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

kevteop

kevteop

Feb 12, 2008
4,452
513
York, UK
#1
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?
 
#2
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.
 
#3
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...
 
#5
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.
 
#6
kevteop said:
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.
Click to expand...

It can sound quite good, particularly with a distortion after the octave up- here's bigchiefbc's clip using a big POG: Link Removed

From about 1:13 on on this Youtube clip of mine, you can hear the +1oct with a distortion mixed with clean bass:
 
#8
Bryan R. Tyler said:
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
Click to expand...

You think I should use distortion on something like this?

DosiYanarchy said:
id suggest micropog for octave up, but if you want a PS3 - with expression pedal, well you know im a whore for sales
Click to expand...

Yeah but I've seen what you want for your PS-3 :p ;)
 
#9
kevteop said:
You think I should use distortion on something like this?
Click to expand...

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.
 
#10
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.
 
#11
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.
 
#12
kevteop said:
Yeah but I've seen what you want for your PS-3 :p ;)
Click to expand...

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.
 
#13
DosiYanarchy said:
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)
Click to expand...

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.

DosiYanarchy said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
#14
paul_5 said:
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...
Click to expand...

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
 
#17
Thunderscreech said:
8-string bass.
Click to expand...

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
 
#19
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
 

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