Review: Mu Technologies Mu Voice 1.2 (Mac/Win)

Sep 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By David E. Weiss

A GREAT-SOUNDING PLUG-IN FOR INSTANT HARMONY

In a useful touch, a preset can shift the pitch by as much as 12 semitones up or down. That lets you use Mu Voice to create counterpoint; however, it requires a lot of mental gymnastics. Mu Voice doesn't visually represent the separate voices in a piano-roll-style editor as does Vielklang or Celemony Melodyne. Both Vielklang and Melodyne require a separate process of analysis prior to creating harmonies, whereas Mu Voice operates in real time.

Because Mu Voice does its work very quickly, analyzing the source melody and producing harmonies with a latency of as little as 5.8 ms, it is well suited for live performances. Onstage, a MIDI keyboard opens up highly expressive possibilities. By pressing a key, you can call up any preset, jump to any spot in the Chord Scheme, and make your virtual backup singers change key (see Fig. 2).

Playing for Effect

Mu Voice comes with two effects offering a limited number of settings. (The company says more control will be added in future versions.) Filter lets you dial up nine different filter types: highpass and lowpass, which attenuate the frequencies above and below 4,000 Hz with a 6 dB slope; a telephone-line effect, which filters frequencies between 400 and 4,000 Hz (see Web Clips 5, 6, and 7); and comb and inverse-comb at multiples of 300, 600, and 1,200 Hz. The combs are most interesting — imagine waves rolling through an EQ, affecting groups of frequencies.

Harmonic EQ is based on Mu Voice's core algorithm. It lets you control the amplitude of the individual harmonics of a given sound rather than changing the amplitude of a fixed frequency range. For instance, it might alter the tenth harmonic of a given note, no matter what that note is. Harmonic EQ settings follow the melody. (Compare Web Clips 8 and 1. You'll notice that in the Harmonic EQ version [Web Clip 8], it sounds as if the voice were singing from inside a bottle.)

Though its deeper features could use refining, Mu Voice offers immediately gratifying, great-sounding harmonies, and it performs exceptionally well in real time. It is a welcome new addition to the pantheon of harmonization software, and it can only get better as it evolves.

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David E. Weiss is a songwriter, musician, and self-producer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

harmony-generating software $279

PROS: Easy setup. Excellent sound quality. Powerful interface for automating presets and chords. Easy to manipulate with a MIDI keyboard. XML-based settings for compatibility.

CONS: Limited effects. Contrapuntal arrangements difficult to orchestrate.

FEATURES	1	2	3	4	5
EASE OF USE	1	2	3	4	5
AUDIO QUALITY	1	2	3	4	5
VALUE	1	2	3	4	5

Mu Technologies
mu-technologies.com

ONLINE LINK

EM's review of Antares Harmony Engine and Zplane.Development Vielklang from the April issue
emusician.com/dsp/antares_zplane/index.html