I thought that was what the FEA Growler did, do that octavey, square wave sound on your original signal
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Looking for a pedal to do the Boss OC-2 tone?
- Thread starter EddieG
- Start date
From what I can tell, the growler is a more subtle effect. At least that is what I picked up from the thread about it and the clips on the FEA website.
Anybody who's tried one care to weigh in?
Anybody who's tried one care to weigh in?
If it helps any, the OC-2 sound is simply a low-passed square wave with a good bit of resonance.
Taylor Livingston
Commercial User
It does seem like that would be the case, but actually what's up is trickier than that.
So the logic portion of the circuit generates a square wave that's an octave lower (or 2) than the input. That part's well understood, Google "flip flop circuit" for details.
But the synthesized square wave is not actually used at the output - instead, it's used to switch a FET on and off. The FET is connected to an opamp gain stage which is setup in such a way that it's non-inverting, but when the FET is switched on, the opamp becomes inverting. So the result is that the opamp is flipping the phase of your instrument signal every other cycle. That gives a wave much like the drawing I've attached. Then the output is filtered, in hopes of removing the upper harmonic (the little valley at each peak/little peak at each valley). But because the filter can't be all that steep without a ton of extra parts, the upper harmonic is never filtered out completely.
We now have a nice fundamental that's an octave below your input pitch (note that this is not a synthesized tone, but a mangled version of your actual input). However, because we now have 3 little peaks for every 1 fundamental peak, we also get a third harmonic, which is an octave and a fifth above the fundamental (the fundamental, confusingly, is the octave down).
Put more simply, the OC-2 in 1 oct down mode generates an octave down, plus a harmonic a fifth up from your original note. This goes a long way toward explaining why the OC2 and all the other analog octavers based on it sound so fat. It also explains why it's not that simple to get that sound without the octave down - and why it can't be done polyphonically.
Attachments
Taylor, that is amazing! thanks for the detailed explanation.
Since I hijacked and resurrected this old thread, what I am trying to do is send an interesting sound into a standard synthy fuzz->filter combo that will then be blended with another -1 octave->Fuzz->filter combo for extreme madness. I've been trying cheap chorus pedals to try and mimic an oscillator+LFO sound, but is there a different type of modulation or effect you would put before a fuzz->filter to make something sound interesting?
Since I hijacked and resurrected this old thread, what I am trying to do is send an interesting sound into a standard synthy fuzz->filter combo that will then be blended with another -1 octave->Fuzz->filter combo for extreme madness. I've been trying cheap chorus pedals to try and mimic an oscillator+LFO sound, but is there a different type of modulation or effect you would put before a fuzz->filter to make something sound interesting?
if your looking for a sine wave that's in a pedal I would suggest the MWFX Epic Wave Machine. it has every VCO in there but the catch is it's only Monophonic.
I've always wanted to try that. Unfortunately I recently sold my PitchFactor. Has anyone here run an OC2 -1 into an octave up?
Yes. I run an OC-2 into a PS-6 in s-bend mode sometimes. Maybe I'll record it and I'll try just running into the PS-6 in pitch shifter mode too. It doesn't quite sound like the OC-2(in s-bend mode anyway). There's a noticeable amount of PS-6 tone in there.
Thanks. The PS-6 is a lot of fun.
Were you using an expression pedal in that clip?
Here's a different approach: I used a Tech 21 Red Ripper to great success! Dial back ALL of your highs and mids, lows cranked, LPF on, RIP at 09:00 and Drive at 01:00.
No attack just dub for days. Has that really almost sub like sound but no octave shifting whatsoever. Ill post a clip when I get a chance: need to find my cable to plug direct
No attack just dub for days. Has that really almost sub like sound but no octave shifting whatsoever. Ill post a clip when I get a chance: need to find my cable to plug direct
Nope. Just the momentary switch(the default method on the PS-6 without and expression pedal connected). I used to use an expression pedal but you can get some pretty good "transforming" sort of sounds with just the switch.
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f36/iron-ether-subterranea-987453/
look what has been announced; maybe it will help
look what has been announced; maybe it will help
