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Most synth-y octave pedal

#21
wolffire99 said:
Looking for an octave pedal that will get the closest to a moog-esque sub octave tone. I don’t really want to invest in a synth pedal right now, but if there’s an octave that will get in the ballpark like the OC-2 I’m looking for something like that (or better). Thanks.
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Firstly, Moog didn't make an octaver, he made a very famous filter and delay pedal (possibly the finest analogues of their type). The Octaver was invented by Boss with thier OC series and the OC-2 is the definative example that every one wants to emulate.
I've had lots of different OC-2's and clones over the years. The Boss unit's ancilary design leaves a lot to be desired by modern pedal standards. True by pass, clunky power options and below unity gain on the pure octave side. Plus, it can clip with some high gain / active basses. I've owned and flipped 5 Boss units, loving it's sound but hating every other aspect of the pedal.
I really like the MXR Bass Octave Delux and ran with this for a long long time. It fixes a lot of the other issues that OC-2 has and has a nice and bright presentation. You can dial in near perfect OC-2 sounds into this pedal.

For me, I'm done with analogue octavers and the digital stuff is so good. Both the Boss OC-5 and Source Audio offerings (C4 and Spectrum Intelligent Filter) are excellent. The Source Audio offering offer a way lot more than just octaves. Both have the best filter array currenlty available and the C4 is a fully featured 4 oscilator analogue (sounding) synth. It's a massive pedal. The Spectrum is an octaver (OC-2 options) and the best filter pedal that I know of. Again it's massively featured and one of my fav pedals on my board. A perfect blend between OC-2 octaves and Moog (and other) filters.
 
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#27
GMC said:
The Octaver was invented by Boss with thier OC series and the OC-2 is the definative example that every one wants to emulate.
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The MXR M103 Blue Box came first, about 8 years earlier. Both pedals function very similarly in terms of their octave-down generation, the OC-2 is just more versatile, has a clean sound, and glitches less. The MXR was marketed as a fuzz and not as an octave generator, but that is what it does.

My hot take is that the OC-2 is not the be-all, end-all of octavers when it comes to synth bass. Yes, it sounds great, I have an original OC-2 and I have OC-2 clones, and I would never rid myself of them, but it just doesn't do all the synth bass sounds you might want if you're seriously trying to emulate synthesizers on bass.

Part of this, for me, is that I differentiate between the sounds of "an octaver pedal" and "synth bass". The sound of an "octaver pedal", for example, needs to mix well with a clean guitar signal, both in terms of spectrum and also in terms of its dynamics. The OC-2 does both of these things very well, which is why it's the king of octavers.

But, if what you want is synth bass, you may want a sound that stands up more on its own, and you might want a sound with a different 'feel' than the very smooth and spongey OC-2. You can manipulate an OC-2 into different sounds via compressors, filters, dirt boxes, etc., but that's definitely something you need to tune properly in order to not have it sound like the call of an outraged whale.
 
#30
paco weht said:
Rabidhamster could you give some more info about this mod? I'd love to use my blue box without beeing confined to the higher five frets
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Sure! Don’t think I’m allowed to link other forums but if you google search
MXR Blue Box -1/2 octave mod (dunlop reissue)
The thread will come up and has this schematic by oldrocker and some insights from mark hammer. There have been a couple mod threads here too but not sure where the pertinent info is. obviously you could omit the switch if you won’t need it for a simpler mod
modbb.jpg
 
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#33
I’m a big fan of COG’s octaves but also use a Subsonic and an Octabvre on other boards. I like the COG T-47 because I can set one channel for synthy octave and the other for a different flavour. The Subsonic is excellent though and is why my SVD is now in the International Classifieds.
 

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