Harmony Lead Pedals???

[Geetarguy]

I need a pedal to accompany myself on leads (harmony leads) and need to do this live. Any suggestions for pedals that do this???? I know of the BOSS PS-5 and the Digitech Harmony Man.....any thoughts on those??? Any other pedals that I dont know of????
thanks

[soloben347]

I would say go for the BOSS its a good harmonizing pedal ive had two of them... as for the digitech id say steer clear im not to happy with digitechs just my opinion

[VictorLazarus]

I had a Digitech Whammy 4 which had harmony stuff on it; I'd say almost everything on the pedal sounded pretty bad - same with most other digitech pedals I've tried - Boss however sounds alot warmer and is defo worth the extra £10 ish.

MVL.

[xsouldriverx]

i loved the whammy when i was using it but it was a very niche pedal. i would not use it to accompany myself on leads. i would use it if your leads need some pterodactyl squawks.

[FireLine]

First of all the Whammy is not an intelligent harmonizer. You need to move the treadle forward and back to change the interval. The PS5 and the HarmonyMan figure out the interval for you based on the note you play and the scale you are in. This is MUCH easier to use than having to figure out the correct interval manually for each note you play.

Next, the HarmonyMan is based on completely different technology than the Whammy. Play the two side by side and you will see for yourself. The HarmonyMan sounds rich and warm with hardly any latency, whereas the Whammy sounds harsh and digital to my ear. The HarmonyMan is really a step forward in pitch shifting technology (check out the vid

YouTube - DigiTech HarmonyMan - First Impressions!

if you don't believe me, or go try one out). I really love mine.

As far as the PS-5 vs HarmonyMan goes, it is a bit of a trade-off and it depends what you are looking for. The HarmonyMan shifting (i.e the tone and smoothness of the harmony guitar sounds) is miles ahead of the PS-5, but the PS-5 offers a few features that the HarmonyMan doesn't (e.g. expression control for a whammy function and flutter). Also, the HarmonyMan is more expensive than the PS5 and is in a double stomp form factor as compared to the single stomp PS5 form factor. However the HarmonyMan has presets which are great for changing your sound mid song, 2 voices of harmony (as compared to 1 on the PS5), can automatically figure out what key you are playing in and harmonize accordingly (loads of fun for noodling around). Also, the stereo detune on the HarmonyMan rocks!

I owned a PS5 for years, but just recently sold it and bought the HarmonyMan. I am very happy with it but you will need to weigh the pros and cons yourself based on what sound you are looking for.