If you could only choose one octave pedal

[Al Krow]

Guys @Quatschmacher and @CameronJ  with due respect and as much as I think you're both great guys, you've not really started to answer the question how is the v2 louder than the v1 with ALL volume settings??

The simple answer is likely to be as follows (my turn to share some basic some physics, if I may):

A volume knob is just a potentiometer i.e. a variable resistor. Using formula Volts = I (current) x R (resistance), by reducing R you increase the current.

Now here's the thing. Power measured in Watts = voltage x current

So if you increase the current you also increase the power output.

How do you increase the volume at ALL volume settings, well you either increase the voltage to allow more current through (but the v1 and v2 are both 9V) or you decrease the resistance across the board.

What I think therefore has happened is that the potentiometer resistance in the Filter / Sub circuit (which includes the Down and the Filter) has been reduced at all levels in the v2.

In other words Tom has addressed the "underpowered volume output from the Filter / Sub circuit by using a lower resistance potentiometer" or in short-hand he has addressed the "underpowered Filter/Sub" circuit.

Can we move on now?

[dannybuoy]

You do like to overcomplicate things Bas!

It's more likely that he changed a resistor value or two and kept the pots the same.

Not that it matters, who cares what was done inside, all that matters is the outcome!

[Al Krow]

18 minutes ago, dannybuoy said:

You do like to overcomplicate things Bas!

It's more likely that he changed a resistor value or two and kept the pots the same.

Not that it matters, who cares what was done inside, all that matters is the outcome!

Agreed!  

[Quatschmacher]

Seems you knew the answer all along, Bas. 😄

[Quatschmacher]

I don’t think this is wholly out of place here:

 

[radiophonic]

I've decided to bump this because (having dredged through it all and trawled YouTube) I've bought an Emma Electronics Okto Nojs. It was a toss up between this and the Octabvre Mini, but the sub squarewave fuzz option looked interesting and it seemed to nail that very synthy 'OC2' style octave down too, but with decent control over the level. Unfortunately, It's sitting in a depot awaiting collection and I now have to find a way of getting my wife to pick it up on her way to work without revealing what it is.  I'll report back once I have it installed (assuming I live to talk about it).

[Quatschmacher]

2 hours ago, radiophonic said:

I've decided to bump this because (having dredged through it all and trawled YouTube) I've bought an Emma Electronics Okto Nojs. It was a toss up between this and the Octabvre Mini, but the sub squarewave fuzz option looked interesting and it seemed to nail that very synthy 'OC2' style octave down too, but with decent control over the level. Unfortunately, It's sitting in a depot awaiting collection and I now have to find a way of getting my wife to pick it up on her way to work without revealing what it is.  I'll report back once I have it installed (assuming I live to talk about it).

It’s a great pedal. In fact I’ve just spent the last two hours playing mine. I’m sure you’ll love it. The gated fuzz in the Nøjs side is brilliant. (The only thing I’d like to see improved is the addition of separate dry knobs for each side of the pedal; there’s just one and it mixes the dry into both sides of the pedal. It means you can’t switch between a sound with dry and a sound without dry using the foot switches.)

The Octabvre Mini is also great but a different kind of vibe (more mids) and is well worth getting too.

[CameronJ]

All of the above.

[Quatschmacher]

2 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

The only thing I’d like to see improved is the addition of separate dry knobs for each side of the pedal.

Actually, a third footswitch which toggles the dry on and off would be a possible alternative. Oh, and top-mounted sockets would be welcome. 

[radiophonic]

An extra foot-switch would be pretty cramped and it's chained in between two pedals with side sockets, so I can live with that too. There are no perfect pedals*

 

* Except for the MT2 obviously

[Guest adi77]

OC3

[radiophonic]

Okto Nojs is a monster. I've been combining it with a Scrutator and a chorus for some massive synth sweeps. The bit crusher makes the gating super tight when you damp but with near infinite sustain when you don't. The only downside I can find is that it's a bit fiddly balancing the output so the pedal doesn't swamp the rest of the band as soon as you engage it. The gated fuzz is proper nasty and the octave is definitely in the right ballpark. Tracking requires some care - I suspect this is down to my technique or dead-spots though since it glitches in the same fret positions that the Sub N Up did. 

[Quatschmacher]

6 minutes ago, radiophonic said:

Okto Nojs is a monster. I've been combining it with a Scrutator and a chorus for some massive synth sweeps. The bit crusher makes the gating super tight when you damp but with near infinite sustain when you don't. The only downside I can find is that it's a bit fiddly balancing the output so the pedal doesn't swamp the rest of the band as soon as you engage it. The gated fuzz is proper nasty and the octave is definitely in the right ballpark. Tracking requires some care - I suspect this is down to my technique or dead-spots though since it glitches in the same fret positions that the Sub N Up did. 

Told you so. Get it running through an envelope-controlled filter for some real fun and kill the dry signal completely for synthy goodness. Sounds great on really low-gain settings.

Tracking is better on a neck pickup. The best I got was on a Jazz bass with a rotosound steels on it. I prefer the sound using flats though as it takes the edge off the really high sizzle. 

[radiophonic]

1 hour ago, Quatschmacher said:

Told you so. Get it running through an envelope-controlled filter for some real fun and kill the dry signal completely for synthy goodness. Sounds great on really low-gain settings.

Tracking is better on a neck pickup. The best I got was on a Jazz bass with a rotosound steels on it. I prefer the sound using flats though as it takes the edge off the really high sizzle. 

My only fretted bass is a stingray, so I'll just have to work around it! Do you run a filter after it or before? I'd assumed before. I've just picked up a DigiTech Synth Wah off the classifieds here but I'm starting to wish I hadn't sold my MXR BEF - I figured I'd never need it again, but now I'm starting to wonder. 

Edited April 6, 2018 by radiophonic

[Quatschmacher]

1 hour ago, radiophonic said:

My only fretted bass is a stingray, so I'll just have to work around it! Do you run a filter after it or before? I'd assumed before. I've just picked up a DigiTech Synth Wah off the classifieds here but I'm starting to wish I hadn't sold my MXR BEF - I figured I'd never need it again, but now I'm starting to wonder. 

With my (sadly departed) Sterling the ON didn’t respond very well at all - I had tracking problems galore. It works so much better on a P bass.

Run this before the filter, better on a low pass one (the MXR is band pass). Even better, a filter with an FX loop so that your input dynamics are fully preserved. The Wonderlove does this really well. (The EHX Q-Tron+ has a loop too as does the WMD Protostar but the Wonderlove is the only one of these that allows you to use the contents of the loop without having to have the filter switched on.)

Running it into the filter is functioning like subtractive synthesis in that the filter will remove the higher frequencies the more you turn the cutoff down. 

[radiophonic]

OK I'll have a play. I think the Octave > Filter then gets complicated with compression though, because you don't want compression ahead of a filter (duh!) but you do want compression ahead of the octave. I'm thinking about getting a cheap P-bass for this kind of stuff anyway. S/H mexican one or even a Squier. Not this month though...

[dannybuoy]

I realise your reasoning for putting compression ahead of octave is probably to make it track better, but I've found I prefer it after with a long attack time. It helps bring back the thump of the attack which is somewhat lost during the octave process. Try it both ways anyway!

[Quatschmacher]

2 hours ago, radiophonic said:

OK I'll have a play. I think the Octave > Filter then gets complicated with compression though, because you don't want compression ahead of a filter (duh!) but you do want compression ahead of the octave. I'm thinking about getting a cheap P-bass for this kind of stuff anyway. S/H mexican one or even a Squier. Not this month though...

A filter pedal with an FX loop would solve this as you could patch the FX SEND output into the compressor, the octave and into the FX return.

I’ve never used a compressor and don’t have any real tracking issues.

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, Quatschmacher said:

I’ve never used a compressor ...

Heresy. Mods @Skol303 please intervene in this heretic's bass life before his Bass Soul becomes driven to be mere Food. 

[jposega]

8 hours ago, radiophonic said:

OK I'll have a play. I think the Octave > Filter then gets complicated with compression though, because you don't want compression ahead of a filter (duh!) but you do want compression ahead of the octave. I'm thinking about getting a cheap P-bass for this kind of stuff anyway. S/H mexican one or even a Squier. Not this month though...

See, this is a common misconception. You'd have to be absolutely squashing your signal to lose all dynamics from your bass. I think most players, Tony Levin aside, prefer a more even-handed approach. I know that when I use compression on my board, I have it set for very little compression reacting to my normal playing so that it's really just smoothing out the biggest transients. With a good envelope filter, you can set the sensitivity so that it still very much reacts to your playing. My compressor is dead, otherwise, I would grab a few clips to illustrate.

[xgsjx]

I'm another who doesn't have a compressor on my board (I do use one to record).

Like jposega says, having one at the start isn'r a bad thing if you've got it set up right, though you don't have to have it squishing to limit the dynamics of what goes into an envelope filter.

I've never had any issues with tracking where I thought "Oooh, I need a compressor", though if you are having trouble, why not try a signal booster before the octaver & then don't have the octave out at full (so it's not giving too hot a signal to your filter).

[jposega]

7 minutes ago, xgsjx said:

I'm another who doesn't have a compressor on my board (I do use one to record).

Like jposega says, having one at the start isn'r a bad thing if you've got it set up right, though you don't have to have it squishing to limit the dynamics of what goes into an envelope filter.

I've never had any issues with tracking where I thought "Oooh, I need a compressor", though if you are having trouble, why not try a signal booster before the octaver & then don't have the octave out at full (so it's not giving too hot a signal to your filter).

I've never had better results running a boost into an octave pedal. If tracking is poor, it may because the octave is actually being driven too hard. I've found OC2s and their derivatives to track better with a slightly reduced input volume. That said, it also takes clean technique and finding the right setting for your tone pots so you don't feed the pedal too much string noise.

[dannybuoy]

Also where the Octabvre Mini is concerned anyway, what you run before it has a massive impact on the tone of it. Passive P straight in sounds glorious, a straight up buffer changes the tone for the worse. Somehow a Bearfoot Blueberry in front turns the thing into a sub bass monster like it was a Dod Meatbox! On the other hand, the EBS Octabass I had was a lot more consistent and wasn't fussy what was fed into it.

[GisserD]

Anybody else tried broughton audio synth voice yet?? 

I picked one up in the for sale section on here a couple of weeks ago. It tracks super low!! No glitching all the way down to low c, and Sounds fantastic! Even gets into meatbox territory subs. 

I haven't spent much time with it yet but it's a different animal to any octave I've tried. It's more focused on generating pureish sinewave like synth tones. Kinda like a oc2 but cleaner. And has the same thing at unison as well. With a clean blend. I can see it being a well used pedal in my realm. 

I decided to take the meatbox off the board as I only use it live. 

It's a bit overkill for Home practice and rehearsal which is the majority of my playing time. I'll still use it live off the board. But it will free up some space for now. 

Gotta find space for the bananana bass synth too. 

I feel a board rebuild coming on.... 

 

 

[Quatschmacher]

18 minutes ago, GisserD said:

Gotta find space for the bananana bass synth too. 

 

Well, given its size, I’m sure that won’t pose a problem.