Hi there

I'm a fan of Tune-Yards / Merril Garbus.
I like her as a composer, as a singer and performer, and I like her lo-fi sound. Actually, I even prefer her first album to the better recorded stuff that followed (but everything is great and original).

I'd like to know if someone here could identify what kind of overdrive/saturation she's using for her vocals on stage.
I'd like to add saturation to the vocal fx rig of my singer. For the moment we use a full ITB rig (with an audio interface, Ableton Live and some plugins) but because of the latency (and the fact the dry signal is routed directly to the console, so it's not affected by latency) we can't use some FX that need perfect phase correlation between dry and wet signals - saturation being one of them (no problem with reverb, delay and stuff like that of course).

In this video, it's possible to see her FX rig, but it's difficult for me to identify all the pedals, and identify what is used on vocals and what is used on ukulele (or drums ?).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGXDcI6T7Jg
I'm sure she uses a boss overdrive pedal, like SD-1 or OD-3, but as I'm not a guitarist and don't know well the sound of these pedals, I don't know which one. I even don't know if she uses that on voice or on ukulele. I can't identify the rest of the rig.

If any of you could help me, it could be great...

Of course, if anybody could recommend a cheap pedal for vocal saturation on stage, please feel free...

Before the subject is raised, I must say the impedance will not be a problem in my case, because the vocals will go through a preamp with a 600ohm line level output (and then in a pedal).

nobody ?

Any insight regarding using such pedals on vocals ?

The nicest distortion on vocals I have ever experienced was Algiers in January 2019.

Franklin's chain was
SM58 --> impedance transformer (https://livewire-usa.com/ssqxfhz/) -> Boss DD-3 delay --> Fulltone Secret Freq

Sounded really nice and "expensive".

As for Tuneyeards, I remember waiting through her show to see Dirty Projectors in 2009 ,)

Merril pedalboard:

2x Boss RC-1 Loop station (small red)
1x Boss TU-2 Tuner (white, no knobs)
1x Boss SD-1 or OD-3 OverDrive (yellow)
1x Boss DD-3 Digital Delay (white)
1x Boss CS-3 Compression sustainer (blue)
1x Boss RE-20 Space Echo (big green)
1x MXR A/B Box (grey, big, next to RE-20)
1x Digitech Whammy (red, big)
1x hard to say which small yellow pedal with two white knobs

Bass pedalboard(?):

EHX MEL9
FAB DRIVE???
TCElectronic tuner
MXR Bass overdrive
MXR Bass envelope filter
EHX Micro POG

Hope this helps.

Wow !
Thanks a lot for the detailed list.
I'll investigate the Fulltone pedal...

Viewing again the video, I'm not sure her saturation is coming from the pedals : the microphone cables are going out somewhere else before coming back to the pedalboard, and it may be a post-production FX.
Actually, I never heard such an obvious saturation on her voice in a (video) live gig, so it may be post-prod.

Lucky you that you saw her with Dirty projectors in 2009 !!!

Another question : do you think the singer of Algiers was using the pedal as an aux, blended with his dry voice in some way, or as an insert ?
I may think the first option should be easier to manage, but who knows...

He had two mics -- main for clean vocals, another for delay + distortion only.

Thanks for the info.

Interesting.
I'm curious if the delay in this case could help avoiding the feedback, if used with short timing on the whole signal (as a kind of chorus filtering the distorted vocals)...
Or if it was simply used as a "normal" delay mixed with the whole signal and then distorted with the whole signal...

But anyway, great infos. Thanks a lot.

I would listen to decide. From my experience, having effected vocals never reduces feedback, especially on a smaller stage. Anyway, on that show it was used sparingly and sounded really great. If you are curious, I could dig up a board recording of the concert. After it I even went out to buy that Fulltone Secret Freq -- a really nice Tube Screamer clone with cool add-on features.

This.