Anyone use an octave pedal?

[Daniel Nestlerode]

I'm sliding deep into gear acquisition syndrome...

Anyone out there use an octave pedal (or effect) with their emando? IF so, how do you use it... just for riffs? For whole songs? to sub for a guitar part?

Thanks!
Daniel

[Mike Black]

I use and love my nano POG from Electro-Harmonix. I love that it can do an octave high and low at the same time as well as a dry signal. Plus you can dial in how much of the high or low octave and dry signal you want in your sound. So I tend to add some low octave in to add some depth to the sound sometimes. and other times just to get that cool low end octave sound. Also with the three sounds (Dry, Low & High) you can dial in an almost like a 12 string type sound.

[Mike Black]

I understand your PAS. I'm finally starting to slow down a bit on my pedal acquisitions. I still have an overdrive acquisition problem. I have 6 overdrive/fuzz pedals on my board and a couple others not on the board.

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Thanks for the replies Mike!

I just pulled the trigger on a Mooer Pure Octave pedal. I'll reply when I've had a chance to put it through its paces.

I'm thinking about delay and reverb as well. IF I see a decent reverb unit I'll grab it. But delay will take some exploration.

It's all in good fun!


Daniel

[JeffD]

Yes. I have a POG. The reason I got it was that i was jonesing for an electric octave mandolin or tenor guitar. And the POG was much cheaper.

I use it primarily to for playing in that lower octave. On my five string emando that bottom C is down there. Wow!

But the POG does a lot more. You can go up an octave as well, which has its uses, and if you take out the clean signal and just use the octave high and octave low you can get some really pipe organ type sounds. Lastly if you play through clean and add just a little octave low you can give the sound a kind of mahogany dark chocolate feeling in the normal playing range.

Lots of fun.

[Jim Bevan]

Thumbs up from me for the POG.

I'm a serious electric mando player (it even pays the bills!), but my only experience with the POG was accompanying an Irish Trad gig (that couldn't find a guitarist for this one date) – I took half the strings off of my 1921 H2 and ran it through the POG, using both the octave-down and the non-octaved sound. Worked great – tracked the chords with complete accuracy.

[Greg P. Stone]

I'm thinking about delay and reverb as well. IF I see a decent reverb unit I'll grab it. But delay will take some exploration.



Daniel

For reverb and delay you can't go wrong with the TC Electronics Hall of Fame reverb and Flashback delay.

I used the HOF extensively with my last band, especially when playing outdoors. Many buy the Flashback just for the 2290 studio delay but that is also on the Alter Ego which is a TC collaboration with a Portland guitar shop to emulate many interesting vintage delays. So listen to both the Flashback and the Alter Ego.

[Lord of the Badgers]

POG2 -
-2 -1 +1 +2
Has a filter and attack control (but no release which is irksome) for making organ sounding pads. Saves presets too.
Only downside is the switch is sometimes noisy but I love it all the same

[seththedude]

Bumping an old thread.

I'm looking at purchasing an octave. Anyone have experience with the TC Electronic Sub'n'Up? It gets compared quite a bit to the POG.

I tried a POG and really liked it so am saving up for a POG2 but thinking about trying something else out first. The TC Sub'n'Up is about 1/4 price of the POG2. You can also use the Toneprint stuff which looks pretty intriguing with some organ sounds and ability to set different parameters on the pedal. Mainly plan on using it to thicken up tone/add a full sound for solos and doing volume swells.

[cunparis]

I use The Drop for my octave pedal. I listened to comparisons with the POG and both sound different but I liked both. The Drop was much cheaper.

[Dave Greenspoon]

Boss OC5 runs around $150 street. Sounds good with the El Rey!

[chuck3]

Another vote for the POG Nano. Small but very effective. Use it along with a chorus pedal and you can comp along the lines of keyboards or even horns.

Note that this is not for every musical situation. But I use it with a band that covers classic rock, and jams. In the jam portions, it's helpful to be able to change things up. An echo pedal too sometimes. But effects are just that - I don't think they should be overused.

[David Lewis]

The tc pedal I use is the nether. Cheap and varied. And sturdy.

[Explorer]

My first octave / pitch shift was the Boss PS-3. I eventually went to the POG2 because it was the fastest tracking at the time, and also went through the HOG and now have the HOG2 (huge amount of programmable presets) to cover everything.

I've considered putting together a smaller board, and there are a lot of pedals which have interesting demos out there. I normally look at violin demos for the pitch aspect, then guitar shredding demos for the tracking speed aspect. Mandolin is higher pitched than guitar, so watching both lets me rule out gear that shows problems for the target use.

[Dave Greenspoon]

Since the thread has been revived, let's update, it. MXR has released the MXR M306. This poly-octave offers two octaves up and down, plus fuzz, plus modulation. I'm still tempted.

[Scotter]

I picked up an Eastwood MandoMagic on one of their on-line sales awhile back. It's basically a EM version of a Gibson Marauder and it has satisfied my EM needs for now. I'll probably pick up a new Boss OC-5 soon since I really like that one option that it has where you can set it so that it will only play a lower octave note on the lowest pitched note in the chord. I'm not sure how useful I'll find that with mandolin but I can clearly see myself making use of it on guitar. It will be fun to see if I can get some good octave mandolin sounds using the pedal.

[Explorer]

I'll probably pick up a new Boss OC-5 soon since I really like that one option that it has where you can set it so that it will only play a lower octave note on the lowest pitched note in the chord. I'm not sure how useful I'll find that with mandolin but I can clearly see myself making use of it on guitar.

This is intriguing. I have the original Boss SY-300, but it's tracking on high mandolin is not great. I do comp on mandola, and built three- and four-note voicings which have either the root or fifth on the bottom course to anchor more comple voicings. If Boss has improved how they calculate their note to alter, and has added a way to detect the lowest note alone and only add the lower corresponding single note, I'm interested.

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Since starting the thread I've moved on quite a bit. The Mooer octave pedal is in the cupboard.

After using it, I realised I wasn't looking for lower notes, just a bigger sound. I also noticed I was happier with the octave above than the octave below.

So I grabbed a Boss OM-2. That's cool for adding breadth to the tone too.

At the moment, that's gone into the cupboard too. It's catching a weird resonance on my tube amp and setting my teeth on edge! LOL!

Daniel