Prior TC-Helicon products, such as their VoiceModeler plug-in for PowerCore were a remarkable improvement in this area. The VoiceModeler can dramatically change a voice's timbre, but it's not designed to impact its pitch, beyond creating octave lower or higher voices.

And while VoiceModeler is still a great product for that purpose, Harmony4 goes beyond it to allow for harmonies to be created up to two octaves higher or lower or than the base voice-and for dialing in the tone of each of voice. Each voice has a knob on the Harmony4 GUI called Gender, which adjusts an icon above it, shifting the icon from a burly looking man to woman to a small child, as the timbre of the harmony vocal becomes thinner and higher. Additional adjustments on the GUI which impact vibrato and phrasing will further customize the timbre of the harmony vocal. Multiply that times four, and you can see how a unique sound for each harmony situation can be crafted.

While Harmony4 isn't going to put the Everly Brothers or Simon & Garfunkel out of business, it's absolutely terrific for someone recording alone who needs additional voices on a demo. Or if you've recorded a vocalist who's gone home, and you want to add additional harmonies at key points in a song (say at the chorus or refrain). Or decide at the mixing stage that a song could benefit from additional harmonies.

In times past, the ability to sing in pitch was absolutely critical for any vocalist. While it's still important, between the variety of vocal tuning plug-ins such as Antares' Auto-Tune, Celemony's Melodyne, Cakewalk Sonar's built-in V-Vocal plug-in and TC-Helicon's own Intonator, it's now possible to make a mediocre vocalist sound on-pitch. (Doing all your pitch correction before running the lead vocal through Harmonizer will make your life much easier, obviously). And an average vocalist sound much, much more passable. Purists will scoff, but as with previous advances in this area, smart home recordists will take immediate advantage of these new technologies.