does anyone else dislike Octavias?

[Tubbs]

i just don't get 'em. jimi's great and everything but to me they just sound like you threw a kazoo into the mix.

also, it's the one effect that'll make any song sound old and i don't mean old in a charming way.

fuzz, wah, chorus, delay, tremolo...all of these effects can and have been used in new ways and don't banish a song to the decade of their origin.

BUT i'm open to be schooled.....

can anyone show me a song with a prominent Octavia effect that doesn't sound like a late 60's throwback?

[wingwalker]

They are hard to dial in and even harder to use IMO...I use one a fair bit and don't sound like a kazoo...

Here is one of my favorite recent Octavia moments...not a true Octavia BTW, but a Foxx Tonemachine fuzz with the octave up feature kicked in...love this one! Wait till the solo...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj7dvGzRwE0

[terrapin]

I bought a Fulltone Ultimate-Octave and kept it for ONE WEEK.............Very dissapointed. I tend to like Fulltone's pedals, but that one was IMO less than impressive. The fuzz through my VOX was brittle and hard to control, and the octave up did NOTHING for me.....

But, that is JUST me.............I might have found a good sound if I had tried harder.............But I like pedals that are MUCH more user friendly.

[Tubbs]

They are hard to dial in and even harder to use IMO...I use one a fair bit and don't sound like a kazoo...

Here is one of my favorite recent Octavia moments...not a true Octavia BTW, but a Foxx Tonemachine fuzz with the octave up feature kicked in...love this one! Wait till the solo...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj7dvGzRwE0


pretty cool. he uses it more subtly than most.

[StopReferencing]

I like using a Chicago Iron Octavian with the Boost control dimed - full chords, especially tri-tones. Awesome harsh ring-mod/thunder-y tones.

[wingwalker]

pretty cool. he uses it more subtly than most.

Yeah...thats how I try and use it most of the time, and IMO thats how they tend to sound most musical. It's real hard to get them to sound right but if you can make it work it's well worth it to me...

[wingwalker]

I bought a Fulltone Ultimate-Octave and kept it for ONE WEEK.............Very dissapointed. I tend to like Fulltone's pedals, but that one was IMO less than impressive. The fuzz through my VOX was brittle and hard to control, and the octave up did NOTHING for me.....

But, that is JUST me.............I might have found a good sound if I had tried harder.............But I like pedals that are MUCH more user friendly.

Thats funny...I tend to not like too much Fulltone stuff but the Ultimate Octave is one unit i've held on to...I use my Octron stacked wiht my Sunfaces far more these days but the UP still see's active duty now and then.

[erksin]

I've never been a fan, but I kinda got into them while we were developing our Ottava Magus a few years ago.

They are a hard effect to make sound good if you don't approach them with some amount of finesse. There are so many sounds to be had from them just by altering your picking approach, working your guitars controls, etc. Sometimes its really the perfect thing to use for certain stuff, and I definitely play differently when I use one so it has a lot of value for me in that regard.

I'm definitely not a fan of the really gated, sputtery ones. :dunno

[xntrick]

the opening song for "the quantum of solace" sounds like it uses octavio type effect

[BMF Effects]

I don't have much use for an octave but for some reason I felt I needed one. One day I decided to hit a shop with a large selection and went through the big and no so big names and came to the conclusion that they either had a great fuzz or a great octave but none really had both. There was a use SIB Nick Nitro in the display case that came the closest to having a great octave and fuzz so I picked that up. One small mod and I'm done looking for a fuzz/octave pedal.

[Tubbs]

the opening song for "the quantum of solace" sounds like it uses octavio type effect
just listened to it. which part are you talking about? the main riff? i don't know, i don't hear an octavia there. sounds more like an octave down effect to me.

[TMock]

The only octave fuzz I've ever used is the BJF Candy Apple Fuzz. It's far more than just an octave fuzz, but it's got this octave setting that's just nuts. It's very gated and spitty, and if you get it just right it absolutely shrieks like a scalded cat.

The cool thing with the CAF, though, is that you can roll your volume way back and get some much more subdued rhythm sounds, even in the octave setting.

[xntrick]

just listened to it. which part are you talking about? the main riff? i don't know, i don't hear an octavia there. sounds more like an octave down effect to me.

yeah, the main riff has that sound..i was playing through my octavio last week and was getting a similar sound..

[xntrick]

here's a nice clip with an ocatavio pedal..yes, it does have a 70's sound but it is very well done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1SP-8jIIo0

[Tubbs]

yeah, the main riff has that sound..i was playing through my octavio last week and was getting a similar sound..
cool, doesn't sound gimmicky like most octavia examples. still not a believer though. sorry fellas.:dunno

[fieldsroyal]

I just received a new Menatone Chawbox and it just wails - need to spend time bonding but it's a "wow" effect for mine - nice in doses - i set it up loud so it's on the verge of feedback - then upper octave just screams out of the mix - it's a fun effect!

[scr@tchy]

I agree that if you play minor blues scale business on an octavia type pedal you are just going to sound like Band of Gypsies. It sounds and feels great with the correct amp, but it's like copying and pasting that sound on your track. The simple answer here is don't play anything remotely bluesy sounding, say lydian mode like Led Zep's friends or the Simpson's theme, it can be thought of as more of a powerful synthy type sound. With this understanding there are a lot of applications where you maybe wouldn't even notice it was an octavia at first.

[Stormbringer]

Try a Foxrox Octron I or II. easy to dial in and the trimmer inside really helps you nail the exact tone you're after.

[Lolaviola]

Yes, the E-H Microsynth, the Foxrox Octron and the Fox Tone Machine (not related) are some of the simpler octave effects to dial in.
The vintage Octavio circuit works a lot better with an already distorting (read: loud) amp, and it is very hard to dial-in.
It is also very counter-intuitive, but sometimes to get a good "up" effect you use a "down" pedal.

[SR-OZ]

I don't have a huge experience with octave-up pedals since I generally prefer octave down pedals - à la Jeff Beck, funky 70s tone.
anyway I've owned EH Microsynth and Ampeg Scrambler and I agree that most usable sounds are archived by rolling back your guitar volume.

[edgie]

ever tried listening to Oz Noy? Listening to him made me realize that there are still hundreds, maybe thousands, of ways to play guitar effects we haven't discovered yet.

[wingwalker]

Again, they are not for everybody and like a lot of effects out there they do have a sort of a dated sound that goes with them no matter what...a chorus pedal sounds 80's to most people no matter what you're playing with it for example...

[Rena Rune]

It's not something you're meant to have on all the time.

[Tubbs]

I don't have a huge experience with octave-up pedals since I generally prefer octave down pedals - à la Jeff Beck, funky 70s tone.
anyway I've owned EH Microsynth and Ampeg Scrambler and I agree that most usable sounds are archived by rolling back your guitar volume.
yeah, i like octave down pedals too

[Tubbs]

Again, they are not for everybody and like a lot of effects out there they do have a sort of a dated sound that goes with them no matter what...a chorus pedal sounds 80's to most people no matter what you're playing with it for example...
i agree with you to an extent about chorus and the 80's. chorus on delay doesn't sound dated though.

[Tubbs]

The simple answer here is don't play anything remotely bluesy sounding, say lydian mode like Led Zep's friends or the Simpson's theme, it can be thought of as more of a powerful synthy type sound. With this understanding there are a lot of applications where you maybe wouldn't even notice it was an octavia at first.
any specific song examples you can point me too?

[hangten]

I don't dislike them.

[tjmicsak]

Dr. Octavias? :)

[jivepikinturkey]

It is also very counter-intuitive, but sometimes to get a good "up" effect you use a "down" pedal.


hmmm..............took me a minute to wrap my head around this statement, but now i get it.....i think?......interesting!

[GuitarBrent]

Octavia-style pedals are great, but you have to play with the right touch, finesse, and so forth to get the goods. Volume and tone controls are very important. What you have on after the effect is also very important. You can't just turn it on and play without getting some experience with one. For me, it's an indispensible part of my sound and something I go to especially when I want to get that everything's going to explode sound.

[coolhand78]

They kinda like albums that you don't bond with straight away... But give them a few plays over time and you start to get it... It took me a long time to work out the right contexts for my rm octavia but when the context is right man its a killer... Like the cookie monster says these days... Its a sometimes food! :)

[Melodic Dreamer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q9SBym4Xvo

[Steven]

I´m totaly in love with octavias - I´m using a clean amp so I run my octavia (from www.generalguitargadgets.com (http://www.generalguitargadgets.com)) into a Catalinbread DLS to tame the harshness of the octavia (I do the same with my fuzz). Then use your neck pickup, you´ll get the best result with single coil pickups and use the volume knob on the guitar to bring out the ovtave sound. Yummy IMO.

[Hamp]

What are the quintessential octave up and down recordings?

[Tubbs]

looks like i'm the only one who doesn't like octavias. are you guys who love 'em all Blues/Classic Rock players? that's my impression. am i wrong?

[coolhand78]

I definitely am a blueser... But mile einziger from incubus uses the boss OC2 for octave down stuff and they're pretty rock...
As far as octavia goes hendrix's machine gun, purple haze are big ones... Doyle bramhall II uses one all the time... Kenny wayne shepherd uses one occasionally... Namely blue on black...

[DirtBoxMan]

ever tried listening to Oz Noy? Listening to him made me realize that there are still hundreds, maybe thousands, of ways to play guitar effects we haven't discovered yet.

Bingo! Another guy who gets kudos in my book is Adrian Belew. Both aren't relegated to old school methods of octave fuzz.

That said, I don't dig the Octavia either. The clear winner IMO is the Foxx Tone Machine, which has a toggle for the octave mode, and will still produce some subtle octave stuff even in non octave mode. And the octave circuit itself (uses diodes instead of a transformer) is more forgiving IMO, and doesn't require as much finesse. It also has a tone control, which adds more flexibility.

So I submit that octave fuzzes are cool, but the Octavia specific design need not be the one to do it.

[Tubbs]

That said, I don't dig the Octavia either.

whew, thank you!

[erksin]

My biggest complaint about the majority of them is the gating - the fact that you can't do sustaining, natural note decays with many of them. I'm also not happy that most of them require you to use your neck pup and play above the 12th fret to coax anything out of them.

[seiko]

looks like i'm the only one who doesn't like octavias. are you guys who love 'em all Blues/Classic Rock players? that's my impression. am i wrong?

I wouldn't describe myself as a blues-rock player, far from it, you can definitely evoke the typical octavia sound by soloing in the minor pentatonic around the twelth but you don't have to do it. There's a bunch of players that used octave-up fuzz boxes (I'd say the octavia, the foxxtone and the Univox superfuzz all fall into this category.) that weren't blues-rock per se.

Ron Asheton
Pete Cosey (on the Miles Davis electric records)
Robert Fripp (usually on Brian Eno stuff, particularly "Taking Tiger Mountain")
Adrian Belew (as mentioned)
Big Country (not my cup of tea particularly but big users)
Forgot: Dean Wareham from Luna, etc.
etc.

The trick is to find one that doesn't limit you the 12th fret. I've had good luck with the C-Bread Octavva Magus and Visual Souds Angry Fuzz for this.

[Leeus]

Aside from music, I'm painter. I would hate to paint with only one brush. There are are literally hundreds of different types of brushes. Each one you can use for one part of a painting.

Don't give up one way of coloring your sound.

[Charles#5]

My biggest complaint about the majority of them is the gating - the fact that you can't do sustaining, natural note decays with many of them. I'm also not happy that most of them require you to use your neck pup and play above the 12th fret to coax anything out of them.

Is that the case with the Ottava Magus too?

[erksin]

Is that the case with the Ottava Magus too?

No - the impetus for the OM was to address those issues.

[seiko]

Is that the case with the Ottava Magus too?

Nah, you can get usable sounds all over the night.

[charmboy]

With the Octron, you can dial in as much upper octave as you want and mix it with the straight signal which is very effective for exploring new sounds. I'll often dial it in so the clean signal is up higher (as a boost) and the upper octave is dialed back a bit. This way you get a very nice bloom as the main note starts to decay. Granted the Octron is more than just an octavia but this (and the lower octave) is why I chose one of these over other octavia options.

[Charles#5]

No - the impetus for the OM was to address those issues.

Great, mine's waiting for me at the post office. I'm going to pick it up tomorrow. What do you recommend, V8 => OM or OM => V8?

[seiko]

OM => V8?

I have that exact combination and the OM prefers to be in front of any dirt pedals.

[erksin]

Great, mine's waiting for me at the post office. I'm going to pick it up tomorrow. What do you recommend, V8 => OM or OM => V8?

I have that exact combination and the OM prefers to be in front of any dirt pedals.

Yeah - to optimize the interplay between your pickups and the OM you'll want to run it first.

[SuperReverb2]

I actually quite like Octavias, (used to use them a lot) I just find their tone/sound/vibe dated for what I play and listen to in today's musical world.

:)

[thesjkexperienc]

I have the FoxRox and when I use it even jaded tone freeks come up and ask what that sound was. The secret is individual volume knobs for octave up, regular note and octave down, so you can get all kinds of interesting sounds.

I will admit that the boxes that just go an octave up are limited.

[Tubbs]

I actually quite like Octavias, (used to use them a lot) I just find their tone/sound/vibe dated for what I play and listen to in today's musical world.

:)
still i haven't had anyone point me to a song that's modern in spirit that uses an octavia. please, specific examples.......

[SuperReverb2]

still i haven't had anyone point me to a song that's modern in spirit that uses an octavia. please, specific examples.......

Let me re-phrase. I USED to like (and use) an Octavia in the late 60's, 70's, and even into the early 80's, when I was heavily influenced by Hendrix, Trower, etal. I even liked one when Kenny Wayne Sheperd resurrected it for Blue on Black and Gov't Mule used one on Deja Voodoo.

My musical world today consists of a lot of blues and jazz ala Ford, Carlton, etal. Thus my statement: The tone/sound/vibe of an Octavia sounds "dated" for what I play and listen to in today's musical world.

:confused:

[Deaj]

I like what I hear from some players who use Octavia type pedals but I dislike playing through them myself. It's not a good fit for me at all.

[scr@tchy]

any specific song examples you can point me too?
I have no sound examples, I have only heard the effect in the blues settings. Maybe I have heard it in a different genre and not realized it...

I was speaking about the possibilities that you could try that would let you hear the effect without the stigma attached. You are a player, when you next have the opportunity to play one, don't play blues. Play Django lines or Puff the Magic Dragon, the guitar solo from the Wren & Stimpy theme... how would Tom Petty use one? Imagine the Comfortably Numb solo with an octavia... and some of the treble rolled off on your guitar... I would also like to hear the harmonica solo on Isn't She Lovely... I think I've got to get one now.

[Chadley]

I have the FoxRox and when I use it even jaded tone freeks come up and ask what that sound was. The secret is individual volume knobs for octave up, regular note and octave down, so you can get all kinds of interesting sounds.

I will admit that the boxes that just go an octave up are limited.

:agree

I have the Octron on my board as well. It is something I might not use at every gig...but when it is called for it will raise the hairs on the back of your neck. I use it to take leads over the top. It is also very cool when doing volume swell type things. You can come up with some pretty dreamy/ambient effects with an fuzz octave, volume and delay pedal.

The Octron is incredibly organic and flexible. It is a lovely pedal.

[KagakuNinja]

Had a Captain Coconut 2, never found much use for the Octavia, a few times I had all the effects turned on, leaned the guitar against my amp and worked the knobs and feedback.

[monkmiles]

Great, mine's waiting for me at the post office. I'm going to pick it up tomorrow. What do you recommend, V8 => OM or OM => V8?

Yeah - to optimize the interplay between your pickups and the OM you'll want to run it first.

I have and love the OM. I've been going fuzz face clone into the OM...and like how the OM has been sounding alone and also how they sound together.

Though I can see where it'd be good to have the OM first for reacting to the volume knob. But the same could be said for the fuzz face in my case....that it too likes to be first. It seems like it's give/take. Perhaps the V8 doesn't react as much with the volume knob though.

[Purple]

You don't HAVE to play bluesy Hendrix licks with an octave fuzz. Try a different approach! They invite you to be creative in your approach.

[Lance]

You don't HAVE to play bluesy Hendrix licks with an octave fuzz. Try a different approach! They invite you to be creative in your approach.

What he said. It can do soooo much more than blues rock. Check this dude out, playing a LP into a Mu-Tron into a Musitronics Low Octave Divider (I have both of these pedals, btw)

Feel Like a Stanger, track 12.
http://www.archive.org/details/mrblotto1998-11-13