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octave pedal cool or not.

#63
Deak said:
I'm using the Sub n Up and to me it's a wild horse that you have to tame to appreciate. The four pots (and the three way switch) can be very responsive to subtle changes. There is so much that you can get from it that it can be intimidating but once you settle in and get comfortable and start to learn what cause and effect it can create it's a very good octave pedal.

Tracking is excellent IMO on the non tone print settings. Most of the tone prints on this pedal are so far a novelty. Some are just plain awful and the tracking goes way south. I do appreciate a lot of the tone prints on my tc chorus though. YMMV.

That said, I placed mine in front of a Two Notes Le Bass (an absolute keeper) and it changes EVERYTHING. Mixing with other pedals can make a mud pie quickly. Might just be my set up atm, or most likely my inexperience as well.

As I mentioned earlier, in my opinion, the more subtle the use, the better this pedal will add to your tone. I would definitely buy it again in a heartbeat.

One more thing. the up octave is not hard to miss. I can see using it a lot. It can be pretty crisp and present if you want when dialed in and if you like sub 2 on this pedal and go deep, you'd better have a great cab that has a pair . . . of great speakers. :)

Deak
Click to expand...

Right now on the Tone Print App they only show 2 tone prints for bass, Smooth Bass and Flanged Octave, have you tried these prints (especially Smooth Bass)???
 
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#64
FunkHead said:
You are asking way too much from any octave pedal to go down to E. The bass whisperer got it down to F#(Barely). He said that was the lowest he's ever gotten out of any octave pedal. IIRC

An Octave below low E would be 20.6 hz. Hovering around the bottom limit of human hearing.
The Low A on a Grand piano is 27.5 Hz.
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Is tuning a Bass to low A the same frequency as a grand piano? I'm waiting on a ormsby multi scale with the lowest string has a 37" scale length.
 
#66
Maiden Bass said:
Right now on the Tone Print App they only show 2 tone prints for bass, Smooth Bass and Flanged Octave, have you tried these prints (especially Smooth Bass)???
Click to expand...
Yes I have!

And I do like the Smooth(Bass) most of all. It is the one I'm keeping as a default print right now. I'm showing eleven Tone Prints for Sub n Up on my phone. FlangedOctave and OctaFlange are both unique. The really crazy one is the Polyphonic Organ Generator. The rest I loaded and said Yep, Yep, Nope, Nope, No way etc., although they will all need a revisit when I get more settled in and realize there might be ways to use many of them creatively.

Smooth(Bass) Absolutly.

Deak
 
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#67
i love using octaves on bass, be it up or down! can really make you sound huge! even in a 4 piece with two guitars i have alot of octaves on tap, normally an octave down, and a blended octave up to add a guitar vibe. but then i have things like the tentacle from eqd which i use in a duo where i put it after a looper to pitch up the loop signal, then i have i think two of the best pedals the mxr submachine and redwitch zeus massive shame i cant have them both as space is at a premium but as you guessed i love octaves and they are very cool!
 
#70
Forgot to say (and may have already been mentioned). Octave pedals are great for getting organ type sounds. One of our songs I hammer on octave chords with the left hand whilst fading in and out with volume knob on bass with right hand. Sounds awesome with light distortion too
 
#71
Dont have time to read all the responses so far but from the title all i saw was cool or not. I'm here to say hell f***** yeah theyre cool. Boss OC-2 is the funnest, least used, but funnest pedal I have owned for years.

In a band context how easy is it to incorporate the pedal? Not so much when compared to say a OD pedal. But man every time im messing around, plug it in, play a line, engage the pedal, just the look of my smile growing as its engage will sell you. So fun and i suggest every bass player try one. Does it track well like a digital? Nope! Does sustaining a not warble all over the place? Yup! But its such a beautiful sound. And they way it meshes with other effects, just opens up a world of creativity. Is it cool? Yup, give one a try
 
#73
Ya know what else would be fun? An 8-string bass through one of those octavers that not only gives you an octave below, but an octave and 2 octaves above, and run it bi-amped. That would either be the most massive sound ever or would blow up your amp and the P.A. No rhythm guitar required.
 
#75
Essential pedal for bass, in my view. There are tons of 80s and 90s tunes that used one, if your band plays covers. Even otherwise, an octave pedal thickens up your tone in a distinctive way. I'm a fan.

I had a Boss OC-3 for a long time. The trick was to plug into the "guitar" input on those and not the "bass" input. Tracked better, who knows why. Great pedal. Now I have a Boss GT-10B which I imagine has the same processor for its octave effect.
 
#77
Also, for slap, I'm cutting and pasting this from an earlier post of mine:


A guitarist turned bassist, I went from using tons of effects with guitar to practically none with the bass.

A couple years ago I purchased a Zoom B3-strictly for the Amp/D.I. sims and a little dirt. Note that I don't have anything against effects per se. When used properly they are great for making great textures and all sorts of harmonic and dynamic delights. But with the bass, I really try to make it about the low-end and groove, and found that effects tend to detract from those, or worse introduce "dynamic wobbles" that can throw your groove off almost imperceptibly but ultimately unforgivably.

In that vein, I've only used the chorus and octave settings simultaneously--along with a splash of delay--for playing along with one song only...."A Remark you Made" by Weather Report."

With chorus, and a tiny bit of delay, I can emulate a fretless with (IMHO) 75-90 percent accuracy (pls don't ask me how I calculated those percentages....it just feels that way..). Then I will add a octave effect at some point and it takes things to an entirely new level. I find that it sounds a zillion times better than the Zoom B3's fretless emulation effect (a matter of personal taste... YMMV).

Also note that I employ a very specific fingering technique for emulating a fretless which contributes to that sound as much, if not a tad more, than my use of the aforementioned effects.

Anyway, I play through the song a few times and figure it's time to shut it down for the night and head to bed. I'll often, for the hell of it, slap at the bass for a minute or two before going to bed....

Note that I don't play much slap...I'm not bad at it technically, it's just not my "thing."

Forgetting that I had my chorus-octave-wee bit 'o delay engaged, a start slapping my L-2500...and my jaw almost dropped to the floor!!!!

It sounded like 80s era Marcus Miller, juicy, round, naughty, raunchy, tonal nirvana. You know that horrible smooth jazz they play in some offices that somehow almost redeems itself with slap-lines that terribly while cheesy, have fantastic tone? That's what it sounded like.

TRY IT GUYS, REALLY!!!!
 
#78
mimsy89 said:
Forgot to say (and may have already been mentioned). Octave pedals are great for getting organ type sounds. One of our songs I hammer on octave chords with the left hand whilst fading in and out with volume knob on bass with right hand. Sounds awesome with light distortion too
Click to expand...
I forgot about this too, it's awesome!

One of our new songs we're writing has some swells in the intro, set the whammy to 2 octaves up, add some chorus and a ton of reverb. Sounds freaking huge, properly gothic sounding organ tones. The Whammy is pretty limited in that I can only have one harmony at a time, I'd love to try it with more options from a proper harmoniser, or an EQD Organizer. Anyone with an octave pedal should give it a go, it sounds amazing.
 
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