Octave Pedals

Just analog octave pedals do "track" your pitch, digital ones are more or less real time samplers with pitch shifting. I don't know of any clean analog octave up, there are just octave up fuzzes and stuff like the ring stinger circuit.

So, don't worry. In my opinion digital octave pedals (pog, whammy, pitchfactor,...) sound better with some distortion afterwards - it can mask the digital character a little bit.

I use an ehx ring thing for digital octave up but do not like it for faster lines. The attack is altered too much (because of the sampling latency), so i use it mostly for sweeps or longer notes.

 

Mike Kerr in Royal Blood is an excellent example of octave up + dirt on bass. Check out their stuff if you aren't familiar with it already. He uses the EHX POG family of effects, but the new TC Sub'n'up also seems promising.

 

I use a Digitech Bass Whammy, it's great. No noticeable tracking issues and it sounds beastly- I normally just run it into a fuzz, but I've tried putting a Digitech Bad Monkey OD (I need a proper bass OD not built into my fuzz) and it gets pretty mental. The Whammy can also do a lot of other cool tricks like 5th harmonies, which sound absolutely brutal with a lot of distortion. I don't like the sound of it on its own, it sounds very obviously synthetic, but putting pretty much any effect afterwards masks it well (I also use chorus and reverb, sounds amazing).

EHX POGs and Digitech Whammies both track great, I wouldn't worry about them. I'm not sure about others like the OC-2/3 or the Sub 'n' Up, might be worth investigating. Personally I'd recommend the Whammy because it can do a load of cool stuff besides octaving, but I intend to get a POG as well at some point.

 

Mike Kerr (as @blindrabbit mentioned) uses a POG2 and a couple of BOSS PS-6s. The Whammy is pretty good from what I hear (I've only used the guitar one, not the bass one), and some people around here also like the EHX Pitchfork, which is kind of like a smaller Whammy.

 

Foxrox octron is analog and will cover clean octave down as well as fuzzy octave up.

I have a pitchfork too, both are great but very different types of sounds.

 

Everybody always mentions Kerr, nobody remembers to mention Jesse Keeler...




For a POG-like mini pedal, check out the Mooer Tender Octaver.