![]() ![]() My favorite of the bunch, the TC Electronic Sub ‘N’ Up packs an amazing amount of features into one pedal. It gives me the ability to distort or overdrive the bass sound for some really versatile sounds. The reason I put it first is that I use it often to play bass on my guitar and less often as an organ effect. It depends on what you are wanting to do, but I run my octave pedals after a compressor (it can help the tracking) if you have one, and before everything else. Where does an octave pedal go in the signal chain? The OC-3 lets you play bass and guitar at the same time with its filter function, great if you are a solo musician or have a flaky bass player. I have had to fill in for a bass player with only my guitar and was able to use my Octave pedal to make my guitar sound like a bass. With many of these pedals, you can add an organ part to your loops as well. I originally bought an octave pedal to use with a looper to play bass lines, and it really works well for this. Playing ultra high/low non-guitar possible notes ![]() You can use the pedal to sound like you are playing higher up on the fretboard, all while staying close to the nut. If you always wonder what the rest of the guitar neck is for. I too at one time felt this way, but after owning several octave pedals I am pleased to say that I have used this effect a lot more then I would have imagined. You may think that an octave pedal is more of a toy, something that is fun to have on your pedalboard, but not something that you will ever really get much use out of. This control will adjust the amount of overdrive/fuzz/distortion applied generally to the affected (not the clean) sound. Octave Fuzz pedals are in a whole category of their own (usually doing the octave up thing), but many octave down pedals include some sort of drive. They have the ability to produce a variety of intervals allowing you to play harmonized leads, or transpose your entire guitar with the push of a button. Some pedals, like the pitchfork, can do more than just octaves. Depending on the pedal this control may not exist, may create a clean octave up, or may create a fuzzy, distorted higher octave. This control will adjust the volume of the pitch created one octave above. Be careful with this setting as it can blow up the speakers on a guitar amp if you get it going to loud. This control will adjust the volume of the pitch created two octaves below. You can mix this with some of your dry signals to beef up your guitar sound, or turn the dry all the way down and use your guitar like a bass. This control will adjust the volume of the pitch created one octave below. Think of this control like a volume knob for your clean tone. The dry control will generally adjust the amount of dry (non-effected) signal that will pass through the pedal. These are the typical controls you will find on an octave pedal: Dry The downside is that the tone they produce can sometimes sound well…digital. This gives digital pedals the ability to pitch shift just about anything you throw at them. ![]() Analog is dumb, and I mean that lovingly.ĭigital pedals, on the other hand, analyze the entire spectrum of complex waveforms created by the sounding of chords and produce on their own an entirely new signal. When feed chords you will hear the octave sound frantically jump around trying to lock onto the fundamental, which it can’t. Because of the nature of this division, these pedals need a clear single note to track well. Analog circuits essentially run your guitar signal through a voltage divider resulting in a wave that is half the hertz it started at. Generally, monophonic pedals tend to be analog. You should consider whether you want to play single note bass lines and riffs, or if you are looking to play chords an octave lower or higher. Octave pedals can be monophonic, able to create an octave of only one pitch at a time, or polyphonic, able to produce octaves for multiple pitches at the same time. Cheaper pedals tend to have longer latency. The longer the latency the more unusable or at least annoying the pedal becomes. ![]() Latency describes the time between the initial strike of a note on your guitar and the affected sound coming out of the amp. This is the pedal trying to guess what note is being played, but failing to do so. When a pedals tracking is bad you will hear the octave note rapidly changing pitches and jumping around. Some pedals track better than others, the cheaper pedals tend to struggle a little bit in the lower range of the guitar. Octave pedals can range from super simple monophonic analog pedals to crazy complex digital monsters.īelow are a few things to consider when purchasing: TrackingĪ pedals ability to lock onto and faithfully reproduce an octave of a given pitch is called tracking. An octave pedal is a pitch shifting effect that takes a given pitch and reproduces it an octave (see above) above or below, and sometimes two octaves below the played note. ![]()
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