Anyone with an extra Octabvre or Doom looking for a Pike Vulcan?
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3Leaf Audio Club - Episode 2
- Thread starter fivestringgecko
- Start date
Hey, all you cool cats, have any of you placed your entire effects chain within the fx loop of a Wonderlove or Chromatron?
I dont currently have cables of the proper length to experiment with this but am curious if it would be worthwhile pursuit.
I dont currently have cables of the proper length to experiment with this but am curious if it would be worthwhile pursuit.
Yes, with the bypass option, why not. I couldnt tell a difference in tone or quality either. I do it a completely different way now though.
What way do you do it?
My interest stems from the relationship between compression & filters... Ive had varying results with the few compressors & many filters I have... my opinion of the Chromatron has greatly improved after feeding it an Effectrode PC-2A. Something about the tube warmth & the gain positively affects the Chromatrons response (which I have set low at 10 o'clock) & tone in a way Ive not achieved with other compressors BUT the PC-2A adds too much to all my other filters so what Im considering is running the PC-2A into the Chromatron but then placing the rest of my signal chain in the Chromatrons fx loop starting with a seperate compressor (Miura M2) to tame the strong signal from the PC-2A so I can get the best out of all my effects without switching back & forth between compressors... dunno if that makes sense, guess Ill just have to try it out
So placing the compressor before the chrome helps? I've been told by a few if I'm struggling with dynamic range, a comp before (the trigger at least, INPUT) will reduce the "sweep" range, which makes sense, I guess.
Do you have a buffered split? I had Saturn make one, powered, "tuned for bass dynamic". The short of it, the way I run it, is imagine that split before the chromatron, one side of the split goes to the INPUT, which is the trigger for the envelope, another goes to whatever other pedal you want mixed in, that you do not want affecting the trigger response, just mix, and then into the RETURN FX on the Chrome.
Long as your split doesn't chop half of the signal into 2, then you can definitely get a different response, and tone, than the "stock" way.
I actually use my switcher to insert whatever pedal before the return, and I have an output just for the trigger, but the above way works as well.
Something worth trying
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I do not have buffered split but yes, the PC-2A in front of the Chromatron greatly improves my experience with the Chromatron & I attribute this to the velvety tube warmth & the gain of the PC-2A. I play passive basses so having a boost at the start of my signal chain helps. The improvement of the filter's response is limited to just the Chromatron though, it changes the Wonderlove a bit but in a way I see as slightly detrimental & is even worse with the Micro-tron & Barbanera, with those three filters I prefer the Miura M2 at the front as it can be dialed in for very subtle compression with a gentle clean boost.
Octron3
Octron4
Heads up. Anyone who just wants an awesome analog octaver without the drama, these Foxrox options rock. I pulled the trigger on an Octron 3 when the Octabvre/preamp bundles were presented. I don’t know what I’m missing with the 3Leaf option. I know I like the videos and sound files I hear, but to my ears, this Octron 3 sounds awesome. There’s not much online that markets this pedal to bassists, but it definitely works with bass guitar. Turn the Down knob up all the way and everything else down and I think you’ve got your vintage OC-2 sounds happening.
This email is from Dave Fox.
Hi Art,
I designed all of the Octron-x pedals mostly from scratch. No direct cloning, but I did borrow the octave down circuitry from schematics of OC-2, DOD Octoplus, Mutron octave divider. Same basic dividing circuitry with some tweaks to make it track better and sound deeper. It sounds more like the octave divider Frank Marino (Mahogany Rush) built for himself. He assisted me when I was fine-tuning Octron back in 2005.
Oct4 is approximately double the width of Oct3. I could have made it smaller but it would mess with the spacing of the footswitches, which I think is perfect.
Thanks,
Dave
Based on what Dave says about the dimensions of the Octron 4, it’s roughly the size of a Octabvre 2. Maybe a little bigger.
I’ve not given up on owning Octabvre, but this definitely does the job without question and without the drama of wondering if I’m going to “win”. And for substantially less dough. Purchasing direct from Foxrox was a pleasure and the pedal looks and feels like it will last a couple of lifetimes. As I said, I don’t know what I’m missing. I used to own a Wonderlove. It sounded awesome when I could dial it in right, but it wasn’t intuitive for me. At the end of the day, my favorite thing about it was its resale value. I sold it for exactly what I paid for it and that was great.
Octron4
Heads up. Anyone who just wants an awesome analog octaver without the drama, these Foxrox options rock. I pulled the trigger on an Octron 3 when the Octabvre/preamp bundles were presented. I don’t know what I’m missing with the 3Leaf option. I know I like the videos and sound files I hear, but to my ears, this Octron 3 sounds awesome. There’s not much online that markets this pedal to bassists, but it definitely works with bass guitar. Turn the Down knob up all the way and everything else down and I think you’ve got your vintage OC-2 sounds happening.
This email is from Dave Fox.
Hi Art,
I designed all of the Octron-x pedals mostly from scratch. No direct cloning, but I did borrow the octave down circuitry from schematics of OC-2, DOD Octoplus, Mutron octave divider. Same basic dividing circuitry with some tweaks to make it track better and sound deeper. It sounds more like the octave divider Frank Marino (Mahogany Rush) built for himself. He assisted me when I was fine-tuning Octron back in 2005.
Oct4 is approximately double the width of Oct3. I could have made it smaller but it would mess with the spacing of the footswitches, which I think is perfect.
Thanks,
Dave
Based on what Dave says about the dimensions of the Octron 4, it’s roughly the size of a Octabvre 2. Maybe a little bigger.
I’ve not given up on owning Octabvre, but this definitely does the job without question and without the drama of wondering if I’m going to “win”. And for substantially less dough. Purchasing direct from Foxrox was a pleasure and the pedal looks and feels like it will last a couple of lifetimes. As I said, I don’t know what I’m missing. I used to own a Wonderlove. It sounded awesome when I could dial it in right, but it wasn’t intuitive for me. At the end of the day, my favorite thing about it was its resale value. I sold it for exactly what I paid for it and that was great.
I've become a big believer in compression into envelope filter. It just makes the whole shebang more usable. In my case it's Cali76CB into a Meatball clone, but if it wasn't that it'd be something else.
Awesome that it has the octave up & separate footswitches for up, direct, & down... I wish more octave pedals had that specific feature.
When I first started in with researching the Octron, I thought the 4 looked like overkill. It also seemed large. Now that I’ve messed around with the 3 a bit and understand that it’s only a little bigger than your average two button pedal, I’ll eventually snag a 4 and put the 3 up for sale or on my guitar board. I especially want access to the sub function.
Maybe the Doom 2 with its raspy sawtooth octave up is why Spencer didnt go with the octave up on the Octabvre, both units in conjuction with a Proton or Wonderlove/Chromatron offer a functional modular synthesizer tone
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yeah, all Octrons are killer, I own a special edition brown Octron 1, and two Octron 3. I hope, I can land an Octabvre somewhen, till then, the Octrons do the job just fine (very fine, indeed).
The Octrons are great, I will say that I tried a 4 and it did not work as well in my setup as the 2 or 3 did. The dirty analog octave up is killer as well.
MAFbass1992
Bass Player / Low-End Reviews
Looking to trade my Doom 2 (with some letters missing) for a purple Octabvre mini or a MKII big box Octabvre if anyone's interested !
It didn't track as well as my Octron 2 did. The two is my fave because of the spread out switches and options, but the four seems to have too much on offering. I believe if you set it to "stock" it is supposed to be the same, but that was not my experience with it.
The FoxRox stuff, is it geared more toward getar? I know many of the clips showcasing it seem to be on the 6 string variety, and is that a -2 octave sub?
However I do like the LPF on the octave down, not many people do that.
However I do like the LPF on the octave down, not many people do that.
It’s definitely geared more to geetar. I’ve got the smaller bass pedal, and it has limited octave down capabilities but the octave up could prove useful.
