Effects Processor Experiments

I bought an effects processor, the Behringer Virtualizer, and have been playing around with it, so see if I can get any interesting vocal effects that might be used in a performance. They'd have to add something of value to the performance, of course, not just be there for the novelty value. Novelty wears off so quickly.

For my purposes, I think I can divide the effects into three categories. First off are the useless effects, those I can't imagine ever wanting to use in a performance. For example, there's the LoFi effect, which sounds like a really bad amplifier, with lots of hum and distortion. Or the Vinylizer, which makes it sound as if your voice is being played back from a vinyl disc, complete with noise, clicks and scratches. There's a danger in chucking things into the useless category, of course, but those two could only be used in very specific circumstances, and probably only once in a lifetime.

My second category I'll call subtle enhancements because I can't think of a better name at the moment. Things like adding a bit of reverb or some equalisation to improve the voice quality. Probably which effects were used would depend on the performance venue more than the poems being read. Though there might be mileage in adjusting the effect to suit the poem. Since the Virtualizer has 100 programmable presets, the effects could be programmed in sequence and then you could simply step through them as you went through the performance. It would take a lot of practice to get the settings right and the sequence right.

As subtle enhancements become less subtle, they shade into my third category, which I'll call poem-specific because the alternative is to call them unsubtle effects, which doesn't have the right connotations. Actually, my terminology isn't particularly good, because you could easily imagine using the same poem-specific effect with a range of poems. But these effects add something noticeable to the performance, and what they add specifically affects the performance. A simple example is that of adding cathedral reverb to a poem about a cathedral.

The most versatile sort of poem-specific effects seem to be the various sorts of echo effect. (Maybe instead of 'versatile' I should have written 'obvious' or 'blatant'.) I quite enjoyed a setting of about 350ms delay with a high level of feedback (at least 90%) but you can't really use words with these settings and expect to be understood. The Virtualizer has a maximum delay of over 5 seconds and it's quite odd using that length. If you make a noise you don't notice, when it's repeated five seconds later, you do notice it, and wonder who is in the room with you. If you have a lot of feedback, you can say the first line of a poem, wait until it's repeated, then read the second one, and so on. Or you can turn the electronic feedback down, and use acoustic feedback via the speakers and microphone. You can get a lot of interesting effects that way.