Octave up usage

[vivaknoxvegas]

How do you all use this effect in your playing, with original material? I know that's a broad question, apologies. I have heard it in certain bass parts in popular music but are you all using it for main bass verses / choruses? Do you use it more with or without dirt? Just looking for ideas.

 

[jazznrick]

I use it with my dry signal and dirt in my three piece band. Mostly on songs that need a little "filling out".

 

[Turtle71]

I use it a couple different ways.

Sometimes clean w/chorus and/or reverb for intros or other airy moody stuff.

But, mostly (as mentioned above), I use it with various overdrives & distortion...My band has a single guitar player, and when he goes off into solo land I need to fill more sonic territory.

 

[bassbrad]

I use an Akai UniBass and the pitch shifter on Zooms. In my instrumental trio it is for melodies, solos, occasionally to fill out sections, especially when adding the fifth. I might also add some chorus of return for an 8/12 string faux.
In the blues rock boogie band I do use it to fill out when we are playing a trio gig, for that I send the upper signal thru an overdrive and Zoom G1x to a small guitar amp. I try to use it sparingly to get the most impact.

 

[theunknowndude]

My PS3 can get glitchy for octave up depending on the note... I used that well for a noise piece but now just use it as a fifth up sparingly for choruses etc

 

[smo]

Depends if we're talking analog or digital octave.
Analog is something I feel you can use all the time (cos it kinda sounds like a dirty OD), whereas digi can get offensive if used for more than just the odd part here or there.
I don't like digi analog up unless I'm playing an instrumental intro/outro part and/or trying to sound like an organ.

 

[vivaknoxvegas]

I didn't even know there was analog octave up. I was referring to digital octave up.

 

[Bob_Ross]

In addition to many of the ideas already mentioned (thickening up lines along with dirt, moody/airy soundscapes, etc.) I tend to use 8va a lot to transpose loops without affecting their speed.

 

[Hoyt]

I just got the TC Electronic Sub n' Up and I'm sort of figuring this out at the moment.

Best I can tell, it's great for organ like tones for intros and slow bridges/breakdowns, and mixed with fuzz and an envelope filter the odd solo.

It can also work with some chorus for sparkle to add some top end to some cool synth sounds, especially if you remove your dry signal.

I even tried to cop some lead guitar-esque licks with my wah pedal which was fun.

 

[Swimming Bird]

I didn't even know there was analog octave up. I was referring to digital octave up.

There are a bunch - they tend to allow a mix of root note with increased octave tones to full on octave up depending on pickup and fretboard position. These tend to be based on simplified ring mod circuits. Examples include EQD Tentacle, octave up section on Foxrox and Mutron Octave Dividers, green ringer clones, etc.

 

[micguy]

I have 2 sub n up pedals - one regular, one mini, and whenever I use the sub octave, I also use the up octave - doing that makes things not just lower, but "bigger". The octave up top also helps cover up some of the strangeness that happens down low. Kind of a "look over here" distraction thing.

I tried running the up octave through a distortion - the thought was, if it's easier to get a good distrotion tone out of a guitar rig, maybe using an octave up shifted signal thorugh a guitar overdrive (and then blending it back in) would sound cool. It sounded....like a calliope or something. Not even close to the tone in my head. It might be useful for someone. I'm just not that someone.

 

[AngelCrusher]

I had the Mini Pog and was soloing with it, but I really didn't like the sound enough to where I used it much.

Think it makes sense split out in a rock setting where you want to get huge distortion, or in a jazz/funk setting with a dense band where you want to solo and let the synth player hold down the bottom, a la Snarky Puppy.

 

[Nunovsky]

I usually use for an organ-like tone with some OD to get that Deep Purple kinda sound. Another way that I 've used it was to get a simulated 8 strings sound that works great with chorus as well. Here is a good example how it can sound great in a band setting.

 

[Being and Bass]

What you do with an octaver really depends on which pedal you are using. There are some built just to thicken your tone, other to double it an octave up or down, some to offer harmonics, etc.

I use a HOG2 on my board so sometimes I even forget that I have a "dry" signal as it is just another slider because I am so often playing in the fifth/octave/octave+5th/2 octave range through a series of other effects with the dry blended in at the end (and often that is cut as well). With a filter and expression pedal I can actually mimic the sound of two people playing, not just the same material but it actually sounds like two parts (it is just me and a guitarist so it helps a lot). But my board is built around this and it isn't merely an effect, especially since we play a lot of ambience-to-metal transitions.

 

[Swimming Bird]

I like to blend octave up with a little -p5 and dry going into fuzz for a sort of unison riff sound. More often I have the other pitches on a single delay repeat for sequencer sounds.

 

[Spacehead_]

I use a Nano POG to send the octave up to a second amp. I often like to stack it with a T-Rex Quint to make the octave up a power chord. My main 2 sounds with it are either a dirty marshall kinda sound or a spacey ambient sound.

 

[Tandark]

Mooer tender octaver v1, no dry signal for certain sections to add an extra layer to quiet parts.

 

[Major_Rager_4MF]

I use a Nano POG to send the octave up to a second amp. I often like to stack it with a T-Rex Quint to make the octave up a power chord. My main 2 sounds with it are either a dirty marshall kinda sound or a spacey ambient sound.

Cool. Did you experiment with different octavers to find the one with the most legit guitar tone? And different harmonizers than the quint like Boss PS6?

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Best harmonizer by far for the $ is the ehx pitch fork.

 

[Seanbassplayer]

TC Sub n Up with custom toneprint( lpf on octave output) into ehx pitchfork for powerchrods worked the best for me.That with exp pedal connected to the PF and can quickly switch between single notes and powerchords very quickly. Also running this signal into a guitar tube amp worked very well.