Boss VE-2 Vocal Harmonist Effects Processor Reviews

At first I thought the Vocal Harmonist was not working properly. I reread the User Guide and used it as a vocal device only. To my surprise the Boss VE-2 worked amazingly well. I am still in the process of figuring out all the possible ways to apply the device. I am sure if I tweak the microphone sensitivity switch it will work as demonstrated in the videos. I highly recommend this product to all of the guitarists who want to add vocals with the guitar music.

Absolutely amazing piece of gear. Some reviews say it sounds unnatural. This can be true depending upon how you use it. Turning the mix knob just left of center helps make the harmonies sound very natural. You also need to really analyze the song you are doing and try different interval settings to make sure the complete harmony part you are singing all goes together because if you don't, parts of your verse or chorus harmonies will be off. I use it all the time in the auto harmonizer setting using my guitar as a trigger. In doing so, you need to be as precise as you can with your chording. If you play the chords cleanly this thing is absolutely amazing. If you follow these few tips, it will sound very precise and natural, will track perfectly, and will add a nice dimension and thickness to your voice. I was actually able to cover "Seven Bridges Road" myself with no issues. The harmonies were perfect. It just blew me away when I first heard it. It's easy to use, easy to trigger and you can store 3 custom settings which is more than enough for most gigs. Even without doing harmonies, the vocal unison setting (doubler) really thickens and adds dimension to your vocal. Lastly, the price for this unit given what it sounds like and all it can do is more than reasonable. The only knock against it that I can think of is that it does not come with the power adapter, but that just can't take away a 5 star rating for this product. If you are a solo performer I believe you will be very pleased with this harmonizer.

Now my wife can harmonize

This is very helpful I sing and having the ability to blend my voices with correct pitch , helps me on my pitch

For years I was trying to get help with finding a vocal harmonizer for my Korg keyboard. I live in NY and went to some of the biggest music stores around and they were no help at all. Then by chance I found Sweetwater, on line, and got in touch with them.
I met Eric who was my tech sales man. Wow he was great. HE totally understood my issues. He provided me with good tech information. He helped me figure out a solution to my issues and I made a purchase and it worked out perfect. Boss VE-2 vocal processor
I am totally satisficed with the product I purchased and the service Eric provided. I am also satisficed with the price I paid. HE even told me if I didn't like it I could send it back. That took away all my worries. Now I'm looking at some Bose speakers and another keyboard, and will probably make another purchase very soon. This company is in Indiana and I live in NY. I never thought that would work out but it did. I can't imagine ever buying music equipment anywhere else.
I highly recommend Sweetwater. I have never received better help from any company. I have confidence in them.
Thanks Eric
Rich from Cortlandt manor

I have owned two different kinds of TC Helicon harmonizers and to me, this one (Boss VE-2) blows them away. It is super easy to figure out, and operate. It works great while plugging into my keyboard to tell it what chords I'm playing while singing. Seems most of them advertise using it with a guitar, but this one does fine with keyboard input. Overall.....it's a great little box for anyone singing without harmony singers. I don't believe you could get any better sounding voices, unless they were a real person. My wife who is not musical, was blown away by the sound of the harmony. Get it.......it's a no-brainer for the price!

This unit has great tracking,is highly versatile, yet is so easy to use to get the harmony you want quickly.

The controls and layout of this unit tops the other harmonizes I have used. It's really easy to use in a solo performance and that is the key to a better stress free gig.

I was very pleased with the sound quality and ease of use of the unit, being able to start getting good results almost right away upon using. And, the different harmonic configurations available was sufficient to cover all I wanted to do in my songs. Tracking the guitar playing plus having manual key selection is genius. Great product!

For me this unit gets a 5 because it"s so easy to use,I run my guitar thru for auto harmony and we only need 2 part and I can look down at the lights and see what harmony I have,love that simple interface the doubler is really nice too! My salesperson Paul Rowan always sees that everything is perfect,thx Sweetwater!!!

Just got this today and set it up with my system of all battery operated gear and amplification. Wow! What a great sound. I have a Digitech 3 part harmony unit (also bought from Sweetwater) that has to be plugged in and this sounds just as good if not better. I plan on using this unit for playing outside where no electricity is available. I am very impressed.

Buy gear from Kevin Spunde, a great sales engineer who will never steer you wrong.

Purchased for the band, "The Pickup Limes" and now they sound over the top.

Play in a five piece band in the summer and a trio in the winter love playing in the trio but always thought the vocals suffered until a added this harmonized petal really fills in the voides great tool I thing our lead singers getting jellious

I've been looking for a vocal harmonizer for some time. The Boss VE-2 is the perfect blend of features and quality I was looking for. I like the set up. I like how the "Enhance" feature makes my voice sound better and brighter. The variety of harmonies provides a fun list of possibilities. All in all a great tool to have in my bag of electronics.

Excellent pedal for vocalists

I love this little box. It allows me to fill in needed vocal gaps on our church worship team, and the vocal correction helps my confidence when I sing. It is easy to use, but I recommend getting the foot switch if you are going to use it live, and the power source, as it goes through batteries fast.

I pretty much bought this for one thing to add the harmony just above my part,I had it going in 2 minutes with the auto accompanying function,now I haven't worked with the other features but for what I needed it's great.The simple lights on the panel show what harmony you're using and I really love this unit

Really solid product. Easy to use and overall great sound !!

The Boss ME-70 was my guitar cheat code in College. It was simple, got the basics right and played well with any extra pedals and with any amp. Fast forward nearly 15 years and find myself on the mic. With ADHD I have to keep it simple. I was set on the TC series, but went with my gut and got this…

Pros:
- Intuitive. The Harmony selection system is so simple and the guitar tracking is impressive.
- Harmonies are stellar. The magic is in the mix knob and variation button.
- Enhance feature is simple and effective. Its allowed me to use my lower register without getting lost in the mix.
- Pitch Correction is solid and predictable. Reverb is same.
- Size is perfect and the two modes are easy to switch between.

Cons:
- Echo can go haywire. It's not mixed well.
- Reverb is not an ambient reverb if that's your style. It's to fill out your voice and fit in the harmonies.
- Pitch Correction isn't adjustable.
- May cause feedback issues with an acoustic that's not soundhole covered.

This is made for simplicity. If you need to dial in everything precisely or set up presets for songs, go for the VoiceLive. If you're a guitarist who already has enough to deal with, this will nail the job. Like the ME-70, sacrifices are made, but it's predictable.

I don't have any comments yet because it is a Christmas present but I will let you know after Christmas. Thank You.

Im usually against any enhancement of vocals harmony and pitch correction. I've been doing a lot of solo nights and thought I would give his a try. I only use the harmony and have not used the pitch correction or enhancement. If blended correctly the subtle thickness it adds to areas where there are usually harmonies is superb and unobtrusive. I'm liking it more every time I use it!!

The tonal quality and separation is acceptable. However, if you're planning on using it in a live situation, I would recommend a uni-directioanl microphone if you're using an acoustic guitar. If you're using an electric, don't put the amp behind you. If the guitar sound bleeds into the mic, it will effect the harmony sound to include the guitar.

Nice little pedal very well thought out and in layout and design Very Good and Resourceful for Beginners and Hobbyists and Home Studios.
Not so great in the Harmony and Reverb Delay Departments. The ground lift is a Great addition. Can be noisy and distorted at high mic settings. Best Results are attainable with a Dynamic Mic rather than a Condenser
I am waiting for the TC helicon GTX to come back in Stock to be Honest.

After learning how to set it up, I was suprised how well it performed. I would recommend it to anyone who want harmonies.

This is the third one I've purchased. Wound up selling the first because it lacks a lot of the features of its older sibling, the VE-20. As time went on, I found out that a lot of those features the VE-20 had that this lacks, I wasn't really using, and that this has a feature the VE-20 does not have--auto harmonist.
Also the VE-20, lacking the auto harmonist function, requires the user to scroll through menus and presets--not a problem in a studio environment, but a hindrance when one is onstage.
One feature I discovered by accident [and an e-mail to Roland/Boss customer service confirmed] that is not mentioned in the instructions is that in multi-vocalist settings, one can daisy chain these together using the guitar IN/THRU jacks, so one person can control the harmonies via a single guitar using the auto harmonist function. One still has to have separate mics for each unit, and each vocalist has to be singing the melody, but it does present some awesome possibilities for turning a duo or trio into a small chorale.

Good for solo performance to fill in subtle harmonies Like this still learning to use from tutorials so far so good!

Bought the BOSS VE-2 for an extra harmony voice when my daughter, who sings with me, cant make it to our band gigs. Pretty simple to use. I think the vocal sounds much more in tune if you plug your guitar into it instead of dialing the note.(That's kind of a hassle is you are playing live, to bend down & dial to the write note). The harmonies sound pretty good. I like the highs & the lows separate, not so much split high & low, of course I'm used to hearing the real thing that sounds way better. Sounds more natural if you drive your voice a little louder than the harmony. All in all, easy to use & does the job.

being in a trio it is hard to get back up vocals from your bass player and drummer and some songs really need it. i had no idea that something like this existed and now that i have it i have on demand three part harmonies that always work and i don't have to hassle the other band members about being off key or forgetting to sing. i only gave this 4 stars because i haven't figured out how to do some of the things it is capable of so it lost one star for ease of use. for three part harmonies it is simply plug and play and that is just awesome. ps. buy from sweet water their service is outstanding, prices are great and shipping is quick. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT?

I am a single player, live acoustic sets and for me this is great. it works well. sounds "believable". I look at reviews to help decide what to buy and if that helps you great. Yes buy it. Worth the money.

this works great for me great recording tool

Harmonies are nice and they track well with your vocal. Easy set up and easy to use. But, The vocal effects are not very good. Delay trails too much, even at the lowest setting. Reverb has too much echo, even at the lowest setting. Hard to find a setting that is "natural" yet gives you that full sound. Enhance button with pitch correction sounds fake and processed (because it is). Had to use enhance without pitch correction, which is a little bit better, but not great. I am now looking at adding an EQ and a small effects unit in the vocal chain to give me more control over the wet/dry sound and I will bypass using the enhance or effects of the VE2 altogether. It is now just a harmonizer for me.

I ordered one of these to replace an aging VE-20. This things has some improvements over the VE-20, but it also has some minuses compared to the VE-20.
One improvement over the VE-20 is the automatic harmony feature. This requires an instrument to be plugged into the box to provide reference notes, but it works very well and allows the vocalist not to have to change the key setting manually. It's also smaller and easier to switch harmonies on and off using the footswitch.
That said, there are several negatives which keep this from getting a solid five stars. The first negative is that one cannot switch between the types of vocal enhancements. Personally, I hate delays and reverb on vocals but one cannot have pitch correction without echo according to the instructions.
The second flaw is the instructions themselves. The print on the instructions is too small. What are they using--4-point type?
The instructions also are inadequate--failing to provide details of key functions. Is pitch correction soft or hard. In the VS-20, pitch correction is adjustable. here the only setting is on or off. And if pitch correct is on, that means one must also deal with echo [Reverb, Reverb + Delay, Delay].
Finally, the type of harmonies provided are unclear--especially when compared to what is offered in the VE-20. Octave Up, Unison, and Octave Down are self-explanatory settings. But what is the deal with Low,Lower, High, and Higher? There is no explanation in the instructions to tell the user what intervals are used. Roland/Boss has never responded to my inquiry on this. The explanation I got from the Roland/Boss account rep at Sweetwater, while somewhat helpful, still didn't give a direct answer to the question--basically telling me that the unit simply chooses the nearest harmonic based on what it "thinks" the user wants. As near as I can tell after using it, it's pretty straightforward harmonies typical of barbershop quartets. So if one wants to try for something fancy like Beach Boys, Eagles, or CSNY harmonies, forget it. S/he'd be better off with the VE-20.
While others have noted the fact that the output through the phones does not include the guitar signal and found that to be a problem, While I simply routine the vocal by using the guitar thru jack to my acoustic amp and then putting the mic signal through the mic channel on my acoustic amp, I can see where someone not wanting to run all those cables would consider this a minus.
Bottom line, it's good, but the VE-20 has more user control over all settings and is therefore a better, more useful tool.

I was hoping for more. It works well for reverb but the harmony is ether difficult to get right or impossible.

Had it for a month now, I realized quickly that it made a change of the sound even i pass thru, and also lots of lost signal.
As I have very good PA (Bose) it damaged to much of voice sound in pass thru.
Actually the second gear from Boss I have, and very disappointed on both.

I bought this to enhance my solo singing with an harmony singer for more effect. The video I watched was amazing but I was unable to get the same result. Harmonies were spotty and not in sync at all. This one let me down.

WHY can't the guitar be played as PART OF the output mix [= vocal with guitar] ? The unit will only output vocal-ONLY and cant output vocal with guitar [or whatever other signal you choose to insert into the guitar input.] Vocal-only output out is basic design flaw that Boss needs to change

It's hard for me to rate this box, because what it does it does very well. But for me there is a fatal flaw that makes it almost unusable for anything but solo acoustic.
I love the idea of subtle pitch correction, but with the Enhance function active, and without some sort of gate on the audio, I find that the unit picks up the ambient sound of the the band onstage, and constantly tries to correct the pitch. This produces a warbling effect on my vocal channel that can be heard in both the main and monitor mixes. No good.
Also, there is no way to activate only the pitch correction without also activating the compression and eq mode. My sound man hates that.
Great box...it just needs some refinements.