TC-Helicon Play Acoustic vs. BOSS VE-8 vs. DigiTech Vocalist: the Detailed Breakdown and Review
Alright, so you’re here because you either watched the video where I compare the TC-Helicon Play Acoustic/BOSS VE-8/DigiTech Vocalist pedals and want more details about how these pedals compare to one another, you came across the video but don’t want to sit through minute after minute of me lecturing about each pedal, or you’re searching for resources that compare these pedals and missed the aforementioned video altogether. Regardless of how you got here, I hope you find the following helpful.
By the way, if you missed the video, you can view it here:
As a quick preface, I’ve been learning, playing with, and comparing these three pedals for the past month. This in-depth breakdown consists of my findings based off what it is that I’m looking for in a pedal. Now, this may be totally different from what you’re looking for in a pedal. As an acoustic guitar player and a singer, I’m looking for a pedal that delivers a rich vocal tone, full-bodied guitar tone, and flexible and reliable harmonies, all in a piece of hardware that’s well-built with an easy-to-use interface. If this aligns with what you’re looking for, perhaps my experience with these pedals will be of use to you.
And so we begin…
VOCAL TONE
In my opinion, the TC-Helicon Play Acoustic blows the others away here. It’s just really easy to get a great vocal tone. With the Play Acoustic, I found I was consistently able to get a rich, full vocal sound, regardless of the style of music I was playing. It’s also very easy to tweak your sound within the vocal fx menu. Beyond the staples like reverb and delay, there are some nice effects within the μMod section, like thickening and widening, that can sound nice when applied in moderation.
The DigiTech Vocalist is also pretty nice in this realm. The “Gold Channel” effect makes it really easy to fine tune your tone with effects like compression, ambience, and warmth. I didn’t find it as easy to get great vocal sounds right off the bat, as I did with the Play Acoustic, but I found, with a bit of playing, that I was able to get some solid sounds.
Likewise, you can also get a good vocal tone with the BOSS VE-8, but I found it to be far less flexible than the other pedals. You can easily throw on reverb, “enhance” (which seems to essentially be compression), and basic vocal correction, which aren’t a bad suite of tools, but if you want to go any further, you have to dig into the advanced settings, which is a huge hassle given the physical knobs and tiny little screen on the VE-8. It’s no where near as easy to tweak the overall tone as it is with the Play Acoustic and Vocalist. That being said, if the standard vocal tone of the VE-8 works for you, then there’s no need to worry about digging into advanced menus, just don’t expect to vary your sound much.
Now, you may have noticed that I didn’t mention any of the effects that do things like make it sound as if you’re singing through a radio or telephone. All of these pedals offer vocal effects in that realm; however, I find that these effects usually are more fun for the performers than the listeners… so I’ll leave it up to you to investigate the possibilities in this realm, if it interests you.
Winner: TC-Helicon Play Acoustic
GUITAR TONE
This is where I think the VE-8 really shines. The VE-8’s “acoustic resonance” can give you a really natural tone that you can also dial back if you want something a bit punchier. The VE-8 also has delay. Believe it or not, neither the Play Acoustic nor the Vocalist have delay for your guitar. If you want your guitar to sound more like it’s mic’d up rather than plugged in, the VE-8 is without a doubt going to be the closest you can get to this.
The Play Acoustic isn’t far behind in guitar tone though. BodyRez is pretty nice, especially when you turn on its advanced settings and start tweaking your EQ. As a result, you can get a pretty solid tone. It’s not going to sound as natural is the VE-8’s “acoustic resonance”, but, overall, you can get a decent tone with a bit of punch to it.
In contrast to the VE-8 and the Play Acoustic, the Vocalist falls of the rails here. The guitar tone with the Vocaslist is pretty rough, which is found surprising considering DigiTech makes a lot of guitar pedals. With this pedal, you only have control over reverb and chorus. Nothing else. As a result, if you want to use the Vocalist and still have a decent guitar tone, you’re going to have to pick up some additional pedals.
Winner: BOSS VE-8
VOCAL HARMONIES
I found the three pedals really varied here. If you’re looking for a pedal of this sort primarily for the harmonies, I highly recommend listening to tons of samples of these pedals in a style similar to what you’re going for. Some offer really punchy, bright harmonies. Others are a bit more subdued. Try to listen for what’s best for your style.
The Play Acoustic was definitely my favorite of the bunch in this realm. You have a lot of control over the harmonies, which I find very important. Not only is it easy to tweak the harmony intervals, but it’s easy to tweak the timbre of the harmonies and easy get the levels to blend nicely. I found that I would consistently get the harmonies I was looking for with the Play Acoustic, which wasn’t always the case with the other pedals. The harmonies with this pedal are also generally bright and, when playing with a stereo setup, spread well and wide in the mix.
The Vocalist also makes it easy to tweak the harmony intervals. They put harmony control right up front in the design of their pedal with dedicated harmony level, voice 1, voice 2, and key/scale knobs. They’re easy to access and easy to tweak. When playing around on various tunes, sometimes the harmonies would blow me away, yet other times I would be underwhelmed. As a result, I found it to be much more inconsistent than the Play Acoustic. “Live adapt” is pretty awesome though. Enable it, and you’ll find nice little accents to your harmonies, where certain notes will adapt or resolve. As long as the little accents it adds are notes that you’re going for, it can add a very nice touch to your harmonies.
The VE-8 also has harmonies that can sound beautiful and many circumstances, but I found them harder to dial in. Without getting into the advanced settings, your harmony interval options are a bit more limited. And if you want to dig in to the advanced settings, good luck. As mentioned before, it’s a bit of a pain to navigate these menus and I always find myself reaching for the manual to figure what random buttons I need to press for how long, and what the little text abbreviations on the screen actually mean. I also found that the harmonies sounded a bit more dull than the other pedals. However, if you’re looking for harmonies that are more subdued and less in-your-face than the other pedals, the VE-8 might be up your alley. There’s definitely something soothing about them.
Winner: TC-Helicon Play Acoustic
LOOPING
If you’re serious about looping, I’d recommend getting a more powerful pedal that focuses on looping. If you’re not, I think the Vocalist wins this category. The Vocalist has a decently long loop time with easy controls. The Play Acoustic loops extremely similar to the Vocalist; however, the amount of time you can loop for is shorter. The VE-8 would beat the others in this category if you didn’t have to hit the footswitch twice to stop looping. For me, this makes it unusable in a live setting.
Winner: DigiTech Vocalist
HARDWARE
The Play Acoustic and VE-8 are built to last. They both feel very solid.
The winner of this section really comes down to preferences. For me, it’s absolutely the Play Acoustic. It’s built very well and it’s also perfect for people who play live. I’ll dig into interface specifics below, but the light-up buttons make it very easy to see in dark environments. If you need to tweak anything, there’s no need to worry at all. In terms of inputs and outputs, it doesn’t offer a line out. For some people that will be a problem, for others it won’t. The foot switches on the Play Acoustic are also pretty nice. They seem to be the same as other TC-Helicon products. Pretty straightforward and responsive.
The VE-8 is built very well as well, and the physical knobs and buttons make it super easy to pick up and play, but I find them to be a bit impractical, especially when compared to the other pedals that have more robust digital interfaces. Of course, you can save your own presets to the memory, but adjust and tweaking these at a later time is a huge pain with the physical knobs. Additionally, if you play in a dark environment, none of the text on the pedal (apart from the little screen) is backlight, so you’ll need some light if you want to be able to read the little text next to each knob. I do love the foot switches though. They’re quieter and physically softer than many other foot switches. Perhaps they may not feel as responsive, but I’ve never had any issues thinking I hit a foot switch when I did not. Additionally, their size makes them easy to locate.
The Vocalist certainly does not feel as well-built as the others, but I haven’t experienced any wear-and-tear issues myself. It’s worth noting that, if you want to use headphones, you have to use the line out jack (which takes a 1/4” jack). I found the buttons on the pedal to be just alright. They light up, the text does not. The foot switches are okay as well. I had some issues thinking I had hit them when I had not. It wasn’t a big deal when just playing around, but it would be pretty devastating were that to happen in a live setting.
Winner: TC-Helicon Play Acoustic
INTERFACE
The Play Acoustic takes the cake here. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. I never found myself getting lost or finding myself unable to make the tweaks that I wanted to. It just all makes sense. The display is large and bright enough that you can easily read it in dark environments. Overall, you have a lot of control over everything within the interface as well. It’s really easy to tweak things like your mix. That may sound like a surprisingly basic thing to get excited about, but the other pedals are lacking in that realm. It also has some advanced settings that you probably need to consult the manual to first learn how to use, but, unlike the advanced configurations of the VE-8, once you learn how to do it once, you’re able to remember and access those settings easily.
The VE-8 interface is pretty awful. The screen can only display two characters at once, which means that your pedal will constantly be referring to abbreviations. This may not be an issue once you get used to the pedal and know what the abbreviations that are important to you mean, but, until then, you better get used to having the user’s manual nearby. No wonder they’re the only ones to ship a physical user’s manual in the box — you absolutely need it if you want to know what you’re doing.
The Vocalist is also lacking in the interface realm. The display is fine, but is there really no way to adjust your headphone volume vs the mix volume?! Someone please tell me if I’m missing something here… that just seems ridiculous. While, overall, everything here is pretty simple, I found this to be the least intuitive of the pedals from the start. But perhaps that’s because I expected to be able to do much more with this pedal and searched the interface for things that didn’t actually exist for this pedal…
Winner: TC-Helicon Play Acoustic
PRESETS
I prefer to build my vocal and guitar tones without presets. If you like presets, the Play Acoustic or the Vocalist are the way to go. At the risk of sounding crass, I haven’t much of an interest investigating the presets in these pedals further, so I’m not going to expand anymore here…
Winner: TC-Helicon Play Acoustic/DigiTech Vocalist
OVERALL
And the winner is…
In my opinion, the TC-Helicon Play Acoustic is, hands down, the best overall performer of these pedals. It’s hard to argue with a pedal that makes it easy to get a great tone no matter what you’re playing. The vocal tone is always full-bodied, the harmonies are reliable and flexible, and the guitar tone is rich and customizable. This pedal was always a delight to play with and is the only pedal I would feel comfortable using immediately in a live setting. This was also the only pedal that would occasionally have me verbalizing my excitement over some of the sounds I could get out of it… The only features I wish it had from the other pedals are the VE-8’s “acoustic resonance” and guitar delay, and the longer looping time offered by the other pedals. But with everything the Play Acoustic has to offer, it’s an easy #1 pick.
The BOSS VE-8 is also a wonderful pedal and, in my opinion, comes in second place of the three. In general, you can get some really great sounds out of it, and the physical knobs make it fun to pick up and play right out of the box. “Acoustic resonance” is awesome and, out of the three pedals, I think the VE-8 would satisfy guitar purists the most. It’s weaker when it comes to vocal flexibility though, and the physical buttons and knobs make it a huge pain when it comes to tweaking advanced settings or previous presets. Despite these downfalls, the VE-8 remains an overall solid pedal.
And finally, in third, we have the DigiTech Vocalist. I think this is a good pedal overall, but I found that it just can’t really compare to the Play Acoustic or VE-8. There’s nothing that sets it apart. While you can get a good vocal tone and harmonies out of the pedal, the guitar tone customization is atrocious. If you want a decent guitar tone, you’ll have to use this pedal in conjunction with other guitar pedals. For me, that’s a huge drawback. In many ways, these pedals try to be one-stop-shops for vocal and guitar tone. If that’s what DigiTech was going for as well, the Vocalist is really lacking. While the pedal is still fun to play with, it just doesn’t hold up to the Play Acoustic or VE-8.
So there you have it… Three pedals, all in a similar price range, all catering to acoustic guitar-playing singers. Hopefully this breakdown was helpful in considering which of these pedals suits your own needs. Of course, if you’re in the market for one of these pedals, you be the judge. Consider the criteria that’s important to you, listen to other demos, and, if you can, try these pedals out for yourself.
In the case that you skipped down here and just want to see the overall rankings…
1. TC-Helicon Play Acoustic
2. BOSS VE-8
3. DigiTech Vocalist
