New Boss OC-5 Octave

[Al Krow]

Yeah not having tried the octava micro as yet, I don't know how its blend sounds personally, but if you just put the blend all the way up and turn the effect down you should get dry, no?

I'll find out in a few days when it arrives Blend seems to work the other way around from the clips i.e. all the way off for dry - but what I'm actually really after is dry + octave up together.

Just concluding on our little sidetrack: my Pigtronix Octavia arrived last week. Aimed at guitarists, but I like it a lot on bass (not least its compact form factor). It has a brighter, crisper fuzz than my Red Ripper which I suspect could cut through the mix very well, and sports a capable LPF for dialling back treble / producing a more vintage tone. It's definitely not an octave-up pedal in the way we normally think of one, though!

 

[amper]

Where’s the OC-4??

So at Boss they go 2, 3....5

The number 4 is bad luck in Asian cultures, because it can be read as "shi", which can also mean "death".

四 "yon" or "shi" is 4
死 "shi" is death

 

[amper]

The only Boss pedal numbered 4 was the PQ-4 Parametric Equalizer. Great pedal, too. Costs a fortune on the used market.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

The number 4 is bad luck in Asian cultures, because it can be read as "shi", which can also mean "death".

四 "yon" or "shi" is 4
死 "shi" is death

Yes I ke-now.

Gimme the boss 444
Or boss 666, Boss OC-13 maybe?

 

[gregmon79]

I got an OC5. I love it!!! It’s like my OC2 with added bonuses. I’m no OC2 expert. But I’ve had one for years and I think the 5 stacks up very very closely and all the added stuff is just a bonus for me. And I really like the output on this one.

I can’t say it’s “perfect”. But for what it is, I think Boss did a fantastic job. But again, I’m not one of you “OC2 guys” (not a bad thing! I come to you guys when I have fine tuned OC2 asks so thanks for being one of those guys, guys. You know who you are) who knows and dissects every thing what makes an OC2 an OC2. I get it. I’ve just never been there with the OC2. I loved how it sounded (minus the volume loss, which is I didn’t use it that often) and there weren’t any other mono octaves what sounded like it. But the 5 does. And it sounds louder. Good enough for me! I’m happy with it. I’m sure I’ll be swapping the 5 and the C4 out sporadically though. But it’s pretty great so far.

Although I do have one other gripe that someone brought up about OCT2/Range control. Not sure why they didn’t reverse the “LOWEST” setting. Really odd to me.....

 

[gregmon79]

The number 4 is bad luck in Asian cultures, because it can be read as "shi", which can also mean "death".

四 "yon" or "shi" is 4
死 "shi" is death

Interesting. Learn something new every day.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Great review:



My key takeaways were:

• (15.00) Good classic OC2 sound! And without the volume loss that OC2 suffers from on solo -1 Oct?
• (17.37) Not bad digital octave up - more rounded and less 'tinny' than EHX / Pog pedals, but still prefer my Digitech Mosaic for oct up - which I think would do a better job than what I'm hearing at (26.50)
• (22.27) Seems to be implying that it has analogue oct down in vintage mode (OC2) but digital oct down in poly mode (OC3)
• Poly mode seems to be straight from OC3 - which never particularly impressed me. And they still have threshold the wrong way around - why would you want to only have Oct down on the low notes and not the high notes? The other way around I totally get!
• But it seems to have improved / less glitchy tracking as compared to its predecessors. But I still don't think it matches the Boss SY-1 for tracking (tbf there is nothing out there which does!) which is currently my goto Synth and Oct pedal.

Am I tempted to get one? Possibly - but really only because it gets so close to classic OC2 without volume loss. The rest I'd happily give a miss.

Weird envelope thing with the oc up only.
Pog doesn't do that

 

[fourstr00]

Just preordered one, should be here in a few weeks. I’ve never melded with the BOD I have.

Really, it was the ability to use this on guitar that put me over the edge. I don’t have much hope that the “track only the low notes” feature will work on chords, but the 12 string emulating octave up could be useful for some gigs, and it means that my bass pedalboard will be the exact same as my guitar board.

Only thing I’m not a fan of is the buffered bypass.

 

[the low one]

Any thoughts on the MXR Bass Octave Deluxe? I've got someone offering me one for £70

Sounds a good deal. Mine has never let me down, not noisy, tracks well.

 

[Kevin Hailey]

I got this pedal a few days ago, very happy with it.
Sounds like I remember an oc2 sounding, (been a long time though!)
The 8va up is not harsh or grating and being able to combine/mix octaves is cool.
Tracking is excellent and there is a bit of boost available.
I haven’t looked into the poly mode much, initially yielded some weird results. Not why I got the pedal anyway, although I will try it with a guitar.
At the price this pedal is selling for I feel it’s a great deal.

 

[Winton]

4 = 四 which is pronounced "shi".

"Shi" is the first sound of the word for "death" or "to die", which is 死ぬ = "shinu", hence the bad luck.

In many uses, the number 4 in Japan has changed from "shi" to "yon".

(Edit-I was wrong about the bamboo shoots thing, that is political, not superstitious!)

Man, I JUST discovered the OC-5 through Daniel Sing's video. I'm a bit late to this post!

Yes, you're correct about 4 meaning death in Japanese. "Shi" on its own means death.
Another interesting factoid, just as in America (and maybe other countries) with the number 13, many Japanese buildings don't have a 4th floor for the same exact reason.

 

[fauxtoe]

Just did a preorder on mine. Saved a few $$ at one of my favorite sources.

 

[Pedalnetics]

If anyone is interested, prymaxe has it available for preorder w/ 20% off

 

[Winton]

If anyone is interested, prymaxe has it available for preorder w/ 20% off
View attachment 4017446

For some reason it's cheaper for you guys to buy this pedal in the U.S. It's about $20 extra to buy it here in Japan. I tried entering the coupon and have it shipped to me here and it ends up costing the same for me to buy it in Japan, lol.

 

[Les Fret]

Haven’t read all pages but does the OC-5 really sounds like the classic OC-2? Is it spot on? Cause the OC-3 sounds nothing like the OC-2.

How is the tracking?

 

[sunbeast]

Haven’t read all pages but does the OC-5 really sounds like the classic OC-2? Is it spot on? Cause the OC-3 sounds nothing like the OC-2.

How is the tracking?

You can tell as well as any of us since it is only just making it beyond the demo folks thus far. The few bass demos thus far seem quite convincing. This one has direct comparisons to both the OC-2 and OC-3 at the end of the video:

 

[Winton]

Haven’t read all pages but does the OC-5 really sounds like the classic OC-2? Is it spot on? Cause the OC-3 sounds nothing like the OC-2.

How is the tracking?

There’s this video, too

 

[sunbeast]

I got an OC5. I love it!!! It’s like my OC2 with added bonuses. I’m no OC2 expert. But I’ve had one for years and I think the 5 stacks up very very closely and all the added stuff is just a bonus for me. And I really like the output on this one.

I can’t say it’s “perfect”. But for what it is, I think Boss did a fantastic job. But again, I’m not one of you “OC2 guys” (not a bad thing! I come to you guys when I have fine tuned OC2 asks so thanks for being one of those guys, guys. You know who you are) who knows and dissects every thing what makes an OC2 an OC2. I get it. I’ve just never been there with the OC2. I loved how it sounded (minus the volume loss, which is I didn’t use it that often) and there weren’t any other mono octaves what sounded like it. But the 5 does. And it sounds louder. Good enough for me! I’m happy with it. I’m sure I’ll be swapping the 5 and the C4 out sporadically though. But it’s pretty great so far.

Although I do have one other gripe that someone brought up about OCT2/Range control. Not sure why they didn’t reverse the “LOWEST” setting. Really odd to me.....

I think the “Range” truck is really intended for guitars, so that the low notes of chords become bass lines. I’ve seen a few demos of guitarists using it really convincingly

 

[Les Fret]

You can tell as well as any of us since it is only just making it beyond the demo folks thus far. The few bass demos thus far seem quite convincing. This one has direct comparisons to both the OC-2 and OC-3 at the end of the video:

Ok thanks. Just watched the whole thing. Good review. Not sure if it nails the OC2 completely though. It is really analog in the vintage mode or only analog modeling?

Also I think the polyphonic tracking has some glitches/out of tune notes when playing chords. I think the EHX do better in this regard.

I am wondering if the soloed one octave down also has the annoying volume drop like on the OC2? Think I hear that in that video as well. I hope not though.

 

[sunbeast]

Ok thanks. Just watched the whole thing. Good review. Not sure if it nails the OC2 completely though. It is really analog in the vintage mode or only analog modeling?

Also I think the polyphonic tracking has some glitches/out of tune notes when playing chords. I think the EHX do better in this regard.

I am wondering if the soloed one octave down also has the annoying volume drop like on the OC2? Think I hear that in that video as well. I hope not though.

The clips at the end where he directly compares them with bass loops they sound pretty dead on to me (especially considering that OC-2s all sound moderately different from each-other IME). This is an all digital pedal from my understanding (For one, it seems to track the whole bass neck unlike any analog octave I’ve ever heard of). Most of the literature and demos don’t make it clear, but I found a pretty extensive review talking about how they were originally planning a Waza analog OC-2 update but decided the digital tracking algorithms they had developed would be able to give them a far better update of the OC-2 sound for cheaper than a Waza (which are all analog reissues made in Japan) would have been. From what I can tell they were right, though there are always gonna be people that say the original is superior for this or that reason no matter what modern Boss puts out!

Apparently the -1 octave of the OC-5 can boost above unity (he shows that a bit throughout the video, and via the few on this thread that have one above). The poly voice does indeed seem to have issues with more complex chords from this video and some of the guitar ones I’ve seen, but doesn’t seem to have the same sub-octave latency as the EHX digital shifters so for my uses based on the demos it’s still a winner! I also definitely prefer the tone of the +1 octave in this video (at least in Vintage Mode) to the Micro Pog or Pitchfork. I will have to see for myself though, the price is certainly right.