Home › Forums › Help/Technical Questions › EHX Voice Box, Unwanted break-up and distortion while using the Vocoder patch

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  • October 1, 2020 at 2:16 pm #86446
    RecognizerMusic
    Member

    Braintrust,

    I’ve been using the Voicebox for about 20yrs now to handle harmonies and it’s great—love it! However, when using the Vocoder setting ( and 75% wet )I get a lot of unwanted distortion/break-up on the louder vocoded vocals whenever I’m playing jangly,higher-string chords. Is there any way to remedy this?!

    My signal chain is guitar>BossTuner’s2ndOutput>Voicebox

    I was considering a compressor in between the Tuner and the Voicebox in an effort to squash the signal..in case the distortion is being caused by high notes spiking in volume here and there.

    Thoughts?

    October 2, 2020 at 12:34 pm #126489
    Flick (EHX Staff)
    Moderator

    Can you tell us the other knob settings?

    Does the guitar sound normal at the INST. Output jack when you play those particular chords?

    October 2, 2020 at 1:15 pm #126491
    RecognizerMusic
    Member

    (1) the knob settings are set for–what should be–the optimal vocoder settings (following the EHX user manual)..that being said, I have tried all knob combinations with no luck eliminating the unwanted, intermittent break-up of the vocal signal.

    (2) the guitar signal is dry and coming straight from the Boss TU-Tuner (see signal chain text-diagram in original post)

    I’m going to try to put an octave-down pedal in front of a compressor and feed that signal into the INST-in of the VoiceBox in an effort to cut down on the high frequencies from the guitar signal and squash the signal so that there’s less spikes in the signal that could push the Voicebox into break-up.

    October 2, 2020 at 1:52 pm #126493
    Flick (EHX Staff)
    Moderator

    In addition to experimenting with the octave-down and compressor, can you take a listen to the guitar signal at the INST Output to make sure it sounds right? It’s possible the guitar signal is unintentionally getting distorted either in the Voice Box or the tuner.

    October 2, 2020 at 1:57 pm #126495
    RecognizerMusic
    Member

    I’ll definitely check it out! However, there is no unwanted distortion or problems tracking/creating harmonies when i use the harmony modes of the Voicebox. In fact the Vocoder mode doesn’t distort if I don’t sing too loudly while using it–it’s only when the vocals get high/loud while the guitar has aggressive strumming on open-style chords on the top 3 strings does the vocal output start to break up and distort…

    Thanks!

    October 2, 2020 at 2:14 pm #126496
    Flick (EHX Staff)
    Moderator

    The Voice Box’s Harmony modes are an effect on the voice or microphone signal. The Voice Box pitch shifts your voice to appropriate intervals to create the proper harmonies. When making voice harmonies, the guitar is not directly heard. The guitar is only used to learn the key and chord.

    The vocoder is an effect on the guitar or instrument signal. The guitar signal goes through a multi-band filter where the volume of each frequency band is dependent on the frequency response of your vocal. So the vocoder is a filter effect on your guitar. The output signal at the XLR Effect Output jack is actually a filtered version of the guitar signal present at the INST Input jack. This is why it would be good to know what the guitar sounds like at the INST Output jack.

    August 3, 2021 at 12:57 pm #184529
    Efarns
    Participant

    Just got a voicebox. Running sm58 to box to xlr to 1/4 into my amp. Guitar going 1/4 to box to 1/4 to same amp. works fine but trying everything and cant get the vocoder to work. No problem with any other effect. Looked through manual and tried their suggestions. Is there any reason JUST the vocoder would not be working? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

    August 3, 2021 at 2:35 pm #184530
    EHX STAFF
    Keymaster

    Efarns Please write the techs at:
    info@ehx.com
    They can help you out!

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