Can't believe I'm making an "Octave Pedal As Rhythm Guitar" thread...

[kevteop]

Been roped into a ska band, guitarist is singing and chopping the chords, noticed a lot of the old tunes (Toots, Desmond Dekker, etc.) have a guitar doubling the bass part note-for-note. I can still sing and play those parts but the guitarist can't (and we only have one guitarist anyway).

It's all single-note stuff. Would it be worth getting an octave up for this - any units that would work well? Maybe with a separate output for the octave signal (and any suggestions for further processing of the effect signal)?

I'm finger-picking a Jazz with flats and mutes on it, so faithful reproduction of my tone isn't required, just something that would sound a bit guitary. I'd probably spoon some reverb on to the "guitar" part.

Is this just a plain bad idea?

[Bootzilla]

Most people seem to like the electroharmonix pog. If you want some distortion/drive on the octave up you could check out the bass micro synth. It doesn't look like an obvious choice but if you only up the guitar and octave up sliders and make sure the filter is inactive you get just your clean signal with a somewhat distorted octave and you get to play around with it when your not with your band.

[paul_5]

octave up is possible via purely analogue circuitry, but not without a degree of distortion, but my brother just made one for me to do the same thing that you're hoping to do. I run mine on a loop with a blend control to keep enough bottom end. I'll ask him for the schematic if you want one...

[dannybuoy]

It might not sound totally convincing (especially when playing with flats/mutes), but a MicroPOG, Whammy or Unibass would get you there, with separate wet/dry outputs and a clean octave up.

[kevteop]

I was thinking of buying a Whammy anyway so that might be worth a try. Actually though, thinking about it, probably some of the parts will be too low for it to track.

The other option I suppose is playing the "guitar" part and synthesising an octave down but I'd feel like a berk doing that in a "trad" ska outfit.

To the other respondents: I don't think an analogue octave up would work for this - it has to be a clean sound. I've got a BMS here and the octave up on that wouldn't work, it's not "obvious" enough.

This might just be a bad idea. I'm imagining what a digital octave up's going to sound like, with no strong pick attack or any of that guitary sound about it. It'll probably just sound bad.

[Bryan R. Tyler]

Originally Posted by kevteop

I was thinking of buying a Whammy anyway so that might be worth a try. Actually though, thinking about it, probably some of the parts will be too low for it to track.

The other option I suppose is playing the "guitar" part and synthesising an octave down but I'd feel like a berk doing that in a "trad" ska outfit.

To the other respondents: I don't think an analogue octave up would work for this - it has to be a clean sound. I've got a BMS here and the octave up on that wouldn't work, it's not "obvious" enough.

This might just be a bad idea. I'm imagining what a digital octave up's going to sound like, with no strong pick attack or any of that guitary sound about it. It'll probably just sound bad.

It can sound quite good, particularly with a distortion after the octave up- here's bigchiefbc's clip using a big POG: http://1aught9.com/clips/pog-rhythm-guitar.mp3

From about 1:13 on on this Youtube clip of mine, you can hear the +1oct with a distortion mixed with clean bass:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQl0P8Ir2BI

[DosiYanarchy]

id suggest micropog for octave up, but if you want a PS3 - with expression pedal, well you know im a whore for sales

[kevteop]

Originally Posted by Bryan R. Tyler

It can sound quite good, particularly with a distortion after the octave up ... on this Youtube clip of mine, you can hear the +1oct with a distortion

You think I should use distortion on something like this?

Originally Posted by DosiYanarchy

id suggest micropog for octave up, but if you want a PS3 - with expression pedal, well you know im a whore for sales

Yeah but I've seen what you want for your PS-3

[Bryan R. Tyler]

Originally Posted by kevteop

You think I should use distortion on something like this?

Yes. Keep in mind you don't have to any kind of full-on noise- a slight distortion/overdrive will add enough thickness to widen the sound of a digital octave up which will make it sound more guitar-like.

Great song, btw. One of my old college roommates used to play Toots to the point that we wanted to kill him some days.

[groooooove]

a unibass is meant for this, and from what i understand does it really well.

a pog can do this, if you manage to find one thats not broken..

and finally, what i would use for this, a whammy. if you wanted to do +2 octaves, it wont track so perfectly. a good trick to get it to track is to put a wah before it, but if you did that, you wouldent be able to just use the wet/dry outs. if you were going to do this, you could run your bass into your bass amp, line out into wah, into whammy, into guitar amp.

or if the tracking is fine just make it simple and use the wet/dry outs.

some overdrive on the octave up signal wouldent hurt either, itll make it sound a lot more guitarded.

[troubleboy]

My plan is to go through my WOBO Looper to my micro pog (octave up), return the micro pog's dry out back to the looper >amp. Micro pog effect out > Line 6 Pod, Pod direct out > board. The dry and effected signals are kept separate, nothing but bass out of your rig, pod output fed back through the monitors,while the soundman has total control of the blend out front. With a Line 6 foot controller you can then build presets taking advantage of the pod's guitar based amp modeling,eq sections, distortion and other effects. I tried it out this weekend running through my guitar player's Line 6 amp instead of a pod, and was blown away by how good it sounded just using the clean and dirty presets he uses.

[DosiYanarchy]

Originally Posted by kevteop

Yeah but I've seen what you want for your PS-3

I just want what i paid dammit :P (i think the guy i bought it off on ebay is still trying to sell his other one)


right, i think you should get a Micropog (or my PS3 ), put it in 1 loop of an LS2, leave the other loop empty and set the LS2 to A+B MIX.

This gives you a micropog with a clean blend. Set the Micropog to just Octave up, and with it in the loop maybe have a small reverb after it maybe some sort of preamp/eq too to cut the digital top end of the micropog.

I did a similar thing but i was playing a different style, i had a delay and a Guyatone TZ2 after the octaver, and when that fuzz was on, i sounded like a band.

[kevteop]

Originally Posted by DosiYanarchy

I just want what i paid dammit :P (i think the guy i bought it off on ebay is still trying to sell his other one)

To be fair they do go for a lot (well, more than I'd want to pay), I've watched a few go on eBay. I just don't need half the features.

Originally Posted by DosiYanarchy

right, i think you should get a Micropog (or my PS3 ), put it in 1 loop of an LS2, leave the other loop empty and set the LS2 to A+B MIX.

This gives you a micropog with a clean blend. Set the Micropog to just Octave up, and with it in the loop maybe have a small reverb after it maybe some sort of preamp/eq too to cut the digital top end of the micropog.

That's the sort of thing I was thinking of. Might have to give it a try at least. The "guitar" doesn't even have to be high in the mix, it just needs to have some presence.

[uglymutt]

Originally Posted by paul_5

octave up is possible via purely analogue circuitry, but not without a degree of distortion, but my brother just made one for me to do the same thing that you're hoping to do. I run mine on a loop with a blend control to keep enough bottom end. I'll ask him for the schematic if you want one...

If you can get the schematic i'd love to have it, I was looking for something that did this and that I could make myself and voila this thread was created. Thank you

[Thunderscreech]

8-string bass.

or MicroPog.

also, you might want to consider, if you use the MicroPog, to run the dry out to your bass amp and then borrow a small-ish guitar combo and run that on the effected out, with some nice light overdrive.

[speak_onion]

Any simple octave-up should do it, I think the real key to getting it to sound convincing is to NOT blend it in with your bass signal, but to send it out to a small guitar amp.

[superbassman2000]

Originally Posted by Thunderscreech

8-string bass.

thats what i was going to suggest--i would suggest an 8 string bass because while I am sure plenty of tb'ers will argue me on this, but I have yet to hear an octave up that sounds somewhat organic (if thats a term) if you want it the octave up to sound like a guitar, then why not get an 8 string bass, put flats on the bass strings and then the octave up strings would take the place of the guitar

[speak_onion]

I briefly owned an 8-string, and i find it to sound like an 8-string bass rather than a bass and a guitar.

[bassman515]

I have a unibass and this is what it does. You get an octave up and you can even add a 5th above that note or a 4th below it. Basically, you have a clean bass sound and a distorted powerchord over the top of it...it works well, but the distortion is not the best in the world...
Jeremy

[rcubed]

Stereo/bi-amp rig!