Boss OC-5 Octave!!!!

[Hellzero]

I've watched and especially listened with headphones the video above. This is a winner as everything is working the way it's supposed to do on this OC-5 and, frankly, who cares if it's analogue or digital as long as it's good. The OC-2 mode, to me, sounds better than the original one from the 80's which has a tendency to be idiosyncratic (could be fun, but not for those asking for permanent reliability for their sound). And the tracking is just amazing, try an original one and you'll understand within the first minute.

So, when it's available in a few days, I'll buy one as I'm a bit fed up by those geeky better sounding original Japanese ones with their aging components loosing their values and turning your investment into a nightmare when it starts f*cking up.

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, Hellzero said:

I've watched and especially listened with headphones the video above. This is a winner as everything is working the way it's supposed to do on this OC-5 and, frankly, who cares if it's analogue or digital as long as it's good. The OC-2 mode, to me, sounds better than the original one from the 80's which has a tendency to be idiosyncratic (could be fun, but not for those asking for permanent reliability for their sound). And the tracking is just amazing, try an original one and you'll understand within the first minute.

So, when it's available in a few days, I'll buy one as I'm a bit fed up by those geeky better sounding original Japanese ones with their aging components loosing their values and turning your investment into a nightmare when it starts f*cking up.

So £300+ for a 3Leaf Octabvre Mk3 - key selling point that it does the OC2 thing very well and with better tracking, but singularly failed to include an octave up, despite promises that it would or £119 for an OC-5 which does the OC2 thing very well and with better tracking and with octave up. Hmmm...I wonder which one is going to outsell? 😁

[Quatschmacher]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

So £300+ for a 3Leaf Octabvre Mk3 - key selling point that it does the OC2 thing very well and with better tracking, but singularly failed to include an octave up, despite promises that it would or £119 for an OC-5 which does the OC2 thing very well and with better tracking and with octave up. Hmmm...I wonder which one is going to outsell? 😁

Bit harsh on the 3-leaf octave up front. Pretty sure I shared the reasons why that didn’t come to fruition with you a few weeks ago.

Boss does look good value. Easier to do when you are a mega corporation. 

[Al Krow]

24 minutes ago, Quatschmacher said:

Bit harsh on the 3-leaf octave up front. Pretty sure I shared the reasons why that didn’t come to fruition with you a few weeks ago.

Boss does look good value. Easier to do when you are a mega corporation. 

Not really harsh - his "big" thing was going to be the octave up, wasn't it? In the end, not too much has changed on Mk3 and it's left a lot of his fan base a little disappointed.

Don't always have to be a mega corp to deliver good value, although I agree it can help. The most faithful OC-2 clone IMO is the Valeton OC-10 which is even better value - not sure we would regard them as a mega corp either? Besides mega corps have a LOT more mouths to feed, property rental costs etc. etc. 

I think the OC-5 is going to put a lot of pressure on boutique OC2 clones who's key selling point for charging £££'s was you get an OC-2 but better. 

Edited September 23, 2020 by Al Krow

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited March 8, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[Quatschmacher]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Not really harsh - his "big" thing was going to be the octave up, wasn't it?

It was way more than that - a Doom/Octabvre combination box with lots of routing and switching options. He ran into noise problems which took months of troubleshooting - translation big losses for a small company in sales and time. He said it may still come about, won’t be cheap though. 

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, Quatschmacher said:

It was way more than that - a Doom/Octabvre combination box with lots of routing and switching options. 

Yeh something like that (with an octave up) would be pretty neat! Kinda reminds me of some of the pedals that Tom at COG was doing half a decade ago... 

[lee650]

On 22/09/2020 at 15:06, Quatschmacher said:

Still can’t ascertain whether vintage mode is actually analogue or not. From the video it seemed more immediate, poly mode sounded like there was a bit of latency which you could hear when he played a blend of wet and dry. 

Pretty decent price if it does the OC-2 thing properly and better. Octave up would be welcome. Still feel a dry kill switch would have been a good thing to add.

I’m certainly curious enough to try one. 

Yeah a dry kill switch would certainly make this a killer

Jonathan mentions in the review, that he wondered if the vintage mode was Analog while the poly was digital. Is that at all possible?

Id have thought that Roland would've made a point of mentioning it, if that were the case.

Jonathon does mention thst both modes sounded different and vintage was more "gloopy" I'm very interested in this pedal!

Edited September 23, 2020 by lee650

[Elfrasho]

That actually sounds excellent! 

[stewblack]

 I'm sold. One of the very best pedal reviews I've ever seen. I really like and use octave /pitch shifting both for messing and gigging. 

I've been through a ton of them (including some highly regarded) before settling on what I like. But this looks like it's versatile enough to compliment and work with my current line up. 

Very very interesting. 

[0175westwood29]

On 22/09/2020 at 15:13, skej21 said:

Confirmed my suspicions... all that OC-2 character has just been killed off with the "fixed" tracking

then its simple, go out and find an Oc-2 if they had created it with the same Oc-2 tracking people would complain this is a very cool update to a classic.

[Doddy]

On 23/09/2020 at 10:47, Al Krow said:

So £300+ for a 3Leaf Octabvre Mk3 - key selling point that it does the OC2 thing very well and with better tracking, but singularly failed to include an octave up, despite promises that it would or £119 for an OC-5 which does the OC2 thing very well and with better tracking and with octave up. Hmmm...I wonder which one is going to outsell? 😁

The Boss will obviously outsell the 3 Leaf. I reckon that the OC3 outsold it too, by a big margin. You're comparing a big company who's pedals are available everywhere to a small business that is more specialist. I think that the Octabvre is possibly the best octave pedal on the market, and is worth the price. The OC5 seems cool in that review though- It sounds better than other digital octave pedals,to me. 

[MDWagstaff]

I've placed my pre-order via Andertons. I've used to have an OC3 before having to sell it a few years ago and have always wanted an oc2 which this seems to do a pretty good job of replicating. I am excited for it to arrive at the end of October! 

[Baloney Balderdash]

Interesting, definitely.

But unusable to me, since what I use an octaver for it mimicking an 8 string "octave" bass effect, with pairs of respectively bass and octave strings, and the polyphonic octave up on this pedal is just way too synthy, to my ears even more so than the octave up on the EHX POG pedals, which also have that slight organ or synth like vibe to it.

Which leaves me at, to my knowledge, the currently absolute best pedal on the market to do that kind of thing, namely the TC Electronic Sub'N'Up, in my case the Mini version, which default polyphonic octave up tone already is more natural sounding than say the POG octave up, and that with some additional quite specific EQ tweaking of the octave engine dry input signal as well as the output octave tone, which the Toneprint editor feature allows for, it is actually possible to remove as good as all odd digital artifacts, and get as close as it is even possible to a natural sounding tone with a signal that is pitched up a whole octave (without further modeling at least, just the basic digital polyphonic octave up function. Would love a bass to guitar emulating version of something like the EHX BASS9 guitar to bass emulation pedal).

Also if what I wanted was the classic OC-2 analog octave down synth tone I would properly get the real one or a good clone, as, as some has already pointed out, the warpling, not perfect tracking, artifact that the OC-5 doesn't seem to have, unlike the original OC-2, kind of is part of that classic tone. 

Otherwise it look like a great pedal.

But yeah, if you want to emulate an 8 string bass kind of thing, nothing currently on the market beats the TC Electronic Sub'N'Up, especially if you know how to use the Toneprint editor and how to EQ properly, and if you want the authentic classic OC-2 octave down synth tone the real thing would still probably be the way to go as far as I am concerned. 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[Al Krow]

2 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

But yeah, if you want to emulate an 8 string bass kind of thing, nothing currently on the market beats the TC Electronic Sub'N'Up, especially if you know how to use the Toneprint editor and how to EQ properly, and if you want the authentic classic OC-2 octave down synth tone, the real thing would still be the way to go as far as I am concerned. 

Or if, like me, you can't be ars*d to use a PC to do Toneprint editing, but prefer the immediacy of dials and want something that sounds at least as authentic (IMO even better!) as a faux 8 string as the TC...

... then get a Digitech Mosaic (or it's even more featured sibling, the Ricochet).

[Baloney Balderdash]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Or if, like me, you can't be ars*d to use a PC to do Toneprint editing, but prefer the immediacy of dials and want something that sounds at least as authentic (IMO even better!) as a faux 8 string as the TC...

... then get a Digitech Mosaic (or it's even more featured sibling, the Ricochet).

It didn't to me.

I actually originally bought the Digitech Ricochet to do this job, but I didn't like how it sounded, though the biggest issue with it to me, which was actually determining for why I ended up returning the Ricochet and getting the Sub'N'Up Mini instead (in return also discovering that the stock 1 octave up sounding better and more naturally, and how EQ'ing helped getting it to sound even more realistic), was the tracking being considerably worse compared to the Sub'n'Up's, in my experience, effectively completely flawless tracking, as well as the latency of the Ricochet being quite noticeable (the Sub'N'Up got this same problem with it's octave down effect, but since I don't use that it's not an actual issue for me, and the octave up effect that I actually use having basically unnoticeable latency). 

In my experience there is no way around EQ'ing either the input or output of a signal digitally pitched up 1 whole octave, and ideally both, if you want it to sound as realistic as possible and get rid of the odd and quite obvious digital artifacts that this kind of processing seemingly inevitably will result in, which the Sub'N'Up offers an easy solution to, without need of complicating your routing and need of extra added pedals.

Your experience obvious tells you differently, though I don't quite understand how it possibly can.

You apparently not actually having tried the Sub'N'Up using the right settings in the Toneprint editor could possibly partially explain why though. 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[stewblack]

On 23/09/2020 at 09:41, Hellzero said:

frankly, who cares if it's analogue or digital as long as it's good

Have to say this echoes my sentiments precisely. If people who care about the difference can't tell the difference, then surely it doesn't matter. 

[Al Krow]

32 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Your experience obvious tells you differently, though I don't quite understand how it possibly can.

You apparently not actually having tried the Sub'N'Up using the right settings in the Toneprint editor could explain why though. 

Yes that is almost certainly correct! 

Fyi - I have only tried the Mosaic not the Ricochet. It is possible they are using different engines - I had assumed that they were the same octave up circuit. The Ricochet does a lot more than the Mosaic, which is a one trick pony. It just does that trick remarkably well!

I posted a couple of clips a while back, one of the Mosaic and one of an actual 8 string. A lot of BCers thought the Mosaic did a very decent job and some even thought the Mosaic was the 8 string! 

[Baloney Balderdash]

47 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Yes that is almost certainly correct! 

Fyi - I have only tried the Mosaic not the Ricochet. It is possible they are using different engines - I had assumed that they were the same octave up circuit. The Ricochet does a lot more than the Mosaic, which is a one trick pony. It just does that trick remarkably well!

I posted a couple of clips a while back, one of the Mosaic and one of an actual 8 string. A lot of BCers thought the Mosaic did a very decent job and some even thought the Mosaic was the 8 string! 

You might be right, I think it is actually a quite alluring thought and plausible that Digitech did something additionally to the circuit of the Mosaic, like for instance somehow EQ'ing the input signal to the octave engine and the output of the pitched up signal, to sound more naturally and realistically as real struck guitar/bass strings, since it is specifically marketed as emulating a 12 string guitar, unlike the Ricochet, which is supposed to essentially function as a classic but expression-pedal-less Whammy pedal.  

Otherwise I wouldn't be able to really explain our different experiences, except for perhaps the general fact that everybopdy's senses and perception of what they pick up doesn't work exactly the same.  

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[Doddy]

I've got both the Whammy Ricochet and the TC Sub n Up, and I think much prefer the Whammy. I think it sounds and tracks better, especially in the upper octave. I can get a good faux organ type sound out of of the TC, but it's still my least used octave pedal.

[Baloney Balderdash]

21 minutes ago, Doddy said:

I've got both the Whammy Ricochet and the TC Sub n Up, and I think much prefer the Whammy. I think it sounds and tracks better, especially in the upper octave. I can get a good faux organ type sound out of of the TC, but it's still my least used octave pedal.

Truly strange that two people can perceive something that ought to be relatively objective so differently. 

Totally diametrally opposite to my experience with those two units.

I wonder if the Ricochet I got was somewhat faulty, though that still wouldn't explain why to me the default polyphonic octave up effect of the Sub'N'Up is about as natural sounding as pitching up your signal a whole octave without EQ'ing gets, and that with some very specific EQ'ing, via the Toneprint editor, you can get extremely close to a realistic real 8 string bass effect.

Especially the attack, which is what goes wrong with most octave up effects, to me seems quite natural on the Sub'N'Up.

I can't believe you don't hear those odd digital artifacts that I would think you would get, with the Richochet too, from the most upper frequencies of your signal being pitched up as well.

Also the tracking is absolutely perfect using my bass and my Sub'N'Up Mini, so have no idea how the Richochet could possibly do that better, my unit certainly didn't, in fact quite on the contrary. 

 

We almost ought to do a recording each and post a thread together with a poll to get this settled, cause I have a hard time wrapping my head around this mystery. 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[Al Krow]

26 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

We almost ought to do a recording each and post a thread together with a poll to get this settled, cause I have a hard time wrapping my head around this mystery. 

Here you go - my Digitech Mosaic recordings at the start of this thread:

Look forward to hearing the TC Sub'N'Up.

[HazBeen]

Hmmm, if it does a close OC2 synth +1 oct only I am buying this. Tracking is amazing.

[Doddy]

4 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Truly strange that two people can perceive something that ought to be relatively objective so differently. 

Totally diametrally opposite to my experience with those two units

It's not that strange,  we're just hearing things differently.

I'll be honest, I'm not really a fan of digital octave pedals but to do the octave up thing, it's the only way to go. To me, no octave up pedal sounds natural  but for what I want I prefer the Digitech, especially when I run it through a Muff style fuzz to get a fake guitar sound. You mention using the toneprint editor to play with the EQ- I think the toneprint idea is great, but I don't want the hassle of plugging a pedal into a computer and searching for sounds. I want to be able to turn a couple of knobs on the pedal and get the sounds I want, especially on stage. So for me, I can get the sound I want quicker and easier on the Ricochet.

[Baloney Balderdash]

34 minutes ago, Doddy said:

It's not that strange,  we're just hearing things differently.

I'll be honest, I'm not really a fan of digital octave pedals but to do the octave up thing, it's the only way to go. To me, no octave up pedal sounds natural  but for what I want I prefer the Digitech, especially when I run it through a Muff style fuzz to get a fake guitar sound. You mention using the toneprint editor to play with the EQ- I think the toneprint idea is great, but I don't want the hassle of plugging a pedal into a computer and searching for sounds. I want to be able to turn a couple of knobs on the pedal and get the sounds I want, especially on stage. So for me, I can get the sound I want quicker and easier on the Ricochet.

 

Quote

"...To me, no octave up pedal sounds natural..."

 

Kind of my point with writing:

Quote

"...about as natural sounding as pitching up your signal a whole octave without EQ'ing gets..."

 

As for the rest I guess that is fair enough, to each their own.

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash