The HOG is a little bit of a different beast from the POG. There are a lot more sliders on it and it acts a little differently for the octaved notes. There's also an expression pedal input, a controller board input, and a midi input built in as well as the regular guitar/bass inputs, and direct/effected outputs. There are also envelope and fitler settings, as well as expression pedal settings and a "spectral gate". This pedal runs off of 9volts, but will only work with the included power supply (I've tried it with a 1Spot as well as a boss power supply, and neither worked) which runs at 9V and 500mA which is kind of annoying.
First, an explanation of what the heck this pedal does:
Bypass Switch: If you don't know what this does, you probably shouldn't be here... (
AFAIK it's not TBP)
Exp. Button - a simple expression button if you don't want an extra expression pedal on your board. Simple button up = heel down, button down = toe down, functionality.
Envelope - turns on and off the functionality of the envelope section explained below.
Input Section:
Input Gain - instead of an internal trim knob like on other infamous EHX pedals, they decided to make a slider for this pedal. According to the manual, you should have the gain to the point that the clip light goes off on only your loudest notes. At extreme settings you can get a fairly dirty signal coming out, not sure if this is okay for the pedal to run at high gain settings for extended periods of time.
Dry Output - controls the volume of your dry signal, from nothing all the way to unity, affected by the input gain slider.
Octave Section: (all sliders affected by the input gain slider)
-2 Octave - plays a note 2 octaves below
-1 Octave - plays a note 1 octave below
Original - note that this is not the same as your dry signal, as it is affected by the filter section.
+5th - plays a note one fifth (.5 octaves) higher
+1 Octave - plays a note 1 octave higher
+1 Octave + 5th - plays a note an octave and a fifth (1.5 octaves) higher
+2 Octaves - plays a note 2 octaves higher
+2 Octaves + 3rd - plays a note 2 octaves and a third (2.3 octaves) higher
+3 Octaves - plays a note 3 octaves higher
+4 octaves - plays a note 4 octaves higher
Envelope Section:
There are two sliders, one for upper and one for lower. There is a detent at the center of both sliders. Above the detent, the octave section notes decay faster. Below the detent, the notes swell in at a slower rate.
Filter section:
Frequency - controls the frequency that the filter lets pass through. I'm not sure what the minimum and maximum frequencies are.
Resonance - sets the resonance of the filter, from nothing at all to screechy echo-y doom.
Spectral Gate - it's a gate...thing... The manual doesn't explain it very well (IMHO) but it seems to take out some of the frequencies of the octaved notes.
Expression Reverse - reverses the direction or function of the expression pedal.
Expression Modes:
Octave Bend - bends the note up one octave at toe down position. In reverse expression mode, it bends up one octave in heel down position. The full travel of the expression pedal is playable.
Step Bend - bends up one step (G to G#, or F to F#, etc) in toe up position. In reverse expression mode, it does the same in heel down position. The full travel of the expression pedal is playable if you want to play slightly detuned.
Volume - fades in the volume of the octaved notes all the way to their volume settings on their individual sliders. In reverse expression mode, the volumes are increased as you near heel down position.
Freeze + Gliss - This is a very cool mode. At heel down, the pedal is in "listening" mode and will look for a note signal to track and play. Putting the pedal into toe up, or anywhere past heel down will put it into freeze mode, where whatever note(s) you were playing in "listening" mode will be repeated ad infinitum. Playing a note or notes over the frozen mode will only work if you have the dry input slider up, otherwise nothing will happen. BUT, if you have the dry input slider off and play a note and then go back to heel down position and and back up to toe down position, the pedal will blend the two notes together incrementally and end up just playing the new "heard" note. In reverse expression mode, the settings for toe up and heel down are switched. Very cool and fun stuff!
Freeze + Vol - The same as freeze and gliss mode, but instead of blending the notes together, it goes to no volume at heel down (listening mode) and up to the set volume at toe down where it will play the "heard" note ad infinitum. In expression reverse mode, the settings for toe up and heel down are switched.
Wah Wah - sounds like a wah pedal... kind of. Affected by the Filter section sliders. In expression reverse mode, the travel of the wah pedal works in reverse.
Filter - controls the opening and closing of the filter with the highest frequency set by the frequency slider as the set toe down position. if the Frequency slider is all the way down, this setting does nothing. In reverse expression mode, the highest frequency setting is achieved in heel down position.
Unfortunately, this pedal cannot switch between the ever popular whammy settings like +1 oct / +5th, or anything like that. You can get another humongous companion pedal for this one and store presets into it, but I have neither the money or inclination to do so with my pedal.
many of the modes are useful, but +3 and +4 octaves sound really funny on bass, or maybe it's just on my bass. This thing can get a really cool organ sound as well, just like its baby brother the POG.
Here's some sound clips:
This was recorded with my MIM Fender J, through the H.O.G. then through a Rockman Bass Ace without any of the EQ settings engaged, and then direct into Garage Band.
Original signal for reference Reference for the Filter section. Same riff played over and over and over again. First with resonance full, and frequency high, mid, then low. Then with resonance mid, and frequency high, mid, and low. Lastly with resonance low, and frequency high, mid, and low.
+3 and +4 octave reference. +3 Octaves first, then +4 Octaves. These sound really tinny and high on my bass. Makes me wonder how funny they'd sound on guitar...
Spectral Gate reference. Dry Signal, -1 Octave, and +1 Octave used, Frequency set to maximum. First spectral gate off and then on.
Expression pedal settings References. First Octave Bend, then Step Bend, then Volume, then Freeze + Gliss, then Freeze + Vol, then Wah Wah, then Filter. Various octave settings used.
Finally, my favorite organ sound. Dry Sound, -2, _1, original, +5th, +1, +1.5, +2 octaves on full, and a small increase on +3 and +4 octaves. Filter set to 75% Spectral Gate off. There is a little bit of string cross talk in here because my strings tend to do that with my bridge that I have (BAII), but you get the general idea.
The Bottom Line:
If you think that your POG doesn't do enough, and you've got a ton of space on your pedalboard, the HOG might be for you. It's really excellent at what it does, but if you're looking for a replacement for the Bass Whammy, I'd look elsewhere.
4/5
Hope you enjoyed this review, and that it was a little useful, as it's my first. If you want to hear something that I did not cover, let me know and I'll whip up another poorly done sound clip.
