If you are a guitarist looking to add vocal effects to your rig, then Boss's latest offering, the advanced VE-500 Vocal Performer, just might be the ticket. The unit is designed to deliver impressive vocal harmonies and vocal effects in a streamlined stombox that integrates with your regular guitar effects on your pedalboard.
Employing the latest DSP technology, the VE-500's sophisticated harmony and pitch correction automatically tracks the chords you play on your guitar. The onboard "enhancement" section offers all the essentials, including compression, de-essing, and EQ, while two dedicated reverb/delay sections provide subtle coloration to lush, expansive clouds of ambience. Additionally, there are four independent FX engines, each with a wide palette of effects types, including chorus, flanger, tremolo, additional reverb and delay, as well as special vocal effects: distortion, radio voice, ring-mod, slicer, filtering, and more. An onboard vocoder effect is derived from the Boss's innovative VO-1 vocoder pedal, which allows your connected microphone to affect your guitar tone, offering a wide palette of tones for modern music styles. It's even possible to replicate traditional talk box sounds, providing instant access to classic "talking lead guitar" tones without having to use a talk box rig and mouth tube.
The enclosure features three assignable foot switches and knobs for quick editing and real-time performance controls, plus there is support for two external footswitches or an expression pedal. The three panel knobs can be assigned to favorite parameters, enabling on-the-go tweaks in the heat of the moment. Three integrated footswitches offer access to a multitude of functions, including patch selection, individual effects on/off, harmony, and looper functions. Internally, there are 99 user memories, allowing you to save songs and setups for gigs, rehearsals, and recording. Support is on hand for phantom power. The rear panel provides an XLR microphone input, two XLR line outputs, a ¼" instrument input and ¼" instrument thru and MIDI via standard 5-pin DIN for guiding the harmony/pitch engine from and external MIDI keyboard or DAW backing tracks. Additionally, a micro-USB port provides MIDI control and offers access to an editor/librarian (Mac/Windows) for sound editing and patch management.
