If you could only choose one octave pedal

[Al Krow]

COG T16 v1 and v2

The COG T16 v1 has been for a little while my personal favourite octaver. I particularly liked its:
- clean blend down
- ability to play nicely with other pedal on my board
- almost complete absence of latency when tracking
- that it had a tiny footprint on my pedal board

I'd have liked it to be able to track lower before it started glitching (it handles an A on the E string fine, then starts to struggle) but when it did glitch it did so in a relative 'tidy' fashion.

The 'Filter'(sub) by itself lacked volume and when you dialled the 'Clean' knob right back the Filter/sub was pretty inaudible and you couldn't compensate by turning up the volume on your amp. The Clean was effectively acting as a volume control for the Filter/sub. But I kinda thought "so what, I'm mainly using this to fill out my sound and that clean blend octave down with almost zero latency is just great!"

In terms of dial settings my preferred setting which gave a great clean octave down and the same volume with the pedal bypassed:
Clean 5/10
Down 8/10
Filter* 6/10 (and this added a touch of 'dirt' spice to the clean) 
[* as those of you who have the T16s this is dialled in the opposite direction i.e. anti-clockwise to the Clean and Down]

They say "you don't miss what you have until it's gone". Well I guess with the T16 v1 it's turned out to be a case of "you will miss what you've never had!"... so moving onto the COG T16 v2. I'd say there were two key differences:

First of all this thing is just LOUDER! If you want to use this thing as a pre-amp boost, believe, me it will work! Dialling in my fav v1 octave down tone on the v2 is as follows:
Clean 2/10
Down 5/10
Filter 2/10

The second big difference is that Clean is no longer the de-facto volume control for the Filter, the Down is. So it's now possible to dial-off the Clean entirely and get a pure 'subby' sound using the Down and Filter; the timbre of that subby sound will be controlled by the Filter and the volume by the Down. The timbre range includes the much loved fat Boss OC2 sub tone. As an analog pedal, the T16 v2 could, in some ways, be said to be the 'spiritual heir' to the OC2 in a way that its actual successor, the digital Boss OC3, never quite managed to pull off, or indeed the T16 v1 didn't either due to the lack of volume when the Filter was engaged without the Clean.

So after my initial shock at: wow this is a different little beast(!), I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that Tom George at COG has just taken his superb little pedal in the shape of the T16 v1 and made it even better.

Edited February 17, 2018 by Al Krow

[dannybuoy]

I sold my T16 primarily because I could not get it to sound anything like an OC-2!

[Al Krow]

29 minutes ago, dannybuoy said:

I sold my T16 primarily because I could not get it to sound anything like an OC-2!

Was it the v1 or the v2 you sold on? If was the v2 you moved on, did you by any chance sell it to one of our fellow BCers who has now passed it on to me?! Lol! 

I think the v2 on pure Filter now gets pretty close to the OC2 (albeit based on others' YouTube postings) and also has a slightly wider range of tonal colour. Obviously I agree that they won't be identical.

Do you still have your OC2 and did you A/B that with the v2 T16?

 

[dodge_bass]

I’ve got a T16 v1 and to be honest was pretty annoyed to find all the little issues that you outlined above. I’d love a version 2 but don’t really feel like paying out more cash....maybe he should offer a feee exchange?! 

[Al Krow]

11 minutes ago, dodge_bass said:

....maybe he should offer a feee exchange?! 

I suspect Tom will be more than open to the suggestion of swapping for a fee(e)  

But more seriously, you're right to call this out as being a design flaw he's corrected (and one that should have been picked up in quality control before the v1s were sold to the public) so I agree it would be 'the decent thing' to do at least offer some form of 'upgrade' programme, but he'd obviously only want to be offering to folk who bought the v1 new from him in the first place (which is fair enough).

[Quatschmacher]

I’d like to try this new version. I loved the sound of the original but the two issues I had were the low octave down output (now fixed) and poor tracking on my bass (though Tom suggested some components could be altered if one were handy with a soldering iron).

[dodge_bass]

9 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

I suspect Tom will be more than open to the suggestion of swapping for a fee(e)  

But more seriously, you're right to call this out as being a design flaw he's corrected (and one that should have been picked up in quality control before the v1s were sold to the public) so I agree it would be 'the decent thing' to do at least offer some form of 'upgrade' programme, but he'd obviously only want to be offering to folk who bought the v1 new from him in the first place (which is fair enough).

Actually I meant to write free but my large bass playing thumbs once again got the better of me...

Actually I’d be happy to pay a small fee to get it upgraded to V2 as it is a great sounding pedal just not quite useable as it currently stands. 

Maybe i’ll email him...! 

[Quatschmacher]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

The 'Filter'(sub) by itself lacked volume

It’s not the filter which lacks volume, it’s the sub octave output which was of low volume. The low pass filter simply removes the high frequencies from the octave down signal, gradually removing frequencies lower and lower as you apply it. 

 

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

The second big difference is that Clean is no longer the de-facto volume control for the Filter

Again, this is misleading. In the original pedal, turning up the clean was simply adding some more audible frequencies in (i.e. your bass’s clean signal). In one sense, they may have been the “same” frequencies that the filter removed (numerically speaking, eg, 100Hz) but not the “same” in the sense of coming from the same source signal. The filter only removes frequencies from the octave down signal, whereas you were adding frequencies from the clean signal. 

Edited February 17, 2018 by Quatschmacher

[Quatschmacher]

For reference:

 

[Quatschmacher]

For furthermore clarification, VOLUME is amplitude of the waveform, that is the height of the peaks and troughs (vertical distance). (Frequency is the number of times the waveform repeats per second, and is intimately related to the horizontal distance between two adjacent peaks.)

Higher harmonics are naturally at a lower volume compared to the fundamental. So by turning down the VOLUME knob you will  get to a point where some of those high frequencies become inaudible.

By contrast, a low pass filter REMOVES the higher frequencies ALTOGETHER, but leaves the lower frequencies intact (their volume remains unaltered).

Since extreme low frequencies are difficult to hear anyway you might PERCEIVE the applying of a low pass filter as a reduction in volume (as the higher, more audible frequencies are gradually removed) but that’s not what’s actually happening as it is not modifying the amplitude of the fundamental waveform.

I can understand how you’ve conflated these two phenomena, after all, the end result is that the audible frequencies become inaudible. However, the reasons why that is so is different in both scenarios - low amplitude versus not being present due to having been filtered out altogether.

I hope that makes sense. 

Edited February 17, 2018 by Quatschmacher

[dannybuoy]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

Was it the v1 or the v2 you sold on? If was the v2 you moved on, did you by any chance sell it to one of our fellow BCers who has now passed it on to me?! Lol! 

I think the v2 on pure Filter now gets pretty close to the OC2 (albeit based on others' YouTube postings) and also has a slightly wider range of tonal colour. Obviously I agree that they won't be identical.

Do you still have your OC2 and did you A/B that with the v2 T16?

 

I'm sure this has been hashed out already in this thread, but I had a T16 v1. I sold my OC-2 a while back so could not A/B them but I was very familiar with the soloed octave tone. The T16 could vary between a subby or a raspy tone, but nowhere in the middle could I conjure up that familiar sound, until I plugged in an Octabvre Mini instead! To me the difference was like night and day, especially with fast staccato playing. The OC-2 / Octabvre are just way punchier with more attack and more mids.

[Quatschmacher]

3 minutes ago, dannybuoy said:

I'm sure this has been hashed out already in this thread, but I had a T16 v1. I sold my OC-2 a while back so could not A/B them but I was very familiar with the soloed octave tone. The T16 could vary between a subby or a raspy tone, but nowhere in the middle could I conjure up that familiar sound, until I plugged in an Octabvre Mini instead! To me the difference was like night and day, especially with fast staccato playing. The OC-2 / Octabvre are just way punchier with more attack and more mids.

Yup, Octabvre nails it. 

[Al Krow]

19 minutes ago, dannybuoy said:

I'm sure this has been hashed out already in this thread, but I had a T16 v1. I sold my OC-2 a while back so could not A/B them but I was very familiar with the soloed octave tone. The T16 could vary between a subby or a raspy tone, but nowhere in the middle could I conjure up that familiar sound, until I plugged in an Octabvre Mini instead! To me the difference was like night and day, especially with fast staccato playing. The OC-2 / Octabvre are just way punchier with more attack and more mids.

Ah in which case we're a little at cross purposes.

The T16 v1 doesn't come close to OC2 not least because the Filter/sub can't really be heard without the Clean. 

The T16 v2 is a somewhat different beast.

[Al Krow]

26 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

For furthermore clarification, VOLUME is amplitude of the waveform, that is the height of the peaks and troughs (vertical distance). (Frequency is the number of times the waveform repeats per second, and is intimately related to the horizontal distance between two adjacent peaks.)

Higher harmonics are naturally at a lower volume compared to the fundamental. So by turning down the VOLUME knob you will  get to a point where some of those high frequencies become inaudible.

By contrast, a low pass filter REMOVES the higher frequencies ALTOGETHER, but leaves the lower frequencies intact (their volume remains unaltered).

Since extreme low frequencies are difficult to hear anyway you might PERCEIVE the applying of a low pass filter as a reduction in volume (as the higher, more audible frequencies are gradually removed) but that’s not what’s actually happening as it is not modifying the amplitude of the fundamental waveform.

I can understand how you’ve conflated these two phenomena, after all, the end result is that the audible frequencies become inaudible. However, the reasons why that is so is different in both scenarios - low amplitude versus not being present due to having been filtered out altogether.

I hope that makes sense. 

That does all sound very brainy, Q.

So for the 'lower beings' amongst us   it would be good if you could clarify:

a) exactly what was going on in v1 that meant we couldn't really hear anything with just the Filter/sub on at any setting (without any Clean) that has now been corrected in v2?

b) how is it that 'Down' on T16 v2 seems to control the volume of the Filter/sub in a way that it wasn't doing before i.e. what has Tom George done to rectify the problem?

I appreciate you will be hypothesising given that you haven't actually owned a v2 yet...

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, dodge_bass said:

Actually I meant to write free but my large bass playing thumbs once again got the better of me...

Actually I’d be happy to pay a small fee to get it upgraded to V2 as it is a great sounding pedal just not quite useable as it currently stands. 

Maybe i’ll email him...! 

I know, I was just teasing

You should! I suspect you may not get a response - as with any product recall it won't be cheap for COG. But it would be very interesting to see what he says, particularly if you bought one new from him.

Btw I completely agree, that even with its flaws (now rectified), the v1 is a great sounding pedal and for me still the one I would have on my board if the v2 hadn't come along i.e. my top 3 octavers would be:

1. COG T16 v2

2. COG T16 v1

3. One of the others (probably the Aggie Octamizer) 

I appreciate that is purely personal preference!

[dannybuoy]

13 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Ah in which case we're a little at cross purposes.

The T16 v1 doesn't come close to OC2 not least because the Filter/sub can't really be heard without the Clean. 

The T16 v2 is a somewhat different beast.

I didn't think v1 and v2 were that different, just more volume on tap in v2?

I have heard a complaint mentioned that v1 still leaked a bit of clean sound through with the clean volume at minimum, is this fixed in v2 also? I never noticed this issue in my v1 though so it must have been pretty minor and therefore unlikely to affect my opinion.

[Al Krow]

Hey DB,

In terms of how similar v1 and v2 are; well clearly they have the same layout and knobs etc. But Tom has taken the circuitry being used in the T47 and T65 for the v2 so it is a different circuit to that used in the v1, so maybe there's a bit more going on than just additional volume? I don't have any further insight than that.

The following is quite a good clip of v1. (There doesn't appear to be anything uploaded on the v2 yet)

My fav setting was 'clean blend octave down' which is pretty much what is showing at 1.00 to 1.07; he then goes on to turn the Clean right down from 1.10 to 1.25 which is what I think you're asking about. Let me know if you can hear any 'clean leakage' / point it out to me and I'll see if I can hear anything similar on v2? (I suspect the answer will, in any event, be 'no' on v2 because any small clean leakage will likely be completely subsumed in the much louder volume of the 'pure' Filter/sub available in v2) 

 

 

[Quatschmacher]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

a) exactly what was going on in v1 that meant we couldn't really hear anything with just the Filter/sub on at any setting (without any Clean) that has now been corrected in v2?

If the low pass filter is fully (or almost) fully closed then you’re only letting frequencies probably around 20-40Hz through (bass A string is 55Hz). Those close to 20Hz are around the limit of human hearing so if their amplitude (volume) is low, as were ALL frequencies in Down signal of the V1, then you’ll struggle to hear them. (Volume can be also thought of as proportional to the back-and-forth distance your speaker cone moves; small back-and-forth movement equals lower volume as the air isn’t being pushed as hard. Frequency is how many of those back-and-forth motions happen per second.)

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

b) how is it that 'Down' on T16 v2 seems to control the volume of the Filter/sub in a way that it wasn't doing before i.e. what has Tom George done to rectify the problem?

Can you shoot a video clip of this happening?

The volume (amplitude) of ALL frequencies in the Down signal has been boosted, hence when you roll in the filter, thus stripping out the higher frequencies, the remaining lower frequencies are at a louder and more audible level (ie have a bigger amplitude) than they were on the V1.

In simple terms, the Down signal is louder/hotter.

Low frequencies at the edge of human hearing are difficult to hear unless they are given a bigger amplitude.

Edited February 17, 2018 by Quatschmacher

[Quatschmacher]

There’s an analogy in visual motion:

imagine a pendulum swinging at a low frequency (say twice per second). If it’s only moving a short distance (a few millimetres) you would probably not see this easily. Moving a short distance is the equivalent of low volume (ie the amplitude of the pendulum’s swing is low). If it were moving at a frequency of twice per second but covering a distance of a metre in that time then you’d definitely be able to see that. That is analogous to higher volume as the amplitude of the pendulum’s swing is large. 

[Al Krow]

Hmmm.

I'm not so sure. 

You've owned a T16 v1, right? So you're familiar with the three knobs: 'Clean', 'Down', 'Filter'. 

Instead of a video - here's the settings and outputs (range = 0 to 10)

Version 1

At Clean = 0 You can fiddle about all you like with Down and Filter knobs but pretty much nothing can be heard coming out the pedal.

As Clean is dialled up the dry element and volume increases. So clean = 5 Down = 0 (Filter whatever you like) is just a dry signal

At Clean = 5, Down = 8 you can hear the octave down very well plus dry what I've termed 'clean blend down'. On this setting adjusting the Filter changes the timbre of the sub and it becomes 'grittier' as this is dialled up.

Version 2

Louder at ALL settings.

Clean at 2/10 on v2 = Clean at 5/10 on v1

With Clean = 0 and Down = 0 (virtually) no output from the pedal 

BUT Clean = 0 Now increasing Down from 1 to 10 the volume of the sub increases

At a given Down dial setting, the Filter changes the tone going from clean to more broken.

Key changes

As stated in my review above.

1. v2 is Louder than v1 at all settings

2. the volume on a given Filter dial setting is now governed by the 'Down' and no longer by the 'Clean'

So Q, I know you (and Cam) want precise terminology in relation to Filters here but in simple bass player speak in v1 the output from the 'pure' Filter/sub has a much lower and inaudible volume as compared to v2.

Most bass players equate, in simple terms, volume with power output so I think describing it as an "underpowered Filter/sub" on the v1 pedal is just a useful shorthand to capture the issue (to set along side 4 hours of songs we need to learn!) and no more than that. It's not meant to be a treatise on the operation of filters. If there is way of expressing what is going on with the T16 v1 in a short phrase that both communicates the issue pithily and that is also accurate from an electronic engineer's perspective then please do formulate. 

[dannybuoy]

Version 1

At Clean = 0 You can fiddle about all you like with Down and Filter knobs but pretty much nothing can be heard coming out the pedal

Not on my v1 (and I had a very early version), maybe yours was broken or built wrong! The volume of the sub channel soloed could have done with being a little louder, but it was still plenty loud enough to be heard:

[CameronJ]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

If there is way of expressing what is going on with the T16 v1 in a short phrase that both communicates the issue pithily and that is also accurate from an electronic engineer's perspective then please do formulate. 

Yes - the max gain available from the octave down circuit on V1 was a bit low. This has been addressed in V2.

 

From COG themselves:

[Quatschmacher]

If you reread you’ll see that, in part, we’re saying the same thing:

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

1. v2 is Louder than v1 at all settings

 

… which is why you can now hear the lower frequencies when you’ve got the filter almost fully closed on the V2 (and the clean signal turned off) - because those frequencies are now physically louder on the Down signal than they were on the V1.

 

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

2. the volume on a given Filter dial setting is now governed by the 'Down' and no longer by the 'Clean

No. As before, overall output volume is governed by both volume knobs, just that on the new version, the Down knob has more volume available.

On the V1, the only way you could hear (for example) 30Hz at a high enough volume was by dialling in the clean signal. This was because 30Hz on the Down signal didn’t have the same (maximum) volume as 30Hz on the clean signal in actual dB terms.

On the revised model it’s most likely the other way round now (i.e. that the output of the Down signal is higher than the clean at any given frequency). Hence now, 30Hz becomes audible at lower clock position of the Down knob. This is why you describe it as “being governed by” that knob now.

 

Edited February 18, 2018 by Quatschmacher

[Quatschmacher]

27 minutes ago, CameronJ said:

Yes - the max gain available from the octave down circuit on V1 was a bit low. This has been addressed in V2.

 

From COG themselves:

I feel like I’m in Groundhog Day!

[Quatschmacher]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Version 1

At Clean = 0 You can fiddle about all you like with Down and Filter knobs but pretty much nothing can be heard coming out the pedal.

If that was indeed the case then your pedal was defective. With the clean signal off and the filter fully open, the Down knob should produce audible results very quickly when dialling it up from zero as no frequencies are being filtered out.

However, if the clean is off and the filter is fully closed then you’d not hear very much when turning up the Down knob. This is because only the very lowest frequencies are being allowed through and, on the V1, these didn’t have a high enough output volume to be audible.

Edited February 18, 2018 by Quatschmacher