Octave Up Pedal Tracking Issues

[The Sad Mafioso]

Just got my hands on a Foxrox Octron 2 and I'm having real trouble getting the Up shift to work anywhere other than the really high register. If I play anything lower than the 15th fret the pedal doesn't seem to shift the octave up at all and just seems to add distortion. The lower octave seems to work just fine with my current setup so I'm struggling to find what the issue could be. I've got it placed 2nd in the chain (after the tuner) and have tried moving it a couple of other places with no luck. I've also tried 3 different basses (2 Fender Ps & 1 Jazz, all passive) and have the same problem. This is the 1st octave pedal I've owned so I'm hoping there's some kind of obvious fix I'm missing. Any input that might help me out would be appreciated.

 

[rratajski]

The octave up is monophonic and dirty since it's analog. It's not a big, full octave sound, but it's there. Think of it harmonically more than fundamentally. A digital octaver will provide a more pronounced octave up sound.

 

[Alien8]

There are a few things you can do to make it stand out, but it's like @rratajski said not as pronounced as a digital octave.

Roll the tone knob on your bass back.

Try an over drive after it to make it stand out. A compressor might help.

Play up high on the neck as you mention already.

 

[The Sad Mafioso]

Thanks for the responses folks. After some meddling, I've managed to get much better results with a combination of fiddling with the EQ (cutting bass & mids, boosting highs), rolling down the tone, primarily using the neck pickup on my Jazz bass and running distortion next in the chain. I might also look into getting a compressor at some point. Any other tips that might help are still more than welcome

 

[GMC]

Thanks for the responses folks. After some meddling, I've managed to get much better results with a combination of fiddling with the EQ (cutting bass & mids, boosting highs), rolling down the tone, primarily using the neck pickup on my Jazz bass and running distortion next in the chain. I might also look into getting a compressor at some point. Any other tips that might help are still more than welcome

Actually, the bridge pickup will have more punch (natural compression) and be more staccato. So I would use that pickup for your octave needs. A compressor can help clean up the signal too, so pop one between your bass and octave. Analogue octaves can be tricky with the amount of input gain, sometimes less works better than more. So set your EQ flat and get an input volume that works best. Bass cut, mid cut and treble boost is the same as lowering you overall gain and boosting treble. I typically find that adding some mids help tracking and tone clarity a lot more than any other EQ. How you play greatly influences the octave effect more than anything else. Non octave bass lines rarely work with an octave and vice versa, you sort of have to play to the octave's strengths and play the effect how it wants to be played. Playing cleanly with controlled note length and muting every thing else is also critical. Octavers tend to prefer short notes and not long sustained notes. If you are holding the notes, you'll hear it crap out and warble.

 

[Swimming Bird]

Thanks for the responses folks. After some meddling, I've managed to get much better results with a combination of fiddling with the EQ (cutting bass & mids, boosting highs), rolling down the tone, primarily using the neck pickup on my Jazz bass and running distortion next in the chain. I might also look into getting a compressor at some point. Any other tips that might help are still more than welcome

Yeah, the closer you get your bass signal to a clean sine wave, the better this will work as an octave up. I'm assuming this is a rectifier circuit like a ring stinger or EQD Tentacle - it's like a static ring modulator where the input signal is used again instead of the carrier wave. A sine wave gets you a pure octave tone, anything with more harmonic content sounds more dissonant and bell like. Anyway, right hand technique - lightish touch near the heel/joint - should be helpful here.

 

[DDXdesign]

I'm assuming this is a rectifier circuit like a ring stinger or EQD Tentacle - it's like a static ring modulator where the input signal is used again instead of the carrier wave.

That is correct. I've learned to treat that sound less as an up-octave shift and more as a high-band fuzz, almost. Really, really useful for synth type sounds.

 

[Britsie]

There are some trimpots inside the octron that help to shape the tone of the octave up. Although it will always stay dirty as said before because it's analogue.
If fact I use the Octron octave up more as a distortion than as an octave up. Sounds fantastic that way.