counter-intuitive use of octave pedal

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Hello folks,

I bought a cheap Mooer octave pedal last summer because I needed something for when my guitarist and I covered Wish You Were Here. The low octave helped flesh things out while he took a solo.

We stopped playing Wish You Were Here a while ago. It just kinda fell off the set list in favor of more upbeat and more original songs. I stopped using the octave pedal.

Last night I was tweaking my sound in the wake of switching from an amp to a Line 6 POD 2.0 and I wanted some shimmer on the top. Just something to spread out the sound and add aural interest.

Lacking any modulation pedals on the board at the moment (my distaste of the chorus effect in mono is well documented here ), I turned to my octave pedal.

Dialed up an upper octave and played with the mix. I brought the dry all the way up and the +1 octave to about 9 o'clock on the tiny little knob (tuned the +2 octave all the way off after trying that -- it sounded like lazy bees).

You would not think going an octave above a mandolin would be a good idea, but it worked. I scratched my head, shrugged, and smiled.

My bass played, Fred, said, "C'est fou, mais ça marche!" (It's crazy but it works)

Signal chain:
JBovier EMC-5 on the neck pick-up volume and tone all the way up -->
Mooer Pure Octave pedal bought in the UK for £40.00, at the front of the effects chain but with everything else off -->
Line 6 POD 2.0 set to 'Black front' with a 2x12 cab emulation all effects off save a bit of reverb
Basically a clean, warm sound with a high octave added.

So there you go. Try it at home.
Let me know how you get on.

Daniel

[mandolinstew]

Just watched an octave pedal demo and will give it a try.I have tried various mooer pedals and some are very good and others ho hum.Thanks for that.Also looking forward to trying my chorus in stereo.Never was impressed with it.

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Hi Stew,
Given the color of this particular Mooer pedal, I'd say they copied the Boss circuit.
I would not say I was impressed by the tonal character of the octave output. So subtle is better.

I'm thinking about getting a Boss MO-2, which seems to serve the purpose to which I have put this octave pedal a little better.

I was taking a spin on my 8 string emando last night (straight to a highly modified Marshall G15R-CD 1x8 fully solid state) and decided I would only need to use the upper octave as sweetener on single course instruments.

Daniel

[David Lewis]

If you don't like the boss, TC electronics have an octave pedal which is pretty cheap (less than 90.00 in Australia) called the Nether... I don't use harmonising or chorus on my mando - but I might give it a go after your experience.

[mandolinstew]

A friend lent me guitar synthesizer once and tried it on an eight string and it was horrible.Great on the four string.Liked to play Danny Boy on the violin setting.

[kurth83]

I find when playing in a mix I like to thin out the sound of my emando too, adding some highs (or cutting some lows) is similar to blending in a bit of an octave up I guess.