicePrism manual illustrated how you can
assign the softknobs in the

PRESET screen to control different

parameters -- you can now access new libraries using these
same controls. The new parameters that can be assigned to
the softknobs are:

VM LIB: Selecting a VM LIB will automatically set the style and

amount of each of the VM effects to a predetermined setting
(designed by TC-Helicon), creating pleasing results that you
can quickly recall and implement in any of your presets. The
Thickening effect, a parameter in the original VoicePrism, can
be replicated using the controls on the

LEAD menu page

under the

VOCALS button on the VoicePrism Plus. In the

LEAD menu you can set the Detune amount of the Voice

Modeled (VM) voice and set the ratio between the dry and
VM voice with the

DRY

:VM MIX

softknob. Pitch differences
between the two voices, along with the Pan settings, enables
the creation of a more configurable Thickening effect.

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Preset Screen

VoicePrism Plus User Manual

LEQ1 LIB, LEQ2 LIB, HEQ1 LIB, HEQ2 LIB, LCMP/NG, HCMP/NG: In

each of these acronyms,

L stands for Lead, H stands for

Harmony,

EQ stands for Equalizer, CMP stands for

Compressor,

NG stands for Noise Gate, and LIB stands for

Library. There are now separate Lead and Harmony library
settings, in addition to two banks of EQ for the Lead voice,
and two banks for the Harmony voices. These libraries recall
standard settings for quick preset construction. With an
increased number of effects and dynamics parameters, we
have created a greater number of library categories, enabling
you to fine-tune your presets without delving into subter­ranean edit parameters.

For further details, refer to the

COMP/EQ and EFFECTS sec-

tions of the VoicePrism and VoicePrism Plus User Manuals.

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Preset Screen VoicePrism Plus User Manual

VOCALS BUTTON

This accesses the new VoicePrism Plus Voice Modeling (VM)
features, enabling you to manipulate the Lead voice using
our Voice Modeling effects. You access the following menus
by pressing the

VOCALS button and paging left and right with

the

MENU TAB buttons, just like on the original VoicePrism.

LEAD

The LEAD menu provides the tools necessary to produce a
Thickening effect by designating different characteristics for
the Dry Lead and VM Lead voice and controlling the Lead
voice mix. The control parameters are as follows:

DRY:VM MIX (0-100% MODELED): sets the balance

between the Dry Lead voice, and the VM
Lead voice.

100% is undiluted VM voice, and

0% is Dry voice.

DRY PAN (100% LEFT - 100% RIGHT): sets the posi-

tion in the stereo field of the Dry voice.

VM PAN (100% LEFT

- 100% RIGHT)

: sets the position in the stereo

field of the VM voice.

VM DETUNE (0- +/- 50 CENTS): detunes or offsets the pitch of the

VM voice from the Dry voice to create an fuller overall Lead
voice.

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Vocals Button

VoicePrism Plus User Manual

VOICE MODELING EFFECT
CATEGORIES

There are two basic parameters in each of the Voice
Modeling (VM) menus:

AMOUNT and STYLE.

The

AMOUNT softknob controls whether the VM effect is subtle

or intense. When initially dialing in a sound we recommend
an

AMOUNT setting of 50%.

STYLES are created for each voice modeling effect to provide

a diverse range of vocal possibilities to incorporate into your
presets -- feel free to scroll and explore.

The last few styles in each effect are often special effects,
novelty sounds or something else out of the ordinary. Any
combinations of these styles may be stored in a preset, along
with the other effects available in the VoicePrism Plus, as
described in the original VoicePrism User Manual.

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Voice Modeling Effect Categories VoicePrism Plus User Manual

VM SPECTRAL

The Spectral control is a set of equalizer response curves
intended to complement the

VM

WARP selections. This equal-

ization is different than those controlled via

COMP/EQ and

applied to the output signal. The

VM SPECTRAL styles reflect

the natural equalization equivalent to the native control a

singer has over his or her own voice, and
apply this equalization to the Voice Modeling
(VM) voice. These styles may be used in con­junction with the resonances, or purely as
additional tonal control over the VM voice.

* Special Note: Each VM effect menu has an

AMOUNT control

to 'dial in' the amount of effect desired. Remember that there
is also a

DRY:VM MIX control in the LEAD menu that determines

how much of the input vocal is left Dry and how much is
passed through VM. The setting of this ratio can determine
the effectiveness of your other parameter settings, as it is
essentially a master mix control for the Dry and VM Lead
voice.

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Voice Modeling Effect Categories

VoicePrism Plus User Manual

VM WARP

Warping is how we model different vocal tract dimensions,
and apply them to incoming vocals. Your favorite vocalists all
have unique pitch and glottal characteristics. Warp changes
the tonal makeup of the sound by moving vocal formants, so
that the Voice Modeled (VM) Lead voice sounds quite differ­ent than the original. Formants are the harmonic combina­tions that help make our voices unique.

The styles have been given names that are
easily identified when assembling presets.
The names may be associated with a particu­lar genre of music or sound. This way, you
can associate a certain modification with a
name, similar to how we describe colors in a
picture with names.

Some of the Warp styles contain a built-in octave shift, either
up or down. This is to accommodate a male singing in the
female register, with a feminine timbre, or for a female to
simulate a male singing voice. These Warp styles enable you
to sing in a natural range and still hit the notes of your oppo­site gender comfortably; they are

STYLE settings F2M (Female-

to-Male) and

M2F (Male-to-Female).

The

AMOUNT knob allows you to dial in the relative strength of

this effect on your VM voice;

0% for no effect,

100% for pure

Warping.

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Voice Modeling Effect Categories VoicePrism Plus User Manual

VM GLOTTAL

Glottal refers to the combination of complex sounds the
human voice can make to change non-pitched aspects of the
vocal sound. Consider these examples: the cool breathy
sound of a Jazz or Folk singer, the legendary warm grumble
of Blues from the Mississippi Delta, the brazen sizzle of Rock
and Alternative Rock or the growl of 60's Soul.

The Glottal

STYLE settings contain three types

of effects:

BREATHINESS, RASP, and GROWL,

arranged in various combinations in the style
library. All of these are set to create percus­sive and expressive textures in addition to

the sung note. Experimentation is the key to
finding styles that work in your scenario, or are difficult to
create in your scenario. The last few entries contain extreme
and unreal Glottal styles -- no longer need you burn out your
throat night after night. Glottal styles are created using the
following parameters:

BREATHINESS factors in 'virtual air' that gives the effect of being

close to a sensitive condenser microphone. This intimate
sound may be used in some Jazz styles or for pop ballads,
although its application is not limited to these.

BREATHINESS

may also be used to give a 'tired' or 'strained' sound, where
the singer may be pushing a lot of air. You can also dial in
'whisper' or like textures to simulate a specific singer’s style.

RASP is an effect where the breath pushed through the throat

cavity goes beyond mere breathiness, into a harsh sizzle or
grind. These sounds are a combination of hard breath and
friction in the larynx, which are difficult for many singers to
reproduce and are very damaging on the vocal cords. You
can use

RASP on your normal voice and achieve a grittier,

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Voice Modeling Effect Categories

VoicePrism Plus User Manual