My continuing electric adventure: octave pedals

[JeffD]

I have been thinking of (dreaming of) a Mann solid body 5 string octave electric mandolin. And someday I will pull the trigger. But until then I wanted to play with some deeper tones.

I got myself, (on the advice of my electric guitar brother) a Micro P.O.G. octave generator pedal. Works wonderfully well for what I wanted, and was so easy to figure out how to use. (I had to learn what wet and dry mean.)

So now I have what amounts to the octave electric, without a longer stretch between frets. Lots of fun.

Likely not as sharp and clean as the Mann I dream of. But more like Altoids strong mints, to tide me over till dinner without snacking.


Then I discovered what this thing really can do and I am amazed. By mixing the regular sound with a little bass octave I can get some really excellent warmth in my regular range. I hadn't even thought of that.

My brother showed me how, by mixing in the bass octave and an octave up with the main (dry) sound, and then using an effects pedal, or sliding by the mandolin volume control, I can sound very credibly like a rock and roll organ. OK not like owning a Hammond B-3, but the other night I was improvising interludes for an imaginary old time radio detective show. So much fun. What this latter has to do with music I have no clue.

[Martin Ohrt]

Hey, that sounds funny!
I have a 5 string octave, you sure won't regret buying one And i assure you, combinig such an instrument with an octaver sounds great, too.
So, have fun with your pedal!

[JeffD]

I returned the borrowed expression pedal, so out goes the organ effects. The POG is still an awesome pedal and sure adds a lot of choices to the sounds I want to make.

[Tavy]

New pedal to me, found this demo with violin that looked cool, does this work with mandolin also?

[MediumMando5722]

I haven't heard much POG outside the White Stripes. I know when Jack switched to a POG from a Whammy, his octave down sound sure got better.

You did right starting with the POG. There are a bunch of cheaper octave pedals, and they all suck.

[Marc Katz]

I run my National rm1 through a POG (actually my whole electric guitar pedalboard) into a marshall style guitar amp and that sounds fantastic. You can actually play with drum sets and other electric instruments w/o feedback and with a lot of thickness in tone. Nothing like a wooden mandolin though...

[JeffD]

You did right starting with the POG. There are a bunch of cheaper octave pedals, and they all suck.

Well I try and define exactly what I want to do, and then I ask my brother how one goes about getting it done. Then I do a lot of internet research, and then I do what my brother recommends.

[Bertram Henze]

Reminds me a lot of the Breton band Gwerz, whose fiddler made all the eerie-sounding keyboard-ish harmonies with his fiddle, as in the intro of this song.
And that was the state of technology more than 20 years ago.

[Explorer]

@JeffD - I highly recommend, if you have the option, visiting a music store and playing through a POG2.

The Attack/ Decay slider allows removing the pick attack from the sound, even from the original signal, for emulation of the instruments in the violin family, and the filter will allow you to experiment with timbre. Also, it has not just octave up and down, but also two octaves up and down.

It's really an amazing pedal.

[JeffD]

@JeffD - I highly recommend, if you have the option, visiting a music store and playing through a POG2..

I need to investigate this. Doesn't the POG2 also generate other intervals, fifths and thirds and whatever I want? I may have misunderstood something I read.

It really is an adventure, and we are explorers.

Last night I was up for an hour or so, playing through the POG down an octave, through an MXR Fullbore Metal distortion pedal, through a TC Electronic Corona chorus, through a TC Electronic Hall of Fame reverb, into my VOX.

And what was I playing? You're gonna love this. I was playing a violin study, No. 3 from Wohlfahrt Op. 45. I was messing with it, playing in staccato bursts, playing in a continuous legato style, playing it slow, playing it fast, playing in a dorky hornpipe rhythm.

What a ripping good time was had.

Years ago, there was a blog about guitar amps and pedals, and questioning whether these were optimal or very even useful for the electric mandolin, because of its higher range. (The idea was perhaps a line of electric mandolin pedals and effects needed to be invented.) Putting the POG ahead of the train, I am getting some richness (it seems to me as an electric newbie) out of the pedals that was not there at the higher pitch.

And the cool factor is that since I don't bend notes, it does not get overly electric guitarish.