radiophonic

I think for a nerd like me, the Sub N Up is probably fine because I actually enjoy all the tweaking. For someone who didn't, I can see it would be a massive PITA when, in the end, all we both want is a low latency, low tracking octaver that can mimic an old skool analogue stomp box. On the subject of the glitch - I guess there are players who like the way certain pedals fail - Juan Alderete seems to!

The problem with that video is what it omits. It advises you start from a template, but doesn't talk about how the core templates differ. IOW how close to each other the Mono and Poly templates are behind the scenes and whether you could dramatically improve the tracking of the mono with available adjustments, pushing it close to the dream hybrid or whether there is something really fundamental that makes this impossible. Up to now, I've more or less assumed the latter and instead used the Poly template as starting point but scuffed the sound up with gain and EQ changes to get more of an "analog" sound. The next step is to do as you suggest and stat with the mono and look at the input parameters. It does seem odd that if the whole shebang is is digital, they didn't offer a magic combo of modelled analog sound + polyphony and perfect tracking. There does seem to be at least one processing trade off hidden in there somewhere though because the latency on the poly setting is audibly worse than in mono. It doesn't matter to me because I tend to blur it with a little tape delay anyway, but once again toneprint is leaving me simultaneously impressed and frustrated. More tweaking to do...

Interesting. IOW, a glitch free 'OC2' type sound might be achievable. I've been trying to reverse engineer it via the poly mode with some distortion on the -1 and + 1 (it's not right but not bad either). TC really ned to get their act together with the documentation for toneprint. The current version of the manual doesn't even include the SnU!

Something occurred to me about the Sub n Up recently. The general trade-off between analog and digital octavers is tone and latency vs polyphony and tracking. The Sub n Up has a 'Mono' mode but AFAIK this is also digital (it's toneprint editable and has a clean octave up) and yet it has the same glitchy tracking below Ab that most analog designs have. Surely TC can't have deliberately made it glitchy and annoying?

I did decide that the Freeze was probably the answer, but too pricey for a one trick pony. Does anything else do this effect? It looks like EHX are the only ones to really pull it off - I've not heard anything else as smooth. I tried the Mel 9 etc, but didn't like the tracking. In the end I've just cranked the compressor so it acts like a sustainer. I can add Sub 'n' Up to get it more keyboardy if needed. Still interested in the Freeze though, even though I'm not 100% sure what I'd use it for. 'm going to need a bigger board at this rate.

Agreed. I'm not sure where unity gain is supposed to be on the Ditto and I'm pretty sure it cuts a little bass anyway, but 3pm seems about right - I think it's actually > unity but with some LF loss, any lower starts to get lost in the mix.

Al Krow's comments on the Sub n Up are interesting. This is the only Octaver I've used and I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have benefited by demoing others in a shop because the things I'm noticing are only becoming apparent at high volume in band situation. I definitely notice some latency on the octave down in poly mode. I'm not sure how much of this is the pedal and how much of it is hysteresis in the speakers when trying going very low and high at the same time. In mono mode, I can't get reliable tracking below Ab which limits it usefulness - not because I need an octave below Ab, but because of the way it glitches in and out rather than just rejecting the note. The poly setting seems to either grab it or not (I think Dood made a similar observation some pages back). The other thing I'm finding is that although the combined -1 / +1 sounds fairly organ/synthy even with a clean blend when played solo, once the band kick off much of this character is lost and it just sounds like massive low end (which is what I want).

I haven’t changed bass or amp and can’t see me doing so unless I’m taken rich... and tbh, a Stingray, a fretless Jazz and a Hartke rig will cover most eventualities. I did spend a lot on pedals this year though. However the big wins were a proper one spot pro PSU - so much simpler setting up - and some Klotz guitar leads with Neutrik silent plugs. The rubbish was an MXR 18v PSU that lasted 3 gigs before the cable started emitting sparks and Warwick low profile patch cables of similar longevity/build quality. I’m pretty annoyed about being sold a high Z volume pedal too. There’s nothing wrong with it but I needed a low Z one and PMT should have known the difference.

[quote name='JellyKnees' timestamp='1509549573' post='3399825'] Not if you're playing sideways... [/quote] Hit a harmonic at 5th fret. Depress string. The harmonic will still be dominant. Slide to 12th fret. The note at 12th fret is lower in pitch than the harmonic at 5th. You slid up but went down. Now add a tape delay. I end a song this way.

I used to engage a delay when I hit the slide to preserve the initial harmonic. It's a slightly different effect to doing on a fretless but you can get the same 'sliding up to a lower note' effect.

I had a Sunburst / tort 'Sattelite' Jazz bass with block inlays and tape wounds and a Gem (Mars?) 30 guitar amp that had been owned by at least two other guys in our village. The bass weighed a ton. I can remember lugging the amp about balanced on one pedal of my bike. Terrible thing. If you got you hand too close to the fuse, you got a jolt. It had tremolo though, which was fun. Later I had a kit built 60w head that had a key to turn it on. It was paired with a 4 x 12 cab with Celestion G12 speaker that I wish I still had, but I had to ditch it when I left Newcastle on account moving in a Renault 5.

I'd be reluctant to take any advice without considering the rest of your signal chain. I've found that the treble boost in active basses can be a very bad combination with higher gain pedals (Pike specifically), giving a sort of low passed clean + fizzy top sound. I've heard it work well with passive basses though and with middier actives. The Bass Soul Food boosts the mids noticeably, which can help in a mix but it does change your sound - I can't work out whether it's shelving the bass too or whether its's just an artefact of the mid push. I only use mine as a clean-ish boost now, when switching basses. For grit, I use a Pork Loin, which is usually considered as a pretty low gain pedal (in fact the early version didn't even say 'overdrive' on it), but I find it gnarlier than a Soul Food, probably because the pre-amp is quite dark and the gain stage will overdrive the low end without losing definition. You can dial back the gain internally too. However, I struggled to get a clean sound out of the pre-amp without running it at 18v (not explicitly recommended by Dunlop, but plenty of people do it for this reason). In my set up, it sounds great, but YMMV. Whatever you settle on, I'd recommend trying before you buy or going S/H. Once the drummer kicks off, it'll all sound different anyway.

This might actually be too good for my purposes! I've been using a Flashback and tbh, I've got really used to the queasy vibrato that they use to unconvincingly emulate wow and flutter so the El Cap is pretty subtle by comparison. I'm keeping the FB anyway for the reverse echo and an Echorec style toneprint I use a lot. I'm still settling on a signal path - I'll probably run this at or near the end of the signal chain and keep the flashback, volume pedal and ditto in a separate loop, giving me the option of combining two delays, controlling either with the volume pedal or isolating the El Cap with one tap of the LS2. I haven't really begun to explore all the head and tape speed options - or the expression for that matter - but it seems like the Flashback emulates a fixed head. Lots to play with.

I've finally waded through this thread after picking up a s/h Sub N Up and I'm struck that the answer to the question of 'best' or 'favourite' comes down to how you are using the pedal. I 100% expected to be into an OC2 type sound, but after a few weeks of tweaking, trying to blend some drive using toneprint and going through a phase of 'what am I actually going to use this pedal for?', it dawned on me (after listening to Juan Alderete talking about the DOD meatbox) that if I used the Poly setting but wound back the +1/-1 and let the dry signal dominate, I'd just get a really huge low end with some top end compensation, it wouldn't glitch out below Ab and wouldn't sound like an organ below 12th fret. Job done. Then I stuck it through a Pork Loin. JESUS. It sounds huge. I wrote a massive prog metal riff on the spot. There's more to an octaver than synthy organ tones, that's for sure. I'm off to terrify our guitar player tomorrow morning.

I've been on a bit of a Banshees tip recently - although I always preferred the first two Creatures LPs. . Their albums can be had really cheap and I get the feeling that no-one really cares about them any more. The actual sound of the McGeoch era records is pretty startling. Severin clearly wasn't a man of moderation where chorus was concerned and the combination of this and McGeoch's guitar makes for a really sick interaction. Quite extreme in a totally 80s way.

[quote name='mentalextra' timestamp='1505658393' post='3373384'] Having a bit of a Bill Nelson revival here. Mixed with Paramore [/quote] Following another thread on here, I realised I'd never actually listened to Bebop Deluxe, so I picked up a 5CD box for 13 quid on Amazon. Axe Victim is this week's commute soundtrack. Pretty great really.

I briefly had a Wal Mk1 around 1990, but it was just way too heavy and the neck was just too chunky for my smallish hands. I have no problem with a Stingray and actually think a Jazz is too skinny, but this thing was a monster. It looked lovely, but It had to go.

Latest revision. New PSU after the MXR 18v wall-wart I used for the Pork Loin started emitting sparks after only 3 gigs. Big improvement in noise floor and plenty of options for powering more pedals later. All the digital ones are on separate lines. The Bass Soul Food has gone and I may sell it - the mid push is too much for my taste although it works well on guitar. Maybe a Rat style distortion (MXR? Fuzzrocious?).

[quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1508141192' post='3389932'] One good thing about the CS7 is that you can pretty much ignore the mA labels on the individual outputs as long as you don't exceed the overall total for the entire supply. So if you have any hungry digital multis or tube pedals, or want to run a long daisy chain from one socket, it should be able to cope no problem. [/quote] I doubt I'll be running into problems tbh. The thirstiest pedals I have are a couple of TC Toneprints and a Boss BC1X. I have got my eye on an El Capistan (250mA / 9V) in the new year but I can't see me going any further than that. The major limiting factor as far as choice goes, was needing 18v for one pedal.

I've taken a punt on the CS7. It seems to do what I need, it comes with brackets, takes a proper IEC power cable and I've been happy with the build quality of the basic One Spot so far. If it doesn't fit, it can always go back.

Voodoo is significantly more money though.

It's a Novo 18. The One Spot potentially looks like a good shout for similar money - [i]pretty[/i] sure I can mount underneath it although it does look quite chunky.

I have 8-9 pedals on my board. 3 are digital and one I need to run at 18v. I've been using a One Spot with a daisy chain and an MXR 18v wall-wart. Unfortunately the latter is cheap piece of rubbish with a very short supply cable, which has sheared and started sparking after only 3 gigs. Time to bite the bullet and shell out on a proper supply. I'm not running anything super thirsty. T-Rex Chameleon looks like it will do the job. Any reason why this isn't a good choice?

Oxjam. Beeston Takeover. We benefited from a 9pm slot - so people probably weren't shifting venues by that point and were several beers into their evening. Not note perfect. Lousy monitor mix. Cramped stage area. Vigorous but slightly ahead of the beat audience clapping at one point threw the violinist - she followed their tempo rather than the intrinsic tempo (classical players get bothered by details like this). But basically we totally rocked it. Fantastic audience reaction.

[quote name='Quatschmacher' timestamp='1507914407' post='3388813'] Is that not a mix between dry and wet (octave) signals? So if you've got the dry on a constant level it overrides its function perhaps? [/quote] Yes - I worked it out this afternoon. Tore actually says in one of his vids that you have to have it at 100% otherwise is starts to become a Chorus, so it has to be wet/dry blend within the effect itself. I've now got it as The Dry signal set at 100%, Dry Control = +1 and -1 'Drive' (different slopes) and Oct -2 = LFO rate and depth, with the rate levelling off around the 12 O'Clock but the depth linear over the full range. Running it into a Flashback with it's own wobbly algorithm (Echorec attempt), It allows me to combine two different vibrato rates - which with the delay and volume pedal sound half way between an organ and a voice. I could do with getting into the Eq but I only have one cab here until after the weekend.