Live Guitar Harmony Options?

[cmcnamara]

Hi all, was hoping someone could point me in some decent directions for what I want to accomplish!

Essentially my band and I are extremely tired of dealing with the usual Craigslist guitarist that become flakey after a month or so and want to deal with using me as the only guitarist. We had the idea to grab a second 4x12 for myself to use on the other side of the stage to simulate the second guitarist on the other side. Only problem lies in the different layering of our songs with harmonies/etc. Harmony pedals I have seen won't really work because they operate on the idea that your harmony will stay in a constant interval which ours don't.

That got me looking into looping pedals because it could allow me to not only layer with harmony leads but also continue a rhythmic segment underneath while playing a lead over it. Most of these pedals seem to have stereo output which would work great with the dual cabinet setup. I just have a few questions about loopers that don't seem apparently clear to me yet:

-Can you prerecord a part say at home, store it in the unit then call it back up live but at the tempo you happen to be playing at live?

-Would I need to run this in front of the amp because of the line level outputs on the back (Mark V)?

-Anybody have some good looper recommendations?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

[satch4u3]

For harmonies there are alot of options that will provide you with the correct intervals. These are devices where you can punch in your mode and key. I use a G-Major 2 rack unit and it has a great smart harm. You can also get pedals to do this like the Eventide Pitch Factor. There are cheaper alternatives like the boss harmony pedals. These are ok sounding but I am not sure if they do what you would classify as "smart harmony".

I don't have a lot of expereince with loopers. Maybe someone else can chime in on that.

 

[cmcnamara]

Forgive me if I am wrong but the smart harmony devices work by detecting what key you are in and then apply a pitch shifted duplicate line for that key in a constant interval that you choose (eg major thirds). If this does happen to be the way they work, it unfortunately won't work for me for the majority of my usage needs because many of our harmonies are not in a constant interval but switch intervals, for example one of our harmonies alternates major and minor thirds until going to a unison segment at the end of each phrase. That's why I'm feeling that I'm going to need a looper.

 

[MrMarkIII]

No, the "smart" harmony devices create harmonies diatonically, depending on the key and interval you choose. The intervals are not constant (i.e., always a major third, no matter what note you're playing), unless you choose that.
Diatonic means that when you choose the key of C and interval of a 3rd, when you play a "C" note the pedal will add "E".
Play a "D" and the pedal adds an "F". Play an "E", the harmony will be a "G". And so on.
Some can differentiate between Major and Minor, and some pedals don't so you just need to learn a bit about how chords and scales work, e.g., Relative Minors, etc. IOW, use C Major to play in A Minor, or use a D Major to play blues pentatonics in A Minor. Harp players do this all the time.
It's not rocket surgery.