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Section 8: Harmony and Tuning
hard pitch correction on the harmony voice. Setting the
Smoothing parameter between 0 and 100% is like having
variable amounts of pitch correction on the harmonies.
VoicePro has five preprogrammed harmony scales: three
major, three minor and one custom per preset. To create a
custom scale or pitch map see HARMONY / Chord Tab in
the Detailed Parameter Description Section
It can also be tricky to pick out the key in some songs. An
example is “Sweet Home Alabama”. Listening, you might
think this song is in the key of “D”, as that’s the first chord,
but the harmonies actually work best in the key of “G” -- try
running the song through VoicePro to hear for yourself.
Setting the scale can also take a bit of practice. For songs
centered around the third or root of the scale it might not
sound like there’s any noticeable differences between the
three major or three minor scales. This is because your
song doesn’t hit any of the scale’s altered notes. A melody
centered around the fifth of the scale, (such as B in the key
of E), highlights the differences between the scales. Try the
“Sha Lala Lala ...La Tee Daa” chorus of Van Morrison’s
“Brown Eyed Girl” (key: E, scale: major, 3rd above voicing)
with each major scale to hear the audible difference
between them. For the minor scales, Santana’s “Evil Ways”
(key: G, scale: minor, 3rd above voicing) highlights the
differences between the three minor scales.
The following table illustrates the third and fifth above for a
given input note to illustrate the differences between the six
different scales. “nc” means no change, in that the
harmony voice will simply keep or transition smoothly from
its previous pitch until the lead voice pitch changes to a
non “nc” note.
Lead Voice C C# D Eb E F F# G G# A Bb B
MAJ1
3rd Above E nc F nc G A nc B nc C D D
5th Above G nc A nc B C nc D nc E F F
MAJ2 3rd above E nc F nc G A nc C nc C D D
5th above G nc A nc C C nc E nc E F F
MAJ3 3rd above E nc F nc G A nc Bb nc C D D
5th above G nc A nc Bb C nc D nc E F F
MIN1 3rd above Eb nc F G nc Ab nc Bb C nc D nc
5th above G nc BbBbnc C nc D Ebnc F nc
MIN2 3rd above Eb nc F G nc A nc Bb C nc D nc
5th above G nc A Bb nc C nc D Eb nc F nc
MIN3 3rd above Eb nc F G nc Ab nc B C nc D nc
5th above G nc A Bb nc C nc D Eb nc F nc