Octave Pedal

[lkingston]

For me it wasn’t just a matter of low frequencies. It was the actual sound of “the bass”: more of a synth sound than a bass. I tried it through another Roy channel that has great EQ. It wasn’t that. I’m just a real stickler for tone and the OC-3 just didn’t cut it.

[AcouStickistNS]

Interesting subject - with the Line 6 Helix products a signal path can be created where frequencies can split into a second path. I have a couple of patches set up for bass instruments to run higher frequencies into a guitar amp and the lower into a bass amp. What’s being asked here is the opposite direction to use an octave effect. I’m not sure how good the octave effect is. But there’s plenty of eq effects to use if the sound isn’t that great. I’m not sure how good the tracking is.

I also have an Eventide H9 that has some elaborate pitch shifting algorithms. I forgot the technical reasons why, but pitch shifters and octave effects are quite different from each other despite getting a similar result when using a pitch shifter at the octave points.

I’ll play with this idea over the next week and reply back what I find.

[dcopper]

So, I have reviewed the videos of the H9 Bass, POG, SubnUp
Boss OC3 and DigDeep octavers on youtube and read some reviews. I am wondering which will work best with acoustics, adding some bass lines to your songs.

The EHX H9 bass at least with headphones sounded the best to me but you are limited to the “Split Bass” setting from what I can see unless you want a polyphonic response. The OC-3 has nice features and a separate bass out which is very helpful, but the complaint is with the quality of the bass tone itself. I may be able to live with the bass tone issue with the OC3 if I can set the split and have the separate out that the OC 3 offers. I know several people that have used the original and second version of the Boss OC. I want to try them all out but no one around has all of them and the DigDeep ships from Italy.

I am more interested in the bass side of the pedal - the polyphonic octave up on just about all of these does not sound very realistic to me. Maybe someone else has had good experience with simulating a 12 string. I have the HX Stomp and probably need to spend some more time with the Octave/Pitch shifting options.

Davidc

[jay7347]

Another vote for the Sub-n-Up. My needs are only occasional and with a bunch of Strymon pedals on my board I went with economy in terms of size and price. Real happy so far.

-jay

[AcouStickistNS]

Happen to come across this:

https://m.vloggest.com/watch/that-pe...ne-1076040613/

[RockerDuck]

I had the Pog, then I bought the Sub n Up. The Sub n up had more of everything, and cheaper. Do not get the Sub n up mini, it doesn't compare.

[dcopper]

Hey RD- can you tell me why the SubNUp mini doesn’t compare? I am trying my best to narrow the pedals down. Right now, at least for acoustic - I need a polyphonic mode and one feature the H9 and the OC3 have is the ability to split the bass signal. That may not matter as much with the SubNUp since it sounds to me like it tracks much better, is tighter and far cleaner.

Thanks for the video link above too AcoustickistNS! And sorry I don’t mean to hijack this link.
Davidc

[wood nacho]

Originally Posted by dcopper

Hey RD- can you tell me why the SubNUp mini doesn’t compare? I am trying my best to narrow the pedals down. Right now, at least for acoustic - I need a polyphonic mode and one feature the H9 and the OC3 have is the ability to split the bass signal. That may not matter as much with the SubNUp since it sounds to me like it tracks much better, is tighter and far cleaner.

Thanks for the video link above too AcoustickistNS! And sorry I don’t mean to hijack this link.
Davidc

Just a little note about the SubNUp. I bought the SubNUp Mini during the spring of this year thinking it would beat out my current pedal (EHX Pitchfork) with its plethora of features (built in toneprints, effects, low pass, eq, etc.). I did some tests at home and found that latency was too much with the SubNUp. I don't remember the exact number but it was a handful of milliseconds slower than the EHX. I brought it back. Infact, I might have posted about it on here. I'l check.

Im not sure if the 'bigger brother' SubNUp would have less latency, I doubt it.

[dcopper]

Just as a follow-up, I emailed Line6 and asked the tech support regarding the HX Stomp and whether it is possible to split the octave function and assign it only to separate strings or to frequencies. They emailed back that the HX Stomp is not capable of that at this point - the octave effects applies to all 6 strings. They recommended I forward any suggestions to their tech development people.

This weekend I plan on trying out several octave pedals including the BOSS OC3, TC SubnUp and maybe the EHX B9 Bass if I can find one.

Davidc

[AcouStickistNS]

Originally Posted by dcopper

Just as a follow-up, I emailed Line6 and asked the tech support regarding the HX Stomp and whether it is possible to split the octave function and assign it only to separate strings or to frequencies. They emailed back that the HX Stomp is not capable of that at this point - the octave effects applies to all 6 strings. They recommended I forward any suggestions to their tech development people.

This weekend I plan on trying out several octave pedals including the BOSS OC3, TC SubnUp and maybe the EHX B9 Bass if I can find one.

Davidc

Sorry I’ve had no time to do this, but look at page 30 regarding the assignment of crossover to splits. The Stomp has this. You should be able to send the lowest frequencies to a split path into an octave effect.

[dcopper]

Thanks I will check that out. I am not quite sure about the split paths - and will have to do a little more research on the options. I did see it in the manual and that prompted my email to Line6.

I checked out the BOSS OC3 and it did not work for me. It was great to assign the crossover frequencies but otherwise I was not very impressed with the tone and the tracking.

I picked up the EHX Pitch Fork which is pretty good with tracking and the tone of the octaves. The lacking aspect was there is no separate mix for the lower and upper octaves. I ordered a SubnUp and will see how that works out.

Great thread and thanks to the OP!

[AcouStickistNS]

I spent some time with the Stomp this evening. I got the crossover to work at the split, set the frequency around 140-150 Hz to send the lowest frequencies just short of an open D string. Used the Bass Octave pedal, and had to boost all the levels up. I could hear the low bass octaves coming through and no issues playing chords. Sounded best to my ears when using muted picking on the lowest E and A strings. I tried added a boost compressor to bring out the low octaves more but that sounded horrible. Rather subtle effect, I was never was a fan of Line6 octave & pitch shift effects. If you find one that works better and there's no crossover, you could run that pedal into the Stomp's chain and use its crossover function to separate the frequencies that you want to run through the external octave pedal.

For whatever reason I could not get the pitch shift effect to work, only the "Bass Octave".

I've not tried it, but EBS I've heard makes a great Octave pedal, designed for bass but it might work well for this application.

[jparis51]

Originally Posted by lkingston

The EH Bass9 also does this, but only on the “Split Bass” preset #7. The Boss OC-3 lets you vary the threshold of what note this split happens. I always put it at F#3 (a half step below an open G string.

Can the OC-3 generate a bass note for only the lowest note that it hears in a chord, even if it's getting other notes in the selected range? In other words, with your split set at F#3, if you strummed an open D chord would it only give you an A bass note, the lowest note in that chord? Likewise an A bass note when strumming an open A chord, etc. Could the EH Bass9 do the same?

[lkingston]

Originally Posted by jparis51

Can the OC-3 generate a bass note for only the lowest note that it hears in a chord, even if it's getting other notes in the selected range? In other words, with your split set at F#3, if you strummed an open D chord would it only give you an A bass note, the lowest note in that chord? Likewise an A bass note when strumming an open A chord, etc. Could the EH Bass9 do the same?

Good question. Unfortunately both are polyphonic in the bass range. The Bass9 sounds quite a bit better.

[dcopper]

When I demo'd the OC3, if you set the split and played the chord, the effect did not apply to the frequencies above your split setting. However, you had to mute say the A string for example if your bass note was on the E string, otherwise it sounded muddy. I have a SubnUp coming today and I will compare it to the Pitchfork I picked up. The TC and the EHX products like the pitchfork and probably the EH9 Bass seem to track faster and that eliminates a lot of the mud.

I think the effect has to be used judiciously unless you are going for that all out organ tone.