If you don't already have the Helicon harmoniser, then the Harmony M is really, a very good unit, sound wise.
The "Tone" function is almost worth the purchase price by itself.
I asked the TC engineers how I could get the same thing (sound on the input vocal) on the Helicon on the PA, and they said it was not possible as the one on the Harmony M, was not fixed, and actually modified itself automatically to whatever signal was going into it.
So for example if you had a cold and the vocal was a bit muffled, it automatically compensates. Same as if the vocal was a bit "screechy and thin" it also then automatically modifies itself to output as good a sound as possible.
All without any user input at all!! Pretty cool.
As for the harmony voices themselves, they are perhaps slightly better than on the PA unit, there is one less, 2 instead of three, but personally I didn't find this an issue.
There are not too many presets (although all are user editable) however in my shows I usually only have one setup for no harmony singing, one for a single higher harmony line, and a third for the "full harmony", so the number of presets was not a problem.
The sonic quality is typical Helicon, superb. It introduces no noticeable audio noise into the signal path, and the footswitches are firm as you would expect, but are very responsive to a firm push, they can be operated easily with a finger so it can be keyboard mounted if you wish.
One thing that annoyed me a bit, was the red LED's are very bright, too bright in my view (no pun
).
On the operational side, I found the chord recognition a little flawed, in that you had to keep to pretty simple triads otherwise you do get some unusual notes happening. .
Although to be fair, this may have been my chordal playing style,but it is not something I notice on the PA2x version.
It will ONLY recognise harmony information from MIDI, and none from the audio source, something that the PA2x version does.
So you cannot simply sing and the harmony engine follows the pitch you are providing.
But on a unit that is priced like this, and sounds as good as this, its not an issue really.
It has 2 audio outs, which depending on how you set it up can send a stereo signal, or can send a dry signal as well as a summed mono signal.
MIDI receive channel is selectable, and the onboard controls give pretty good user control over all levels.
Thoughtfully, TC have centre indents on the knobs which the engineers have set as being the optimum for each control, so its pretty much set and forget apart from minor adjustments.
To sum up, if it wasn't as fiddly to include in my rig, AND considering I have the Helicon in the PA2x, I would use it instead of the PA version, simply because of the input tone feature.
I will be keeping it because I may not have the PA forever, and once setup for personal use, this pedal would go with you to any keyboard you use.
Donny I hope that helps you, but if you have other specific questions, I will do my best to answer them.
Dennis
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