Been messing around with both my sub octavers in the studio,a digitech bass synth&a ashdown sub octave and Im, skeptical what these unit sound like live without a massive rig,surely producing the lower octave will peak my amp and possibly screw my speakers?
It depends. IME I found the Digitech BSW to have a hollow and unnatural octave sound. I doubt it would cause much speaker problems unless you're really pushing your gear to the limit. I've used my Ampeg Sub-Blaster at gig-volumes, but that was volume 3/10 on my amp. It handled everything alright, considering the Ampeg's octave is MUCH deeper and heavier than the BSW's. But if I turn it up to volume 5, everything starts farting-out, if you will. It farts. Big wet ones.
That's my point: You shouldn't be able to blow-up something without HEARING stuff being stressed first! Plus - I'm sure that most down-octavers are the same, in that they're not just providing a pure-low sub-octave; they have a harmonic series that adds real character - and these harmonics are all at-or-above the fundamental freq of the note being played. Also - I've found a great use for my OC-3: I put it at the input of a hard distortion, (always to the 'guitar' input, and usually in Poly mode). The distortion and octaver is set up for the way I'd want it without the octave - in other words, octave down all the way, clean up to equal in/bypass volumes. Then I turn the original down all the way, and 'tune-in' the octave, by dialing it up to only JUST BARELY BEGIN to clip at the distortion (this is way-way down - like 8:30-8:45). What this does now, when you set the dry back to the equal-volume condition (like between 2:45-3:00 on mine), it changes the character of the distortion; adds real growl! When you turn the distortion off, you usually can't really even tell the octaver is on! I just sort-of modulates the dry signal around enough to alternately smoosh-up against the rails at twice the period of the original. Joe
You'll hear things going wrong before you blow speakers; it's not a matter of sudden failure. You also might get to a point where, depending on what amp and speakers you have, you just don't get much mileage out of the octaver because of your rig's low-end response. If everything drops off sharply below a certain frequency, then you just won't get much out of the sub-freq.
BUT: even if you sharply, completely elliminate the sub-octave, you'll hear a definite effect on the tone with most divider-type octavers. I only got to briefly audition that Sub Blaster. If anything, this one might have less lovertones - it sounded like mainly solid, authorative subs! Like I've said before: the overtone series of an OC-3 in Poly mode reminds me of the overtone series you'd get from "blowing across a big jug"! Joe
Here are some related products that TB members are talking about. Clicking on a product will take you to TB’s partner, Primary, where you can find links to TB discussions about these products. Browser not compatible
