Octave pedal placement?

I prefer my Octron before the preamp, and before any OD or fuzz pedals.

 

The octave pedal needs a clean accurate pitch, so early in the chain is best. A comp in front of it may not hurt it-might even help it track.

 

Before my ODs and distortion boxes!

 

Mine goes right after wah and before fuzz/od or compressor.

 

Either or both. It just sounds different.

I have my OC-2 after my fuzz and one distortion, and before another fuzz/distortion and the amp's preamp. I've never tried it in the amp's loop though.

It tracks perfectly well after distortion, in fact possibly better. But remember that it's strictly monophonic - although it will handle played octaves and sometimes 5ths if you're careful - unless you like deliberately semi-controlled chaos, in which case try playing chords through it .

With it before distortion, you get a huge thick 'playing octaves' sound, which can easily get muddy if you overdo it, but is cool anyway .

With it after distortion, the octaves actually remain clean, because they aren't pitch-shifted, they are in fact generated by the pedal, which is basically a very simple analog monosynth that locks onto the incoming note whether it's clean or not - it basically ignores everything except the actual note. So now you get distorted guitar layered with clean synth bass, like playing along to yourself with bass pedals . Like this, it will even track power chords reasonably well, because the distortion emphasizes the fundamental.

And if you really want killer fat synthy octave tones, try fuzz > OC-2 > heavy distortion . But watch your speakers...