Behringer VoiceLive Play

The Behringer VoiceLive Play is a 3-button vocal effects stompbox with looping, a floor unit designed to sit in front of a singer rather than a guitarist. Behringer describes it as "the preset-driven floor processor for singers who want flagship TC Helicon tone without programming anything," and positions it as "the entry into the VoiceLive family, ready to gig out of the box"¹.

What it does

The VoiceLive Play runs harmony, doubling, reverb, echo, hardtune, transducer and the Adaptive Tone engine in real time, with up to eight effect blocks active at once². In practical terms, that covers the main things a singing performer reaches for: pitch correction (hardtune), thickened or doubled vocals, and effects from reverb and echo through to the transducer block, which reshapes the voice for more radical sounds. Adaptive Tone is the automatic side of the design, adjusting tone settings as you sing.

Because the unit is preset-driven, the front-panel display walks you through every setting without buried menus, according to Behringer². For a player who has never programmed a vocal processor, that is the main selling point: pick a preset that suits the song and sing.

Inputs, outputs and power

Connection is straightforward for a gigging singer:

• Input: XLR in with phantom power, so a mic that needs phantom power can plug straight in¹
• Output: balanced XLR main out, for a clean feed to a PA or powered speaker¹
• MIDI: MIDI in, for control from external gear¹
• Power: a standard 12V supply, with the unit running on mains operation¹²

VoiceLive Play and the TC Helicon VoiceLive Play

Behringer's own product pages carry the VoiceLive Play under the Behringer name and describe it in the same terms as the TC Helicon VoiceLive Play: the same preset-driven floor processor promising flagship TC Helicon tone¹². For a player comparing listings, the two names refer to the same unit.

A separate model, the TC Helicon VoiceLive Play GTX, is a related but distinct vocal pedal. RockBoard's PedalPedia describes it as TC-Helicon's vocal pedal with "pro-level TC-Helicon effects and state-of-the-art harmony processing"³, and Guitar World's 2014 review video saw Paul Riario and Laura Clapp demo it among four new vocal pedals from TC-Helicon⁴. If you are shopping used or reading older reviews, check which of the two models a write-up covers.

The VoiceLive Play's looping places it among Looping Pedals, though its loop function is one feature of a vocal processor rather than the dedicated looping found in units like the TC Helicon Ditto Mic Looper, which is built around recording vocals alone²¹.

Questions