If you could only choose one octave pedal

[Dapper Bandit]

[quote name='Al Krow' timestamp='1510308367' post='3405431']
But if we're getting into the realms of £500 multifx pedals in the shape of the H9, then surely not then far to go to Line 6 Helix LT which does everything the H9 does and a whole lot more?
[/quote]

That is more of an apples/oranges situation, I would say. I own a Helix rack which is my headphone amp/recording interface. It does everything I ask of it, amp sims sound great and a lot of the fx are very good but the Eventide stuff really is a cut above. Certainly as far as the Timefactor, Pitchfactor and Space algorithms go, they all do things that the Helix can't really touch.

That said the Helix would probably get you 80-90% of the way there depending on your needs. For just a straight octave down any of these options are probably overkill in all honesty but if you like reverse-delayed pitchshifting and other oddities then Eventide is the way forward IMO.

[Al Krow]

UPDATE of my earlier summary shootout note (IMHO, YMMV etc):

In relation to octavers the key things I'm looking for are: 1) authentic clean blend octave down to fill out my sound; 2) ability to track both (i) fast (minimal latency) and (ii) low without glitching; 3) play nicely with my dirt and filter pedals.

A couple of weeks back I met up with Cameron in Bass Gallery when he brought along a selection of 4 highly regarded octave pedals for me to A/B. This was followed by a stint at Wunjos yesterday with the same Cameron board but Quatschmacher brought along his MXR BOD and Wunjos provided a TC Sub'n'Up. Here's what I found:

MXR vs TC Sub N Up
These two pedals are the best at tracking: both managed to get down the F# on the E string (and the Sub'n'Up perhaps lower). There was the tiniest bit of latency on the digital TC whereas the MXR felt completely 'tight' in typical analogue fashion. But the voicing on the MXR left me pretty non-plussed and I couldn't get that 'clean' octave down tone I really like on my COG T16. Whilst the TC Mini is COG T16 sized, I think the greater flexibility of the full size Sub'n'up (for a newbie to Tone Print editors) makes it a better initial choice  (assuming space on pedal board permits).

The other 4 analogue pedals

COG T16 gen 1.0 (which is the one I already have). Suffers from an under powered 'pure filter / synth' and doesn't have the Aggie's tone control. But for what I'm needing it for it does a great job and it's tiny and takes up very little space on a pedal board. As I'm not needing to use it as a pure synth down the 'under powered filter issue' doesn't affect me. (The gen 2.0 has apparently solved the 'under-powered filter issue' but has done so by simply adopting the circuitry from the T47 and T65 and I'm a bit nervous that will scupper the new T16's ability to produce a clean octave down - given the noisy 'up' issue on the T65 flagged elsewhere on this forum).

Aguilar Octamizer. Vocal range was synth to growl but excellent clean blend with tone control. Lovely at what it did, but struggled to track down well much below a B (which is too high up the scale for me).

Both the COG and the Aggie sat really well with other pedals and the 'glitching' when they failed to track was significantly less noticeable on these two (than Emma and 3Leaf) with the Aggie edging it on this particular test.

Itch fully now scratched in relation to:
Third: Emma Okto Nojs (nice additional dirt, but I guess somewhat superfluous if you already have a dirt pedal, which I do)
Last: 3Leaf Octavbre Mini (ok that surprised me too!)

Both these last two had very noticeable glitching on lower notes when they failed to track (particularly the Octavbre Mini) and neither 'sat' nearly as well with dirt or filter pedals as the Aggie or COG.

Conclusion

For a clean octave down and sitting well with my other pedals the COG T16 is doing a grand job. It doesn't track as low as the MXR but I prefer the clean octave down on the T16 (I appreciate that's a personal choice).

EHX Pitchfork?

If I get another octave pedal - well slightly to my surprise it probably won't be another analogue! The low tracking combined with ability to tailor a Tone Print to my heart's content (the editor for the Sub'n'up from YouTube clips doesn't look as fearsome as I thought and has been described as being for e.g. the TC Spectracomp). The fact that it's 50% to 100% cheaper than some of the analogues means that the full TC Sub'n'Up is definitely a serious contender...but the other digital pedal that is on my radar (see below) is the EHX Pitchfork which seems to provide some of the amazing pitch shifting flexibility of my old Boss PS-6 Harmonist but without the latency 'warble' that the PS-6 and the Pitchfork's sister EHX Pog pedals seem to suffer from.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Al Krow

[radiophonic]

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). 

[Quatschmacher]

12 hours ago, Al Krow said:

UPDATE of my earlier summary shootout note (IMHO, YMMV etc):

In relation to octavers the key things I'm looking for are: 1) authentic clean blend octave down to fill out my sound; 2) ability to track both (i) fast (minimal latency) and (ii) low without glitching; 3) play nicely with my dirt and filter pedals.

A couple of weeks back I met up with Cameron in Bass Gallery when he brought along a selection of 4 highly regarded octave pedals for me to A/B. This was followed by a stint at Wunjos yesterday with the same Cameron board but Quatschmacher brought along his MXR BOD and Wunjos provided a TC Sub'n'Up. Here's what I found:

MXR vs TC Sub N Up
These two pedals are the best at tracking: both managed to get down the F# on the E string (and the Sub'n'Up perhaps lower). There was the tiniest bit of latency on the digital TC whereas the MXR felt completely 'tight' in typical analogue fashion. But the voicing on the MXR left me pretty non-plussed and I couldn't get that 'clean' octave down tone I really like on my COG T16. Whilst the TC Mini is COG T16 sized, I think the greater flexibility of the full size Sub'n'up (for a newbie to Tone Print editors) makes it a better initial choice  (assuming space on pedal board permits).

The other 4 analogue pedals

COG T16 gen 1.0 (which is the one I already have). Suffers from an under powered 'pure filter / synth' and doesn't have the Aggie's tone control. But for what I'm needing it for it does a great job and it's tiny and takes up very little space on a pedal board. As I'm not needing to use it as a pure synth down the 'under powered filter issue' doesn't affect me. (The gen 2.0 has apparently solved the 'under-powered filter issue' but has done so by simply adopting the circuitry from the T47 and T65 and I'm a bit nervous that will scupper the new T16's ability to produce a clean octave down - given the noisy 'up' issue on the T65 flagged elsewhere on this forum).

Agguilar Octamizer. Vocal range was synth to growl but excellent clean blend with tone control. Lovely at what it did, but struggled to track down well much below a B (which is too high up the scale for me).

Both the COG and the Aggie sat really well with other pedals and the 'glitching' when they failed to track was significantly less noticeable on these two (than Emma and 3Leaf) with the Aggie edging it on this particular test.

Itch fully now scratched in relation to:
Third: Emma Okto Nojs (nice additional dirt, but I guess somewhat superfluous if you already have a dirt pedal, which I do)
Last: 3Leaf Octavbre Mini (ok that surprised me too!)

Both these last two had very noticeable glitching on lower notes when they failed to track (particularly the Octavbre Mini) and neither 'sat' nearly as well with dirt or filter pedals as the Aggie or COG.

Conclusion

For a clean octave down and sitting well with my other pedals the COG T16 is doing a grand job. It doesn't track as low as the MXR but I prefer the clean octave down on the T16 (I appreciate that's a personal choice).

If I get another octave pedal - well slightly to my surprise it won't be another analogue! The low tracking combined with ability to tailor a Tone Print to my heart's content (the editor for the Sub'n'up from YouTube clips doesn't look as fearsome as I thought and has been described as being for e.g. the TC Spectracomp) The fact that it's 50% to 100% cheaper than some of the analogues means that the full TC Sub'n'Up is likely my next 'first choice'.

We totally forgot to try the new EBS Octabass Studio edition which was in the pedal cabinet. Cameron and I only spotted it as we were leaving.   

[dannybuoy]

I've not tried the old Octabass but the new one is great. More natural sounding than the Octabvre Mini, tracking is equally good for me if not better. In the low mode it's really deep and blends very well with the clean signal.

Only downside is the footswitch started playing up a week after I've got it, I've got to send it back!

I've had severely bad luck with new pedals lately, an RMI Basswitch dual band compressor died within a week, a Dunlop mini bass wah that had some kind of mechanical failure on between the pot and treadle, and now this!

[Quatschmacher]

On 13/11/2017 at 14:59, dannybuoy said:

I've not tried the old Octabass but the new one is great. More natural sounding than the Octabvre Mini, tracking is equally good for me if not better. In the low mode it's really deep and blends very well with the clean signal.

Only downside is the footswitch started playing up a week after I've got it, I've got to send it back!

I've had severely bad luck with new pedals lately, an RMI Basswitch dual band compressor died within a week, a Dunlop mini bass wah that had some kind of mechanical failure on between the pot and treadle, and now this!

I really enjoyed the Octabvre mini. I tried Cameron’s next to my MKII. With the Tim Tuning switched on and the tone knob fully left they sound identical. They differ a bit with the tone knob all the way right and I slightly preferred the mini if truth be told as it had a bit more mid presence and snarl whilst still being fat. I still like the sound of the full-sized one with the Tim mode off and the tone fully right, it is very growly. 

Edited May 17, 2018 by Quatschmacher

[lee650]

Please try the Octabass gents!  I think it'll tick a lot of boxes.  Its always been a favourite of mine, ive had two, the original black label (not the first grey pedals) and a later true bypass "improved" version.  Both tracked extremely well and have a great clean octave tone, with a lot of variety with the range switch

[dannybuoy]

The Octabass also tends to one of the cheapest options on the used market, and the older ones are potentially more reliable too, at least in my unfortunate experience of the studio edition!

[lee650]

I can't quantify it! but the older non true bypass EBS pedals just seemed to sound better to me. They do have a very slight boost when engaged, but that can work well in certain situations.  Ive avoided the studio editions as i feel EBS pedals have gradually got cheaper looking/feeling over the years as the company got bigger (and i am a major EBS fan and have owned most of their pedals several times over and used their amps for years) ive never tried the SE versions so can't comment on sound

[DiMarco]

Awesome and correct description by Al there. I feel the same. When I want fat "big" sounding subs to go with a fuzz box to crank out Muse like goodness I kick in the MXR. For a more transparent and clean sub octave the bass whammy is used, which also does a few extra tricks when needed. I tried an Aguilar octaver and that is probably the one I'd go for if I could have only one. Its tone sits in between the mxr and a transparent oct.

 

[Quatschmacher]

For anyone interested, I’ve listed my Octamizer for sale as I’m trying to do one in, one out at the moment, otherwise things get silly.

[radiophonic]

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? 

[Quatschmacher]

19 minutes ago, radiophonic said:

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? 

Actually, I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that it was deliberately done to make it authentic sounding. You can always change the parameters in the toneprint to get it to track better (eg the input EQ - this adjusts what signal the pedal “sees” I order to create the octave down).

[radiophonic]

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!

[Quatschmacher]

5 minutes ago, radiophonic said:

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!

There’s an hour-long video on YouTube where they go in depth into the toneprint editor. I wonder if the classic monophonic setting is a basic toneprint template which you can edit. 

[Quatschmacher]

In other news, unless the Subterranea does the same sound then I’m keeping the Octabvre MKII, can’t get those sounds out of any of my other octave pedals and the growly square wave works brilliantly with envelope filter. 

[tonyxtiger]

I’d agree with Al, if you use octaves a lot I’d go with an analogue and a digital on your board. That way for dirty analogue stuff you’re good to go and also have a digital option where you need a vice like grip on things.

Or even simpler higher register stuff on the analogue and lower on the digital. This also makes sense for me because the fatness of the analogue stuff better serves higher register notes and the digital processing sometimes keeps the bottom notes and real low subs from getting too wild. 

Just depends what works for you. I often go thru a COG which then goes into Fuzz and then all that goes through a pitch factor to add upper octaves on top of that.  There’s no set rules, but I find having analogue and digital octaves give plenty options. 

[Quatschmacher]

56 minutes ago, tonyxtiger said:

I’d agree with Al, if you use octaves a lot I’d go with an analogue and a digital on your board. That way for dirty analogue stuff you’re good to go and also have a digital option where you need a vice like grip on things.

Or even simpler higher register stuff on the analogue and lower on the digital. This also makes sense for me because the fatness of the analogue stuff better serves higher register notes and the digital processing sometimes keeps the bottom notes and real low subs from getting too wild. 

Just depends what works for you. I often go thru a COG which then goes into Fuzz and then all that goes through a pitch factor to add upper octaves on top of that.  There’s no set rules, but I find having analogue and digital octaves give plenty options. 

Or just use the MXR for all of it as it tracks all the way to low F. ?

[tonyxtiger]

Use one pedal when you could use two? Where’s your sense of adventure?

[Quatschmacher]

3 minutes ago, tonyxtiger said:

Use one pedal when you could use two? Where’s your sense of adventure?

I’m trying to reprogram my brain. As of tomorrow I’ll have 5 octavers! I’ve temporarily got down to 6 filters, at least until Friday!

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, tonyxtiger said:

I’d agree with Al, if you use octaves a lot I’d go with an analogue and a digital on your board. That way for dirty analogue stuff you’re good to go and also have a digital option where you need a vice like grip on things.

Or even simpler higher register stuff on the analogue and lower on the digital. This also makes sense for me because the fatness of the analogue stuff better serves higher register notes and the digital processing sometimes keeps the bottom notes and real low subs from getting too wild. 

Just depends what works for you. I often go thru a COG which then goes into Fuzz and then all that goes through a pitch factor to add upper octaves on top of that.  There’s no set rules, but I find having analogue and digital octaves give plenty options. 

 

6 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Or just use the MXR for all of it as it tracks all the way to low F. ?

 

2 minutes ago, tonyxtiger said:

Use one pedal when you could use two? Where’s your sense of adventure?

Haha - love it!  In Q-thingy's defence, his philosophy (certainly when it comes to filters) is why get one when you can get 12?!  The MXR does track low really well, no doubt whatsoever - that is the consensus of everyone on this thread. But the colouration it gives to the tone is not to everyone's taste - so like Tony I'm sticking to my COG for analogue.

However, if we have limited space on a pedal board and a not unlimited pedal budget then the Eventide Pitchfactor, at a mere £490 (new), is a bit of a swallow.

In the alternative, having heard one tonight and been pretty impressed with its lack of latency, I'm kinda thinking of getting an EHX Pitchfork instead of the TC Sub n Up. It seems to deliver pretty much what my old Boss PS-6 Harmonist could do (including the crazy double octave up stomp shift!) but without the annoying the latency warble - which also seemed to be a bit of an issue with the EHX Pog pedals (and, anyway, the Pog2 is also starting to get into serious money territory at £300, which is double the price of the Pitchfork). 

Be very interested to get folks views on the Pitchfork if they have one or previously owned one? Is it a decent alternative to the more modern TC SnU? It does seem to be a really 'fun' pedal and easy to use in terms of flexibility for live use.

[radiophonic]

12 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

There’s an hour-long video on YouTube where they go in depth into the toneprint editor. I wonder if the classic monophonic setting is a basic toneprint template which you can edit. 

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...

[Al Krow]

On 13/11/2017 at 08:04, radiophonic said:

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). 

Hey I completely agree with what you're saying here! I get that TC SnU are saying that the mono has been modelled on analogue so that it has 'tight' i.e. minimal latency (that's great) but that it also deliberately glitches below Ab so that it mimics analogue pedals. I'm sorry, but what planet is TC on to think bass players should actually like or want glitching?!!! Why deliberately engineer a design flaw that no one wants and would be much happier if they had simply eliminated? Now it may be that you and @dood are able to eliminate these glitches on the mono setting and latency issues on the poly mode, via spending a fair bit of time on the TonePrint editor, but even so...

I think the points you make so well about the TC SnU's unedited limitations which seem to be in contrast the tightness of the tracking on the EHX Pitchfork and combined with the Pitchforks easier ability to tweak settings 'on the fly' in a live or even rehearsal situation (plus its ridiculously fun and actually usable pitch shifter) means I'm definitely having second thoughts about the TC SnU.

[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!

[Quatschmacher]

23 minutes ago, radiophonic said:

I guess there are players who like the way certain pedals fail

This is true, you can get some interesting effects by forcing the pedal to glitch by feeding it multiple notes. It can sound really cool when using distortion.