Electro-Harmonix POG/POG2 pedal question

[Denman John]

I have an acoustic mandolin with a LR Baggs Radius pickup and was wondering if I could use either a POG or POG2 pedal to get an octave mandolin effect? I've read that the POG/POG2 are guitar effects and wonder if they will work with an instrument tuned to 5ths? I've searched high and low and can't find anything related to using a mandolin with a POG/POG2 pedal.

Has anyone tried this and if so, what have the results been like?

Thanks for your time.

Regards
John

[Tom Wright]

It's an impressive device, but I think you will be disappointed if you hope to emulate an octave mandolin, because the lower octave will be a bit soggy in response. There is no way the system can interpret the input pitch and generate the output in an instant. Also, the only way it can avoid messy cluttered sound is to filter strongly, so you will also not hear the clean pick attack on shimmering doubled strings of a real octave mandolin.

That said, it will probably do some cool sounds, and would at least be worth trying out, if you can either do it at a store or be able to return it from mail order.

[voxhumana]

These fx devices will work just fine for a mandolin, or any instrument that can be made to generate an electric signal via some means (eg. a friend runs the clip-on mic of his sax into a Zoom multi-fx unit). They tend to be marketed to guitarists simply because guitarists are the largest market segment for such things.

Any pitch-shifter (from a basic 70's era octave pedal to advanced studio units like the Eventide H8000W) synthesises the additional sound - either by electrical means using a transformer, or via a digital software algorithm. These sounds are interesting and can have merit in their own right, but can't be considered as alternatives to a real instrument producing notes of the same pitch.