TC-Helicon PERFORM-VE Reference Manual
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TC-Helicon PERFORM-VE Reference Manual

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PERFORM-VE
Preliminary Reference Manual
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  • Page 1 PERFORM-VE Preliminary Reference Manual...
  • Page 2 If you’ve read the Quick Start Guide that came in the box, hooked up a microphone, and can hear your music and vocals coming through the outputs, you are already skimming the top features of Perform-VE. If you want to get into Perform-VE’s deeper capabilities with this reference manual, we’ll need to do a little more set up.
  • Page 3 MIDI soft THRU capability. You would then connect Perform-VE to the laptop via a second USB cable and configure your DAW to take incoming MIDI from the USB MIDI keyboard and pass it on to Perform-VE’s USB port. See your respective software manual for details on how to set up your particular system.
  • Page 4 MIDI settings are correct. You achieve this with the SET button. The SET button performs a lot of functions in your Perform-VE. By itself, the SET button configures the mic input level and sets the MIDI channel and split-point used to control the Notes, Vocoder and Sample features of your unit.
  • Page 5 You can also configure Perform-VE to ignore MIDI notes above or below a user-defined note value. This is called a Split Point. A split point is useful when you want to control an instrument other than Perform-VE with one part of your keyboard, but still want Perform-VE to respond to keys pressed on the remaining keys.
  • Page 6 One Knob To Rule Them All By default, Perform-VE’s Control Knob edits the mix between the MIDI Voices and your Lead Voice. It applies to all three presets and is not stored when Perform-VE is turned off. LEAD Voice: Your voice. Enhanced and extremely...
  • Page 7 Mods are related to the currently selected Style. They appear as levels on the LED Ring, colored to match the Style. You can think of each mod as custom ‘Tweak’ parameter matched to the Style in question. Now that the basics are out of the way, let’s check out Perform-VE’s effects!
  • Page 8 Double Applies to: LEAD Voice Double simulates the classic “double tracked” studio sound that’s common on recordings of all genres. Double Style selections can include Octave Up and Octave Down voices, for an even thicker effect. Double Style Double Level Double Level changes the amount of doubled voice, relative your lead vocal.
  • Page 9 (Wikipedia) Perform-VE’s Morph effect does exactly this to your voice: you can morph your lead voice into a giant, a mouse, or a spaced out alien (and beyond) using the Shift and Gender parameters, while also morphing your MIDI voices into choirs of angels, robots, zombies or whatever you dream up using the Mode and Style parameters.
  • Page 10 Synth Vocoder Perform-VE has a dual oscillator synth vocoder hidden inside. When Synth Vocoder styles are chosen, the synthesizer will generate up to eight articulated synth voices to render the MIDI notes you play, and will also generate a ninth Lead synth voice that follows the pitch of your voice.
  • Page 11 Synth Vocoder Styles Each one of the Synth Vocoder styles is actually a synthesizer preset (or patch), named accordingly: Morph Mode Morph Mode controls the Mono/Poly setting of the Notes, Vocoder and Sample MIDI voices. Green LED selections set the MIDI voices to Poly mode, and adjust their release time (how long voices will take to fade out after you release their controlling key).
  • Page 12 Morph Shift Morph Shift pitch shifts your lead voice up or down by a set number of semitones. (+/- 12). NOTE: If you control Morph Shift via MIDI Continuous Controller (CC) messages, the range is -36 to +36 semitones for even more extreme effects and automated sweeps. Morph Gender Morph Gender expands and compresses the formant signature of your voice to make it sound more male (negative values) or female (positive values).
  • Page 13 C#, just one semitone up from C. When using the Pop Major Scale, Perform-VE should be set to the correct key for your composition. You can set this manually, or you can set the key to NaturalPlay to have Perform-VE automatically set the correction key...
  • Page 14 HardTune Key HardTune Key selects NaturalPlay Pop Major Scale, Pop Major Scale in all 12 keys, or Chromatic scale. HardTune Amount HardTune Amount changes the amount of pitch correction applied to your lead vocal. Higher amounts mean more T-Pain™ for you. Range: Natural to Slammed!
  • Page 15 XFX stands for ‘EXTREME EFFECTS’… it lives up to the name, as we’ll now explain. Applies to: Lead Vocal MIDI Voices XFX Style There are seven different XFX styles. You can choose between a Stutter effect, Chopper effect, Ring Modulation, Flanging and even a SideChain Pumping Compressor.
  • Page 16 There are two Chopper styles: Mono Chopper and Stereo Chopper. At full depth, Mono will gate the level of the audio, while Stereo will alternate (ping-pong) the audio between Perform-VE’s left and right stereo outputs. Both Chopper styles are beat-synchronized, of course!
  • Page 17 XFX Style: Ring Mod The Ring Modulator multiplies your lead vocal with an internally generated sine wave to create a classic ‘Dalek from Doctor Who’ sound. At full Ring Mod depth, you’ll be ready to visit planet Skaro, but subtle amounts can also work wonders on a vocoder voice to bring out an old- school Electric Cylon Orchestra sound for a retro sci-fi clip or two.
  • Page 18 Flange, Mod 2: Depth Flange Mod 2 controls the depth of the effect, from subtle to very obvious. Range: 0 to 100% XFX Style: SideChain Pumping The SideChain Pumping Compressor is meant to be used with the LOOPER’s built in drum sequencer. When you are playing a beat, the SideChain Compressor will momentarily throttle back (compress) the volume of your Lead, MIDI and audio loop mix whenever the drums hit a certain threshold volume: This ensures your drums will always stand out in...
  • Page 19 Echo Applies to: LEAD Vocal MIDI Voices Echo is a combined Delay and Reverb processor. Echo effects repeat your voice back to you in various ways and amounts, simulating the effect shouting into a mountain range (delay) or very large space (reverb). With Echo turned on, you’ll get delay and reverb combined as you like them.
  • Page 20 Echo Div Echo Division controls both the Delay’s rhythmic division and its type. Blue LED selections are Ping-Pong delays in which echoes ‘bounce’ between left and right in the stereo field, while Green LED selections are delays in which echoes are heard on both sides of the stereo field. The Red LED selection is a short single-repeat echo called a Slapback delay, useful for dialing in a retro 50’s pop song vibe.
  • Page 21 Filter Applies to: LEAD Vocal MIDI Voices Anything that EQ’s (equalizes) filters or distorts your voice falls into the Filter category. You can sound like you’re on an old radio or distort your voice for an edgy attack. Be careful with Megaphone effects when you’ve got a loud PA.
  • Page 22 To save your current settings as one of the three presets, press and hold preset button 1, 2, or 3 for one second. The preset button will flash briefly when storage is complete. You can now turn off your Perform-VE and your preset will be ready for you when you next power up and press a number button.
  • Page 23 Since Perform-VE replaces EQ and effects that are often added by a live sound technician, you’ll want to make sure that the mixer channel you plug Perform-VE into has a flat EQ (not altering any frequencies) and that any effects are turned off.
  • Page 24 On your TC-Helicon MP-75 Microphone, the single Mic Control button cycles the preset selection. You can reassign the Mic Control button by holding the button and then pressing the corresponding button on Perform-VE that you’d like to control. For example, if you hold the Mic Control then press the Reverb button, the MP-75 will now toggle Reverb on and off.
  • Page 25 Tap (Tempo) Applies to: Tempo The Tap button’s red LED flashes in time with the current tempo, with the down beat of each 4/4 measure flashing brighter than the remaining three beats. When pressed, this light flashes in time with the Looper, Chopper, Stutter and Echo effects. Provided you have not previously recorded a loop, you can re-tap the tempo at any time to sync up with your current song.
  • Page 26 The loops and samples you create on Perform-VE are not stored with any preset. Loops and samples persist between preset changes, although they will not be saved when you turn off your Perform-VE.
  • Page 27 Regardless of loop type, Perform-VE will analyze the loop length and decide whether it is a 1 bar, 2 bar, 4 bar or 8 bar pattern at a valid tempo between 80 and 160 BPM (Beats Per Minute). The clock tempo of Perform-VE will be updated to match the loop and the LOOPER button will turn green to indicate play mode.
  • Page 28 Looper Quantize Perform-VE’s looper can either quantize your drum events as they are recorded, or can leave their timing untouched. If Quantizing is enabled, drum events will be ‘corrected’ to the closest 16 note as they are recorded, resulting in a tighter more ‘machine-like’ groove.
  • Page 29 Looper: Erase When building up drum and audio loops there are going to be parts you want to erase and optionally replace. Once again, Perform-VE’s super-powered SET button comes to the rescue! • SET + loop: Erases the audio loop.
  • Page 30 The Looper Cookbook Now you know where all the kitchen utensils are, here are some simple recipes for cooking up loops on Perform-VE. How to make an initial drum loop: • Arm loop by tapping the loop corner. • Pressing kick, snare or the Headphone button (for hi hat) will automatically start the recording as you tap the drum pattern.
  • Page 31 To audition your recorded sample, press the play corner button. For a real taste of what the sampler can do, provide Perform-VE with MIDI notes from a connected keyboard controller or note event generator (such as an arpeggiator or sequencer). With 8 voices of polyphony, the sampler can be used in many different exciting ways, as you’ll soon hear!
  • Page 32 As for Perform-VE’s headphone output jack - the Aux in is always routed to it regardless of the Aux to Main Out...
  • Page 33 Switch5 = Reverb Switch6 = Echo • USB Audio Perform-VE has 5 input and 6 output channels for USB audio. A driver is required for both USB audio and MIDI use. It can be found and downloaded from www.tc-helicon.com/products/Perform-VE/support/ USB IN •...
  • Page 34 How it Works: LPF/HPF Filter When the LPF/HPF Style is active, Filter Mod controls the cutoff frequency of either the LowPass or HighPass filter (LPF and HPF). The overlap of these two filters’ frequency response creates a sweeping BandPass filter (BPF) effect. Each filter has a passband, or band of frequencies it will pass at full gain.

  • Page 35: Midi Implementation

    MIDI Implementation Perform-VE responds to Control Change (CC), Program Change (PC) and MIDI Start/Stop/Clock (System Real- Time) information. MIDI PC Messages The products 3 presets correspond to Program Change: 0, 1, 2 MIDI CC List Implemented Continuous Controller (CC) messages...
  • Page 36 MIDI Tempo Perform-VE responds to incoming MIDI clock messages and will synchronize accordingly. Split Point and Transpose When controlling MIDI Voices via MIDI note events, it is sometimes desirable to have one section of the keyboard designated to sending that control information. It could be the area that your left hand is, to play chords of harmonies.
  • Page 37 To reset the unit back to factory settings, press and hold the DOUBLE and HARDTUNE buttons while powering Support If you’ve read through this manual and still need a little help, you can contact us via our support portal and forums http://support.tc-helicon.com...

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