TC-Helicon VoiceLive 3 Extreme

I have been using VL3X for 1.5 years. I've played around 300 short (30 minutes) repetitions, about 75 long (3 hours) concerts with the VL3X and am satisfied. In my opinion, this is a unique and very useful device, that has no analogues in the world. I am an underground garage rock artist, vocalist and guitarist. The drummer plays with me. Most of our concerts are in small pubs, where 50 viewers are big deal.
And we use the VL3X backing track player to play bass guitar track. Very good internal memory - fits a lot of backing track's. I don't know, how much will fit backing track in this device, but I've already uploaded around 100 wav files. This is important, because I use backing track a lot - different in different concerts.
I write a review after reading the negative reviews. Some say, that VL3X are bad guitar amps. But this is not true. A clean brit, 4/12 crunch, scooped amp and tc dark matter overdrive - sounds good to me. There are many parameters that can all be fine-tuned, adjust as needed.
Automation is a great thing. I use it for guitar effects. When you switch from guitar rhythm to solo during a song, I write down the effect change in backing track automation. Very comfortable. No need to bother with effect alternation. You can focus on performance and communication with viewers.
In "do it yourself" underground rock festivals with minimal hardware, we use VL3X to process the lead vocals. Great for all punk rock and modern metal bands.
Some people complained about the VL3X failing fast. But it works for me, despite the fact that one night after the concert with the VL3X I fell on the asphalt. :) And nothing happened.
If there is any doubt about the operation of the device - then I just reboot the device.
Commentators curse VL3X factory presets. I don't use them, it's just a demo. But overall I use a lot of the vocal effects in VL3X, they are all useful. They need to be fine-tuned. Work with the VL3X will be a good task for the advanced audio engineer as well. And for us - rock'n'roll losers - it will take a long time. Combining effects, the VL3X is best for listening with headphones!
It should be understood, that once you buy a VL3X, you will not run with it on stage or repetition the same day - it will take at least a month to study, tune, adjust to your needs and your productions.

This pedal has so much potential, the vocal section is great. The room-sense feature is amazing. The looper is okay... but from the guitarist perspective, there are a some serious deal-breakers.

With all the connection possibilities provided on the back-panel interface, the looper playback can't be separated from live guitar (with effects).

After the guitar signal enters the pedal, it has to exit either via:
1) the "guitar through" or
2) the main output -- (XLR)
and/or
3) the guitar outputs (tele jack)

As expected, the guitar-through jack offers a clean signal. If you connect to your amp using this jack, no loops or effects will come through.

However, all recorded loops and guitar+effects will exit through the main outputs and/or the guitar outputs. If you do not connected anything to the guitar output, then everything (vocals, effects, loops and live playing) will exit through the main outputs. If you connect the guitar output, then guitar+effects and all loops will exit exclusively through these, while the vocals will exit via the main outputs. Loops cannot be separated from your live-guitar (with effects) output. This means your loops and backing tracks etc will play through your guitar amp and/or the PA system.

Any serious guitarist who has invested in a signature sound will want to use their amp exclusive for their guitar. The amp is, after all, part of their instrument. It's bad enough to share your guitar signal with the looper (and potentially live vocals), but if you use this pedal to record a clean loop and decide to turn on the amp distortion for a solo, the loop will then distort along with it.

(If you connect your amp to the guitar-through jack, then you can't use any of the built-in guitar effects. Even a two-channel amp will not help, unless you can separate the looper from the guitar+effects signal.)

Since your only option of not sending loops and vocals into your amp is to route the guitar signal through the guitar-through jack, this means that the built-in guitar effects will not help you save any space on your pedal board.

As for the guitar section, the compressor and reverb are great, the delay and chorus are basic, but the other effects leave a lot to be desired. The auto-wah is unpleasant. The amp simulations are far from realistic. There is far, far more to amp simulation than the fancy pre/post EQ system touted as the nut and bolts of it all. The one place where they could really have used such an advanced pre- and post-EQ is the overdrive, but no such option is provided. You get only one uncustomizable overdrive sound per preset over something that doesn't sound or behave anything like an amp. A rhythm sound usually needs entirely different tones from the solo, but this is not provided for.

If the deficient routing system isn't hardwired, hopefully, TC Helicon will see the light and create separate routing for loops vs live playing through a software update.

Such a brilliant piece of equipment, I have no words. It seems as though the days of blunt, lifeless live vocal sound are gone. This thing is an all in one package, the possibilities of working with it are imense, and it can be used in really a lot of scenarios, but the Extreme version of the voicelive 3 comes with a great priviledge of making it easy along with making it sound great.

First of all the tone function is so great; the compression, de-essing, eq, and other things that they won't even reveal what they put in this thing, it ''produces'' your vocals in a way that for me was never attainable live. And it kills feedback really effectively, but you'll have to learn how to setup this thing as it's a really complex system, it works great out of the box though, so don't fear. ;) I'm just saying that you can really get even a lot more out of it if you spend time studying it, as for me, I have it for a couple of months, and I'm still finding out new stuff that constantly amazes me.

I completely love the backing track & effects automation possibility, I've actually setup a preset for every song, with the song name in the title, I've assigned one button (in the button mapping section) to ''Play track'' and after that I don't have to worry about anything, the mixing levels, adding of harmonies, megaphone effects, doubles, delays, anything, after I programmed it, it just turns on on it's own, and I'm left in peace to completely devote myself to the performance. This thing actually feels so seamless to integrate into the band, and gives you great artistic freedom, while not affecting or burdening your performance. And the quality and what it adds to your sound live is unprecedented! :)

The best ''music gadgets'' I ever bought!! :D

P.S. I don't even need to speak about how good and correct it makes the harmonies, but be sure to tinker with it, and learn how it works, as you can really get brilliant results with some ''playing with the buttons'' ;)

I've been gigging with this pedal for 6 months now, and learned every single feature in it. I'm giving it 2 stars ONLY BECAUSE it actually does work well as a backing track player. If you're thinking of using this with backing tracks, then you'll love it. Connect straight to the PA system, use in-ears, no need for a mixer or guitar amp. Probably in a restaurant, busking, or small pub where you're not fussed about guitar sound too much. For my solo work gigs, it's brilliant.

But for everything else (playing with a band, recording etc.) Its completely useless. Here's why:

-The amp simulators are terrible: Trust me, I don't ask for much, just a semi-clean amp tone that sounds halfway real. But there are none. These amp sims will take away all the joy of playing your nice guitar.

-Can't use your own amp: yes you can plug it in and bypass the amp simulators... but you have one type of drive to choose from. It's called...drive. That's it. So as bad as the amp sims are, you're much better off using them than plugging into your amp, because at least you have SOME variety there. And don't think about using pedals in the guitar chain before it either. Tc Helicon basically guarantee that it wont be able to recognise the chords for vocal harmonies if you do.

-Harmonies are unusable: I wont blame then for the harmonies sounding super fake - it's the nature of digital harmonies, but it has to be mentioned. However it's the note choices that will ruin it. The harmonizer will hit wrong notes that are completely out of scale ALL THE TIME. I wouldn't risk using it for a real show.

Presets are ALL unsusable: There's not single preset out of 400+ that is usable out of the box. They seem to all be designed to make you sound like a dragon or chipmunk or with 7 harmonies right in your face. Nothing that's a decent guitar tone and subtle harmony. So you'll have to make your own from the start. I eventually just deleted all of the presets.

I've mentioned my biggest issues but there are many more small ones that I wont get into (mini Jack monitor output instead of xlr, backing tracks freeze 90% of the time while storing onto the pedal, fake sounding reverb and fx, the list goes on)

If you're gonna use this for backing tracks in solo gigs, it be great. Otherwise this is an amateur pedal. Avoid it if you play any serious shows at all.

This unit does everything I need. While electric guitarists will almost certainly want a valve amp to get convincing tones, as a primarily acoustic player who uses live loops, the design of the interface and practical thinking are excellent. BUT...

I bought my first VL3X unit in 2015. It has since been back to Germany for warranty repair twice after the screen and switches froze mid-performance (I couldn't even stop the song I was playing - I had to mute the mixer and turn the pedal off at the plug). This same unit last week failed again with the same symptoms. I bought an identical backup unit here in Dubai last year for just this eventuality (and for while I was without my first pedal while it was being repaired). That backup was replaced after 4 months' use under warranty by the supplier here. So I'm on my third VoiceLive 3 in three years!

There's a clearly a massive factory fault that has not been resolved, and I know 4 pro musicians here in Dubai who have suffered the same experience with the VL3X. Why TC Helicon have not had the decency to recall the unit is beyond belief.

I love the features but this is in no way a reliable pedal for professional use. Actually, not even for amateurs.

This product has one of the most cumbersome interface to operate, unintuitive, sounds are horrible, overal a huge disappointment. I can understand it may work for some (setting a few scenes and thats it), - however - whoever designed it really did not consider the practicality of the unit whatsoever. Perhaps my expectations were too high, nevertheless I have returned the unit, as it is really not my cup of thee. I find the youtube reviews further misleading. I own other TC helicon products (so nothing against the company), but this one I find outdated and lacking the sound quality but mostly, it requires rocket scientist to operate.

My unit arrived defective and got replaced with another unit with exactly the same problem. Which is probably a ground loop problem and it's affecting the guitar side, meaning every time you plug your guitar, the machine produces a loud noise/hum that makes it totally unusable.

Now this can't be just my bad luck and with a little research on the net I have realised this product has some manufacturing problem which has never been solved and there are loads of people complaining about it. I even contacted the TC Helicon but they weren't very reassuring.

So... in short:
VOCAL FX: Wonderful
GUITAR FX: Good effects, poor amp simulations
LOOPER: Haven't had time to try that
MANIFACTURING: from my experience, very poor
Also, I think the pedal is very well organised and makes your life easier in many ways.

I am sorry to let it go but if I'm going to spend so much money and rely on a unit for vocal effects, guitar effects, backing tracks so basically my entire live show, it has to be reliable. And this is not!

I've had this up and running for a while now and don't feel like I've even started to scratch the surface of the features available.

The guitar effects are great, and if it was your only pedal you would still have a pretty comprehensive range of sound available to you - they all seem good quality and great sounding with a huge range of presets.

The voice effects are also great, and range from subtle vocal enhancements to ridiculously fun stuff that I hope you would never use in a performance ;)

In combination is where this pedal really shines though, the impressive looper, the guitar sound analysis to create in tune vocal harmonies is just amazing!

Be prepared to invest some time in this though, lots of youtube tutorials are available, and loads of online resources... ultimately your just going to sit there for hours playing with the presets and making some strange sounds and not get anything done! Such fun though!