Source Audio C4 for realistic +1 octave up sound, is it viable?

[NoiseNinja]

So I currently use a TC Electronic Sub'N'Up Mini to get an effect somewhat similar to playing an 8 string bass, and with the "Default Poly" template and some tweaking in the Toneprint editor I managed to get a 1 octave up sound that I am actually pretty satisfied with and that in the mix actually sound pretty authentic and realistic.

Really satisfied with the Sub'N'Up's as good as flawless tracking and virtually unnoticeable latency.

I wonder though, even if some might see it as overkill, if it would be possible to tweak a Source Audio C4 to an even better, more realistic and authentic octave up sound?

I read some reports of the polyphonic pitch shifting of the C4 having a painfully long latency, but not sure if there is any truth to this?

What do people say, would the C4 with some intense tweaking in the editor be able to beat the Sub'N'Up in terms of tracking, latency, realism/authenticity of a polyphonic 1 octave up effect?

 

[bassbrad]

Sorry but no the Source Audio C4 Synth is not a pitch shifter or octaver in that sense, it is a fantastic pedal in many ways but it ain't that babe. The pitch shifting or harmonizing it does has to do with the synth voices & FM modulation and do not sound like a natural string vibration or pseudo 8 string or piccolo bass.
I do keep hoping that Source Audio will build a pedal that does include some pitch shifting and harmonizing so we will have to see.

 

[NoiseNinja]

Sorry but no the Source Audio C4 Synth is not a pitch shifter or octaver in that sense, it is a fantastic pedal in many ways but it ain't that babe. The pitch shifting or harmonizing it does has to do with the synth voices & FM modulation and do not sound like a natural string vibration or pseudo 8 string or piccolo bass.
I do keep hoping that Source Audio will build a pedal that does include some pitch shifting and harmonizing so we will have to see.

I hope so too.

Or ideally, as far as I am concerned, EHX would make a bass version of their Bass9, which pitch down your signal and emulate various bass guitar tones for use with guitar, that would emulate various guitar tones for bass instead.

The Bass9 is pretty impressive and surprisingly realistic/authentic sounding, judging from the demos I have watched featuring it.

Unfortunately I think that is not very likely to happen, a more realistic hope is for Source Audio to make a device that focus on pitch shifting with the same extensive tweaking possibilities as the C4.

 

[GMC]

I guess it depends on what you call "realistic". Analogue octave ups tend to work by adding distortion to the upper octaves. Synthesised (analogue or digital) octave ups work by adding oscillators. Then there a bunch of digital harmonisers that make a digital synthesised sound of additional tones, usually set to a specific chordal key and pith values.
I have a pair of Eventide H9's, they are capable of creating entire chords, harmonies, delayed harmonies, digital octaves etc. It's easily the most versatile and capable of all the pitch shifter devices. You can also tell it to learn the key you are playing via a button assign. So it's very easy to use live one you have a patch set up. It can't do an OC-2 sound but it does some pretty amazing pitched / octave sounds. It's polyphonic and it's got very low latency. I can play chords through it and it can effortlessly turn those into very complex pitched chords.
I have a EHX Hog2, which I consider one of the finest digital harmoniser / octavers currently available. It doesn't do the pitched harmonies. But it can do 5ths octaves, Octave + 3rds and ++ octaves. It's like a super "digital" octaver on steroids. It can't do an OC-2 sound, but for digital octavers...it's pretty amazing. It's also go super fun pitch bends, volume and filter swells as well as a gliss / hold functions. It's fully polyphonic and plays well with chords as well as single notes. It's tracking and low latency are excellent. All of it's functions are available on the panel via sliders and it's very easy to see what's occurring and adjust on the fly. It doesn't have any harmoniser options.
I also have the Source Audio C4, which I am a huge fan of. It has a really good analogue octave down that pretty much nails the OC-2 sound. This analogue sound is monophonic and tracks beautifully. It has the options for -3 octaves through to +3 octaves. It has the options of addional semitone pitches as well. How "authentic" these sound is purely down you your personal descension. However, you have 2 monophonic inputs and two polyphonic inputs. The polyphonic inputs sound a lot like Hog2 or H9 type of octave sounds. It's also got a Harmoniser option, where you select your 2 intervals (say a 3rd and a 5th), the key (say A) and the chord mode (Major). It's very powerful and nearly rivals the mighty Eventide H9 for it's harmoniser options. However, it's not easy to edit on the fly and there's no way to edit the harmoniser module via re-mapped knobs. You can access the harmoniser components via midi CC, so that's an option, using something like a Faderfox PC4.
I probably could mimic a lot of my Hog2 patches with the C4, but I wouldn't have the gliss / sample and hold options. The Hog2 also has a great spectral gate that is amazing for organ sounds. The C4 is very capable and very feature rich, but it's a patch orientated device and needs the Neuro desktop / phone app to edit.
So I don't think there is a definitive answer or a definitive pedal, there are some great and unique options available and on my quest I've settled on the three best of breed pedals, the C4 / Hog2 and H9.

 

[NoiseNinja]

I guess it depends on what you call "realistic". Analogue octave ups tend to work by adding distortion to the upper octaves. Synthesised (analogue or digital) octave ups work by adding oscillators. Then there a bunch of digital harmonisers that make a digital synthesised sound of additional tones, usually set to a specific chordal key and pith values.
I have a pair of Eventide H9's, they are capable of creating entire chords, harmonies, delayed harmonies, digital octaves etc. It's easily the most versatile and capable of all the pitch shifter devices. You can also tell it to learn the key you are playing via a button assign. So it's very easy to use live one you have a patch set up. It can't do an OC-2 sound but it does some pretty amazing pitched / octave sounds. It's polyphonic and it's got very low latency. I can play chords through it and it can effortlessly turn those into very complex pitched chords.
I have a EHX Hog2, which I consider one of the finest digital harmoniser / octavers currently available. It doesn't do the pitched harmonies. But it can do 5ths octaves, Octave + 3rds and ++ octaves. It's like a super "digital" octaver on steroids. It can't do an OC-2 sound, but for digital octavers...it's pretty amazing. It's also go super fun pitch bends, volume and filter swells as well as a gliss / hold functions. It's fully polyphonic and plays well with chords as well as single notes. It's tracking and low latency are excellent. All of it's functions are available on the panel via sliders and it's very easy to see what's occurring and adjust on the fly. It doesn't have any harmoniser options.
I also have the Source Audio C4, which I am a huge fan of. It has a really good analogue octave down that pretty much nails the OC-2 sound. This analogue sound is monophonic and tracks beautifully. It has the options for -3 octaves through to +3 octaves. It has the options of addional semitone pitches as well. How "authentic" these sound is purely down you your personal descension. However, you have 2 monophonic inputs and two polyphonic inputs. The polyphonic inputs sound a lot like Hog2 or H9 type of octave sounds. It's also got a Harmoniser option, where you select your 2 intervals (say a 3rd and a 5th), the key (say A) and the chord mode (Major). It's very powerful and nearly rivals the mighty Eventide H9 for it's harmoniser options. However, it's not easy to edit on the fly and there's no way to edit the harmoniser module via re-mapped knobs. You can access the harmoniser components via midi CC, so that's an option, using something like a Faderfox PC4.
I probably could mimic a lot of my Hog2 patches with the C4, but I wouldn't have the gliss / sample and hold options. The Hog2 also has a great spectral gate that is amazing for organ sounds. The C4 is very capable and very feature rich, but it's a patch orientated device and needs the Neuro desktop / phone app to edit.
So I don't think there is a definitive answer or a definitive pedal, there are some great and unique options available and on my quest I've settled on the three best of breed pedals, the C4 / Hog2 and H9.

What I mean by realistic/authentic is sounding like a real string tuned an octave higher (I actually thought that would be obvious from my OP), like the EHX Bass9 comes pretty close to, just the other way around, for a guitar to sound like a real bass, pitching you signal down an octave, but eq'ed or synthesized, or however they managed to do that, to sound like different types of real basses.

Like I said in my previous post in this thread, if EHX could make a unit like their Bass9 pedal that worked as well for bass to sound like a different Guitar types as the Bass9 works for guitar to sound like different types of basse it would be close enough to the real thing for me to be fully satisfied.

 

[GMC]

What I mean by realistic/authentic is sounding like a real string tuned an octave higher (I actually thought that would be obvious from my OP), like the EHX Bass9 comes pretty close to, just the other way around, for a guitar to sound like a real bass, pitching you signal down an octave, but eq'ed or synthesized, or however they managed to do that, to sound like different types of real basses.

Like I said in my previous post in this thread, if EHX could make a unit like their Bass9 pedal that worked as well for bass to sound like a different Guitar types as the Bass9 works for guitar to sound like different types of basse it would be close enough for me to be fully satisfied.

My reply is in a nutshell>

Science is what we dream of....technology is what we get stuck with.

These are the tools available, what they offer and how they work.

If you don't like my response, which was free and took me a while to write...then go out, buy the kit, and find out for yourself.

 

[NoiseNinja]

I guess it depends on what you call "realistic".

If you don't like my response, which was free and took me a while to write...then go out, buy the kit, and find out for yourself.

Yes, sorry for answering your question and not pressing the like button, which of course your post is entitled to, no matter if I found it useful or not and no matter if it is actually addressing the actual question of my OP.

 

[theunknowndude]

Instead of the sub b n up, is the brainwaves worth looking into for a bit more flexibility? Or is it too sub n up (I only have the brainwaves so can’t compare)

the brainwaves does the best octave up I’ve heard ( I used to use the bass whammy reissue which was very synthy sounding) and the latency is pretty much nil.

that said I’m just using it as a “faux” octave fuzz wall of sound so my goals may be different to yours.

 

[GMC]

Yes, sorry for answering your question and not pressing the like button, which of course your post is entitled to, no matter if I found it useful or not and no matter if it is actually addressing the actual question of my OP.

Apology accepted, although your undercurrent tone is not.
As to your OP...I was answering it but you were not listening to an answer that wasn't what you wanted to hear. Octave's in general aren't made purely for bassists, they are intended for a wider range of instruments. Octave up devices are an even more specialist than octave downs.
"Authentic" sounding is a particularly cryptic phrase tagged on the end of your question. From my point of view, all octaves, pitchers and harmonisers sound authentic to their types of device. They are not intended to sound exactly like YOUR specific bass as they don't sample and process. So I wouldn't expect one to sound exactly like a bass, one octave up because generally that's not how they work.
I also wouldn't be so rude as to roll my eyes either, regardless how uninformed I consider the post or the person.
What you write here is searchable on Google and the attitudes and persona that you present on this forum can stick for a long time. As for your Subnup, good for you, it's a great pedal.

 

[RJ]

Yes, sorry for answering your question and not pressing the like button, which of course your post is entitled to, no matter if I found it useful or not and no matter if it is actually addressing the actual question of my OP.

Regardless if you found GMC's response to be the answer you were looking for you're coming off as an unappreciative jerk. Ditch the cute smilies and attitude. This is a pretty rad community of individuals. Maybe you should try out the gear page. Some of those folks seem to get off on being snide to one another.

 

[NoiseNinja]

Regardless if you found GMC's response to be the answer you were looking for you're coming off as an unappreciative jerk. Ditch the cute smilies and attitude. This is a pretty rad community of individuals. Maybe you should try out the gear page. Some of those folks seem to get off on being snide to one another.

I had absolutely no ill intend whatsoever with my first reply to him, in which I simply answered a question I though he asked me in his initial reply to my OP, to which he then proceeded to respond like as if I had somehow insulted/offended him by not having praised him with my unconditional thankfulness for his gracious initial reply to my OP.

So who's snide here? (ironically it seems like your own, above quoted, reply falls into this category as well)

If you don't like my response, which was free and took me a while to write...then go out, buy the kit, and find out for yourself.

Someone not pressing the like button under your posts shouldn't be seen as a personal insult, at least not in my book, you are not entitled to get likes from anyone, no matter how great YOU think your post is.

That doesn't mean that you are not allowed to think you made a great post, or even necessarily that your post isn't in fact great, it just means that some people don't think it is, though still pretty far from a personal insult I'd say, they too should be allowed to think that the post ins't great, also that doesn't necessarily mean that they think it's absolute garbage, they might even think it's good, just not great.

Not everyone has the same criteria for when a post get their like, and as far as I am concerned that is perfectly fine.

It's just a matter of people having different perception, opinions and preferences on stuff, that's just a basic fact of life.

 

[RJ]

Woof. I'm not sure where to begin. Comments like "I actually thought that would be obvious from my OP" come off as sounding pretty condescending. Which seems to be a tone you take pretty often.

I can't imagine going through life picking a fight at every turn. If this works for you so be it. I wouldn't expect folks to take kindly to it though. Best of luck.

 

[NoiseNinja]

Woof. I'm not sure where to begin. Comments like "I actually thought that would be obvious from my OP" come off as sounding pretty condescending. Which seems to be a tone you take pretty often.

I can't imagine going through life picking a fight at every turn. If this works for you so be it. I wouldn't expect folks to take kindly to it though. Best of luck.

As far as I am concerned I am not the one picking fights, but I guess as long as people only virtually jab at me I might be better served by just giving it a shrug and simply ignore them, rather than jabbing back at them.

I also realize the danger of misinterpreting intentions when it comes to communication in form of short written posts and replies on the internet, so I might very well be wrong, though that goes both ways.

Ever heard of bias confirmation?

 

[blocka]

So I currently use a TC Electronic Sub'N'Up Mini to get an effect somewhat similar to playing an 8 string bass, and with the "Default Poly" template and some tweaking in the Toneprint editor I managed to get a 1 octave up sound that I am actually pretty satisfied with and that in the mix actually sound pretty authentic and realistic.

Really satisfied with the Sub'N'Up's as good as flawless tracking and virtually unnoticeable latency.

I wonder though, even if some might see it as overkill, if it would be possible to tweak a Source Audio C4 to an even better, more realistic and authentic octave up sound?

I read some reports of the polyphonic pitch shifting of the C4 having a painfully long latency, but not sure if there is any truth to this?

What do people say, would the C4 with some intense tweaking in the editor be able to beat the Sub'N'Up in terms of tracking, latency, realism/authenticity of a polyphonic 1 octave up effect?

just wondering if you’d be able to share your settings you are using for the sub n up?

I’m in the same predicament and from what I’ve researched so far. I think the whammy ricochet might do the best sounding octave up. But alas until I can afford it I’ll be sticking with the sub n up

 

[NoiseNinja]

just wondering if you’d be able to share your settings you are using for the sub n up?

I’m in the same predicament and from what I’ve researched so far. I think the whammy ricochet might do the best sounding octave up. But alas until I can afford it I’ll be sticking with the sub n up

There you go: Fake / Faux Guitar / 8 String Bass Toneprint for TC Electronic Sub'N'Up / Sub'N'Up Mini

Ignore the follow up reply of mine in that linked thread with improved settings, eventually I ended up deciding to go with the original settings posted in the OP as I discovered those settings actually sounds best in the mix.

Also the Digitech Ricochet was what I initial started out trying out for this purpose, and, while there's a possibility that I got a somewhat faulty unit, my results were not good, ugly digital artifacts, poor tracking of the lower notes, and a painfully slow latency.

After some more intense research watching all the YouTube demos I could find and reading reviews I ended up with the Sub'N'Up Mini, as the conclusion of my research seemed to be that that was the octaver on the market with the 1 octave up effect that was capable of sounding most authentic/realistic and least artificial (mind pitching your signal up a whole octave is always going to sound somewhat artificial if nothing else is done to it).

The Sub'N'Up also tracks as good as flawlessly, at least all the way down to the low E, and the 1 octave up effect has a pretty much unnoticeable latency, and with the EQ options that the Toneprint editor gives you it is possible to get it to sound even more authentic/realistic and almost completely eliminate any obvious unwanted digital artifacts.