Waves is promising “instant vocal harmonies” from its new Harmony plugin, which can generate up to eight additional voices when given just one.
You can adjust the pitch, formant, panning, delay, filtering and modulation (via drag-and-drop) for each voice individually, so it’s possible to have both ‘male’ and ‘female’ backup simultaneously.
There are also Quick-harmony chord presets; designed for people who don’t know music theory, these can help you generate voicings that you might not otherwise have considered.
Harmony is also billed as a time-saver when you’re working on complete vocal arrangements - voices can simply be drawn in and automated snapshots can move with the song.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that Harmony is designed to be used in real-time, so it could potentially be employed to create backing vocals when you’re performing live.
The plugin works in three modes: Automatic will instantly create harmonies based on your choice of chord preset; Playable MIDI enables you to create harmonies by playing notes or chords in real-time on your MIDI keyboard (set the key and scale and the pitching should never go awry); and Graphical mode can be called on when you want to draw and tweak harmonies on the visual display.
Beyond harmony creation, Harmony can also be used as a creative effect for doubling, layering and more.
Harmony runs on PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX formats and is available now for the introductory price of $40 (regular price will be $149). Find out more and download a demo on the Waves website.
You can also check out the video below, in which Waves show you how to use Harmony to create five vocal effects in no time at all.
