# Octave pedals: Opinions?



## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Thinking about jumping in and getting an octavia type pedal -- wondering what experience there is here with them. 
Didn't like the Fulltone octave fuzz thing or the Voodoo Labs Proctological Mishap.
The FoxRox Octron looks good, and it does octave down as well (which might be useful), without fuzz so I can pair it with my nice 69 and 200lbs fuzzes (and the D*A*M when he's built the thing...). It's a bit big though.
The clips I've heard online of the Catalinbread Ottava Magus sound good, it's not expensive, and it's tiny. Only octave up...

What else?


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## adamthemute (Jun 18, 2007)

The EHX MicroPOG has very good tracking I think. That's the one I would go for...but I'm saving for a HOG for some reason.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Okay, let's clear this up at the start.

In the analog domain, there are essentially two major types of octaving effects: those that produce octave up and those that produce octave down. When tones *below* the original are to be produced, if the pedal is analog, you can only produce ONE note at a time. Pedals like the POG are essentially dedicated digital pitch shifters that reproduce whatever you feed them at a designated pitch above or below the original. The POG is simply optimized for, or rather planned around straightforward control of, octaves. There ARE some pedals (e.g., Pearl used to make one and there have been several others on the market.) that package octave-up and octave down in the same unit, treating the signal in two different ways to produce the combined result, but these tend to be few and far between. Most analog "octaving" pedals either take the upward route or the downward, but not both.

The reason why analog octave-down pedals can only handle one note at a time is because they virtually all use what is referred to as a "flip-flop" chip (or discrete equivalent) to divide the incoming signal by 2 or 4 to produce one or two octave s below. ALL these circuits produce a square wave to start with, and the degree of fuzziness of what is produced is a function of any subsequent built-in filtering of that square, or alternatively using that square wave to modulate the original signal in a way that highly emphasize the octave down. Whatever is done with the divided signal, you can only divide down a single note at a time, so analog octave down units are always MONO, as opposed to polyphonic beasts like the POG.

When it comes to octave up, they almost all use a process referred to as full-wave rectification. That means that one half-cycle of the input signal is essentially "folded over", such that what would have normally looked like a dip on an oscilloscope is now a peak. Of course, since the "dips" in the waveform occur in between the peaks, flipping them over means you have twice as many peaks as you started out with. Voila! An octave up.

Because this process does not have to *detect* anything, but simply doubles whatever it takes in, producing the octave effect does not require you to play one note at a time (mono). That does not mean that the octaves produced will be sweet, but it does mean that the circuit won't go crazy on you. Playing two notes into something like a Blue Box will result in sonic chaos (mistracking), whereas playing two notes into an octave-up fuzz will produce a bit of dissonance but it WILL be coherent. (though see below****)

Which brings us to the next item...

It is near impossible to achieve an octave-up effect in the analog mode that is NOT fuzzy. This happens for two reasons. First, the rectification process WILL corrupt the signal so that it will not and can not sound "clean". Perhaps there are alternate ways to accomplish it that, with the help of a bigger more complex circuit, can do that, but I have not seen it yet. You can get somewhat cleaner, but not the cleanliness that would come with a digital pitch shifter. The second reason is that people want a pronounced octave up, and to do that the signal has to be pumped/boosted so as to appear to sustain longer. This will almost always result in the presence of a clipping aspect to any octave-generating pedals. So, distortion is hard to get around, and it seems to be inherent to what people want.

Another curious thing about octave-up units. Because of the mathematics involved in how the octave-up is produced, when you bend a note, you can often produce what are called "sideband products"; the sum and difference of two frequencies. This can often result in octave fuzzes producing sounds very much like ring modulators (which are explicitly designed to produce such outcomes). Indeed, some octave fuzzes, are so susceptible to this side-effect that they are even named for it: like the Dan Armstrong Green Ringer.

There are different ways of producing the "folding-over", and to some extent these are responsible for different sonic qualities in octave-up units. Some use transformers, some use what are called "phase-splitters". Though these various methods yield different tones, a big part of the outcome is the manner in which the signal is prepared or tone-shaped prior to the octave-production.

My favourite is the Foxx Tone Machine whihc produces a nice strong octave up. Note that the Danelectro French Toast pedal IS a clone of the Tone Machine. The Foxrox Octron samples indicate it to be a very nice pedal as well. The internal tailoring controls suggest to me that one can custom design the quality of octave generation to suit the guitar used, which is a very nice feature.

(**** There are several pedals, most notably the old Boss Distortion Feedbacker DF-2, and the more recent Dr Distorto from Line 6, that aim to simulate feedback by having an overtone appear after you hold the note for a bit. By their very design, these aim to generate an octave up by detecting the pitch of the note being held. Though a difference underlying process is used, at a user-level, these pedals behave much like octave-down units, in that they only behave in response to single notes, rather than 2 or more notes. I can confirm this because I have one of each.)


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Yes, not interested in digital - I use to have a Boss digi pitch shifter and it sounds really tinny and artificial. I'm sure the POG is better, but still not my thing.
I was curious as to how the Octron works, because from the sound clips at least it does produce fairly clean analogue octave up and down (one at a time). Anyone have one? 
The clips of the catalinbread sure sound good for that Machine Gun/Band of Gypsies oct up thing, and it's tiny. 

I used ot have an old Boss OC-2 one or to octave down. Tracking wasn't great, but I used it a lot (playing bass -- to fill out the sound on upper regster stuff with a real textural guitarist).

MXR BlueBox is a funky old pedal too.

I know there are lots of boutiquey octavia clones -- anyone tried the expensive Chicago Ion? 
I'll have to have a look at the Foxx Tone Machine...thanks (are the reissues any good?)
Am I fooling myself that the Octron is the way to go because of versatility?
Who else is using these kinds of pedals?


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## SinCron (Mar 2, 2006)

I believe the H.O.G is fully analog and you can strum as many notes as you like without worry of the sound going wonky. Yes it's about $500 but it's the best thing I've heard in its field. Digital stuff like what's on the ME-50, GT-8 and POD XT will go wonky if you strum more than one string.


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## NB_Terry (Feb 2, 2006)

I've had the Danelectro Chili Dog & the Boss OC-2 and I sold both in favour of the Octron. 

The Octron is one of my top 5 pedals of all time. Put a fuzz or OD pedal after it, and the lower octave sounds huge for single note riffs. 

The Danelectro French Toast is also a must have IMO. Regardless of it's low price it's one of the best fuzz pedals I've used.


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

Wow mhammer, like each time you post here is a mine full of informations! Are you in the effects business or just really passionate about it all? You know too much for me on FX pedals!  Thanks for sharing all that. By the way, I'm hunting right know for an octron everything I heard about it, it's great comments! Hope I will find one really soon!


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## mario (Feb 18, 2006)

I have a Octron and it is one of my favourite pedals' of all time. Sounds great clean or distorted. I love the way you can blend in the upper and lower octaves with the direct signal from the guitar. There are some great sound and video clips on the Foxrox site. I highly recommend it:food-smiley-004:.


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## Guest (Apr 27, 2008)

SinCron said:


> I believe the H.O.G is fully analog and you can strum as many notes as you like without worry of the sound going wonky.


It is digital. But it's digital done right and done well. That's why it's $500.


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## iggs (Apr 6, 2006)

mario said:


> I have a Octron and it is one of my favourite pedals' of all time. Sounds great clean or distorted. I love the way you can blend in the upper and lower octaves with the direct signal from the guitar. There are some great sound and video clips on the Foxrox site. I highly recommend it:food-smiley-004:.


+1000 

I love my Octron ... Really well designed and made, sounds awesome. Got it more out of curiosity and now it's a permanent fixture on my board.

Scott at www.axeandyoushallreceive.com should have them in stock.

:rockon2:


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

iaresee said:


> It is digital. But it's digital done right and done well. That's why it's $500.


Exactly HOW digital? The principal chip has in excess of 200 pins. There ARE some analog aspects involved in conditioning the input and output signal, but from the point where the signal hits the CODEC chip, its all digital. And note that the POG and HOG use the identical DSP chip. Much like those old Casio and Yamaha keyboards where another $20 would buy you a few more features, EHX uses the same general circuitry and simply taps more or fewer features from it.



> Wow mhammer, like each time you post here is a mine full of informations! Are you in the effects business or just really passionate about it all? You know too much for me on FX pedals!  Thanks for sharing all that.


You are most welcome. It's my pleasure to shed a little light. Never have been in the effects business (your tax dollars pay for me NOT to be:smilie_flagge17, but I have followed it closely for over 35 years, and learned a few things along the way. I'm also proud to have a number of acquaintances who ARE in the effects business, and who have been very generous with their knowledge over the years.


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## Guest (Apr 28, 2008)

mhammer said:


> Exactly HOW digital? The principal chip has in excess of 200 pins. There ARE some analog aspects involved in conditioning the input and output signal, but from the point where the signal hits the CODEC chip, its all digital. And note that the POG and HOG use the identical DSP chip. Much like those old Casio and Yamaha keyboards where another $20 would buy you a few more features, EHX uses the same general circuitry and simply taps more or fewer features from it.


I'm not sure what you mean by "HOW digital?" I'm sure they do some signal conditioning in analog and I don't know if the original signal + effected signal is mixed in the analog or digital domain, but the effected signal is produced entirely in the digital domain. My "done right" comment refers to EHX purposing the DSP for a single application. Rather than work in all kinds of modulation and delay and cab sims and whizz bang stuff they fixated on what the HOG and POG should do and stuck to it. That's the right way to do digital and the outcome is generally fantastic. Look at Lexicon and their dedicate reverb units. $2k buys you a single purpose unit: surround sound, convolving reverb algorithms done in hardware that'll blow your mind. Digital, done right. :smile:

There's a bad rap for digital among guitar players. Digital works well if you're not cutting corners trying to make a box that hits a low price point and does way more than it should. We're starting to see it in the TC Electronic Nova pedals and G-System lineup, in the Eventide stomps, the forthcoming Super Delay and the EHX HOG/POG lineup. You can make digital sound smooth and delicious if you don't push the DSPs or get caught up in feature creep. I think feature creep is a really easy thing to succumb to when designing in digital because it's really easy to keep adding features when you're working in an IDE and not on a PCB board. You're limited by the size of your EEPROM (which can get ridiculously large these days) and not the physical space in your box.

Anyhow, devnulljp, I think this comment:


> Yes, not interested in digital - I use to have a Boss digi pitch shifter and it sounds really tinny and artificial. I'm sure the POG is better, but still not my thing.


Means more and more you're going to be missing out on some cool things. To write off digital because of a poorly implemented Boss pedal is a pity. There's good digital out there. The HOG and POG (and micro POG) are among them.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

iaresee said:


> There's a bad rap for digital among guitar players. Digital works well if you're not cutting corners trying to make a box that hits a low price point and does way more than it should.


Agree about the bad rap for sure. I'm also jaded by the first big sweep of digital everything that resulted in the 80s.
WRT octavers specifically, I did play through a bunch of pretty high end digital harmonizers over the years, but really eventually went off the whole sound of 'em. 


iaresee said:


> Anyhow, devnulljp, I think this comment:
> Means more and more you're going to be missing out on some cool things. To write off digital because of a poorly implemented Boss pedal is a pity. There's good digital out there. The HOG and POG (and micro POG) are among them.


Funny, I do have an old Boss digital delay that I actually kinda like...it's not very hi-fi (I think it's only 12 bit), which is probably why I like it... 
I have been looking at that new Empress delay with avarice...but I do prefer lower tech in music.

Excellent post thanks

So, back on track. Seems a few of you have used/are using the Octron. There's a vote fr the Foxx and the cheapie Danelectro clone...anyone else?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

We're deviating a bit from the original thread theme, but I would agree wholeheartedly with Ian (iaresee). Too many folks have their impression of "digital FX" formed on the basis of $70 Zoom pedals and such that attempt to do everything and more. Such units, whether they are small floor pedals or much larger rack units from the 80's, are akin to the difference between a multifunction PC and a game platform like an Xbox. The processors in a game machine are generally not much faster, and often slower, than those found on a PC, yet the game machine often outperforms the PC, even though it might take a video card costing more than the game machine itself to achieve even a reasonable approximation of game-machine performance on a PC. Why is that? Because the PC is tryng to do too many things at once, all of which take up processor overhead. Same thing with the multi-fx units. Since all the various things it is attempting to do simultaneously require DSP overhead, it cannot do all those things terribly well. First generation rack multi-FX and current generation "floor-model Casiotone" multi-FX are like PCs trying to accomplish too much on too low a processing budget, and they tend to disappoint.

Stand-alone effects where a single DSP does one thing, and only one thing, perform extremely well. That being said, I think there is every reason in the world to still prefer producing distortion the old fashioned way, even though just about everything else can be done extremely well in the digital domain. There is an organic quality to analog distortion that responds well to nuance of picking, internote interval and such, that has been difficult to capture in digital form. Even if one could, it is so much easier to change your picking than to change the programming.


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## Guest (Apr 28, 2008)

mhammer said:


> We're deviating a bit from the original thread theme, but I would agree wholeheartedly with Ian (iaresee).


I love tangents. :smile:


> Too many folks have their impression of "digital FX" formed on the basis of $70 Zoom pedals and such that attempt to do everything and more. Such units, whether they are small floor pedals or much larger rack units from the 80's, are akin to the difference between a multifunction PC and a game platform like an Xbox. The processors in a game machine are generally not much faster, and often slower, than those found on a PC, yet the game machine often outperforms the PC, even though it might take a video card costing more than the game machine itself to achieve even a reasonable approximation of game-machine performance on a PC. Why is that? Because the PC is tryng to do too many things at once, all of which take up processor overhead. Same thing with the multi-fx units. Since all the various things it is attempting to do simultaneously require DSP overhead, it cannot do all those things terribly well. First generation rack multi-FX and current generation "floor-model Casiotone" multi-FX are like PCs trying to accomplish too much on too low a processing budget, and they tend to disappoint.


An interesting anecdote to this discussion: I owned one of the early generation DigiTech multi-fx floor units, the RP2000, and they were releasing updates to the operating system and algorithm via EPROMs you had to get from DigiTech. I was on the line with a tech ordering the upgrade and I asked him if it helped with the grainy chorus problem I was having: if I used an amp model and added chorus the chorus was really grainy sounding. But if I used the chorus alone it was quite lush and nice. He said no and then went on to explain that stacking algorithms, especially compute-intensive algorithms like amp simulation, caused a lot of the easier algorithms (like chorus) to be done in a reduced bit-width space (essentially the did the chorus processing using 16-bit samples instead of 24-bit samples). Interesting. I can only suspect that the dithering down to 16-bits and then interpolating back up to 24-bits before converting back to analog was what was introducing the grainy quality to the sound. It's this kind of stuff that doesn't show up in the "our whizz-bang unit uses 24-bit A/D processing" type marketing material. At the same point in time people like Lexicon were getting around this type of dithering compromises by using 2 DSPs in their units. The MPX G2 used a DSP just for Lexicon-quality reverbs, and the other for the rest of the effects (and an analog section for the overdrives). Man that was a great unit and IIRC *everything* was internally at 24-bits. No dithering when you stacked effects (but they had a pretty low limit of 8 effects you could stack). A/D|D/A was 16-bit. Still: sounded killer. I had a chance to buy one with the RPX foot controller back in 2002 and I passed on it and went with a GT-6 instead. Stupid move.



> Stand-alone effects where a single DSP does one thing, and only one thing, perform extremely well. That being said, I think there is every reason in the world to still prefer producing distortion the old fashioned way, even though just about everything else can be done extremely well in the digital domain. There is an organic quality to analog distortion that responds well to nuance of picking, internote interval and such, that has been difficult to capture in digital form. Even if one could, it is so much easier to change your picking than to change the programming.


Definitely some things should stay analog. I'm not down with the model-everything camp. I'd rather see digital applied to do new things (like the HOG for example or convolving reverbs or sample slicing and playback) rather than copy things that are already done well. Or mixing analog and digital so you can get the interface flexibility of digital but an analog processing path.

What was it I heard said in another board: Golden Years. Indeed, but I don't think we're anywhere near the apex yet.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Said it elsewhere, and I'll say it here. The reason why digital tends not to sound as good on distortions as it does on other things is because it can do most of those other things *in spite of* the properties of the input signal (as in the case of time-based effects like reverb, chorus, delay, flanging, or wah and EQ), or alternatively with attention to the gross properties of the input and minimal attention to the fine properties of the input signal (compression, gating, autowah). When it comes to distortion, as much, if not more, computing power has to be devoted to the *interpretation* and *qualification* of the input signal as to the *transformation* of the input signal. Having the computing power to do that is still only half the battle. The other half is being able to *describe* what happens to an input signal of such and such a property in terms of an algorithm. That part is *really* tough.


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## a Pack of Wolves (Sep 5, 2007)

i use a boss oc-3 and am well pleased


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

a Pack of Wolves said:


> i use a boss oc-3 and am well pleased


Isn't that only octave down though? I used to have an OC-2 and IIRC it did one or two octaves down, no up?


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## Spikezone (Feb 2, 2006)

A little while ago, I decided I wanted to get an octave up pedal. I don't plan on using it very much, so money was a bit of an issue, so I bought a Dan-o French Toast for cheap. I quite like it-it does what I want it to, for what that's worth...
-Mikey


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Just so we're clear, the Danelectro French Toast IS the identical circuit as the fabled Foxx Tone Machine, except that it has solid-state switching. The guy who used to oversee Foxx is either the guy who owns Danelectro or oversees the pedal line. Whether it produces a sound exactly as gnarly as the original, I can't say. I've made a couple and have to say they are by far my favourite octave-up fuzz of all the octave-up units I've made/tried. The packaging may turn some people off, but if the Dano version comes close to the original, it's one helluva sound and worth the money, new OR used.


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## Guest (Apr 29, 2008)

mhammer said:


> Just so we're clear, the Danelectro French Toast IS the identical circuit as the fabled Foxx Tone Machine, except that it has solid-state switching. The guy who used to oversee Foxx is either the guy who owns Danelectro or oversees the pedal line. Whether it produces a sound exactly as gnarly as the original, I can't say. I've made a couple and have to say they are by far my favourite octave-up fuzz of all the octave-up units I've made/tried. The packaging may turn some people off, but if the Dano version comes close to the original, it's one helluva sound and worth the money, new OR used.


Mark, any chance you've touched a Retroman Wolf Tone Machine -- comparisons to the Foxx aplenty on the page there. Does it hold up?


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## sysexguy (Mar 5, 2006)

Ti_ron, the octron and new foxx tone machine reissue are available at Moog. You guys in TO can get them there too

I have a retroman wtm and love it to death...ymmv, I know Scott at axe didn't share my feeling. I liked it so much I also bought their Octavious and Scram. Very different from the pure tone of the Octron. The ghost notes/ring mod effect one gets when bending a double stop are soooooo amazing and wonderful complexities occur when backing off the volume control on the guitar so that the fuzz has trouble tracking....hours of fun.

I hated the HOG/POG, to my ears it is out of tune but I may be crazy:sport-smiley-002: Of course, if you have a whammy, you can get the +8va that way too.

Andy


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

Thanks Andy for the tip! I think this summer I will have to take a ride and look what Moog audio have in their store!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

iaresee said:


> Mark, any chance you've touched a Retroman Wolf Tone Machine -- comparisons to the Foxx aplenty on the page there. Does it hold up?


Was not aware of its existence, but that's pretty much what mine sounds like, and is exactly what I used to put mine together. Although from the sounds of it, a big chunk of what you hear in the sample is the amp and the mic'ing. I have a spare unpopulated PCB I can spot you if you want.

As octave-ups go, I have to put in a vote for my "Descrambler". This is the combination Distortion+ and Ampeg Scrambler pedal I made a few months ago. A huge range of tones possible....seriously. Everything from nice polite crunch to sick sick sounds that cave in on themselves, with all sorts of Octavia and other tones in between. The Scrambler on its own is not a bad octave-fuzz but it suffers from a lack of output level control and input sensitivity control. Even though it is legendary, you tend to be kind of stuck with a certain quality of octave sensitivity in the stock unit. I find that simply tacking a Dist+ on the front end solves all those problems. Gotta loan you this thing. And if Adrian Belew does the album-autographing thing at Bluesfest this year, I have to give it to him. He doesn't realize it yet, but needs it.


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## Guest (Apr 29, 2008)

mhammer said:


> Was not aware of its existence, but that's pretty much what mine sounds like, and is exactly what I used to put mine together. Although from the sounds of it, a big chunk of what you hear in the sample is the amp and the mic'ing. I have a spare unpopulated PCB I can spot you if you want.


Someone offered me it on trade for the Barber Trifecta. Hmm...but if I can build this myself and I can't build an RV-3...well, that solves the dilemma.  We definitely have to arrange a meet-and-greet. You still want to try out the superdelay?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I do, but my itinerary gets too easily booked *for* me these days. Put me on standby for Sunday PM, though.


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