DigiTech VOCALIST PERFORMER, Manual

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To give you an example of the difference between the three Major scales, let’s try with a song every-
body knows called “Louie Louie”. Set the key to E, pick the Major 3 scale and enable only the High
voice. Push the cue button for a moment if you need a starting note. Now sing: “Louie Louie (pro-
nounced Lou-eye), Whoa Baby I said we gotta go now.” The difference between the three scales
occurs on the word “...Whoa...” which is the 5th of the scale. Sing it again and listen closely for the
harmony note on this word. Now change to the Major 1 or Major 2 scales and sing the same thing.
You should hear the difference when you sing the “Whoa” note. For a further test try the “Sha Lala
Lala....La Tee Daa” part in Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl”. This one works best with the Major
2 scale which you’ll probably find is the most versatile of the three Majors.
Now let’s explore the difference between the three Minor scales. We’ll use the song “Summertime”
from the broadway show “Porgy and Bess” as our first example. Set the Performer to key of G,
High voice on and the scale to Minor 1. Now sing the first two lines of the song: “Summertime and
the livin’ is easy, Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high”. Neat huh? This scale works well for this.
Sing the line again while you try the other two scales. You should notice that the scales sound differ-
ent on the words “Summertime...” and “...Jumpin”. Now if you know the song “Evil Ways” by
Santana you can explore the Minor 2 scale. This song will really illustrate the difference for you.
Rather than give you a technical explanation of the scales, let’s express the differences as chord
changes you could generally use as accompaniment.
Major 1- E major / B major
Major 2- E major / B suspended
Major 3- E major / B minor
Minor 1- E minor / A minor / B minor
Minor 2- E minor / A major / B minor
Minor 3 - E minor / A minor / B major
Experiment with all the scales in as many songs as you can. This should give you an intuitive sense
about what will work for a particular song and what won’t. If you’re still having trouble with a par-
ticular song, you may also want to try entering a different key than the one you figure the song is in.
A good example of this is “Sweet Home Alabama”. You would think that this song is in the key of D
because that’s the starting chord but the harmony actually works best when set to the key of G. Try
it for yourself - set the Performer for Major 2 scale, High voice on and the key to D. Sing the chorus
a couple of times and then change the key to G.
Part A and B
Songs sometimes change to another key or use a different scale somewhere in the song. Perhaps you
would like to stay in the same key but change to a higher or lower harmony voice in the bridge of
your song. These are the reasons for A/B switching. With A/B switching you can pre-select an alter-
native harmony sound in each program and switch back and forth using the front panel buttons or,
more conveniently, with the optional FS300 footswitch.
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