Tim Escobedo's PushMe PullYou Octave Fuzz.

[T1bbles]

Hey everyone,

Was just wondering if anyone here's built one of these things? I really want a nice octave-up pedal but can't find any clips of what this one sounds like, it looks an easy enough build, I just want to know more about what Im gonna end up with before I start ordering parts.

Thanks guys

[petemoore]

Was just wondering if anyone here's built one of these things?
 Yepp, we built 'em !
I really want a nice octave-up pedal but can't find any clips of what this one sounds like, it looks an easy enough build, I just want to know more about what Im gonna end up with before I start ordering parts.
 The switch probably costs > the board components for the PMPY.
 You get cool tones and some octave, some boost, dern skippy for 2 transistors !
 Mark reports the FTM gets the wide-range across neck/strings strong octave.
 Transformer circuits can make pretty strong octave, seems there are artifacts attached after the strengthened signal electro-transports itself across coils...missing parts, added parts.
 Green Ringer [with help] is cool, that way the 'help' can be selected [FF, or pre-Boost, or___] separately. Fairly minimal build effort unless you count whatever else you put on it to make it not wimpy, maybe you already have that.    
 I built the ~long list: Bobtavia, SOU, Neo-octavia, just to mention a few, all the opamp/transformer ones...not to 'clump' them together, they're all very nice and all are obviously at least a little different, generally speaking they're very good, strong, and quite simple in a bang for bukk sense.
 

[Mark Hammer]

I still have to try my hand at a Fender Blender, but I have to say that of some 8 or more octave-up units I've made over the years (Anderton project, Elektor project, Green Ringer, Tychobrahe Octavia, Roger Mayer Octavia, Superfuzz, Scrambler, et al), the Foxx Tone Machine has consistently come up shining with the most reliably robust octave.  The octave is easily produced, easily heard, and loaded with character.  Tim has some terrific ideas, and they ARE dead simple and bloody elegant, but if you want an octave-up that will always be there for you, the FTM is your clear choice AFAIC.

[Top Top]

I love the pushme pullyou. What I like about it is the ability to get a relatively clean octave up out of it. Cool sitar-like sounds on the bridge pickup too.

It does not work well on the lower frets of the lower strings, as far as the octave effect goes, though it does make a cool sounding overtone fuzz on power chords down there...

From all the sound clips I have heard of the green ringer, I would definitely recommend the PMPY over green ringer - more pronounced octave up and even simpler to build.

My opinion is a bit limited, however, as this is the only octave up effect I have built, but I feel satisfied enough with it to not feel the need to build any other. From what I have heard in clips, it was the one I liked the best (tone machine didn't seem to do clean octave up).

You can hear a clip on this miror of the old circuit snippets site:
http://www.jiggawoo.eclipse.co.uk/guitarhq/Circuitsnippets/snippets.html

But the clips don't actually cover the full range of sounds... I have a sounds page and hope to add that one to it eventually...

[T1bbles]

Just breadboarded up the pushme pullyou, octave up stage only, I put an electra overdrive infront of it for a bit of drive and grit.

The octave up is very subtle on the lower strings/lower frets, and it's not 'prominent' anywhere, as you've said. This is good for chords though, because instead of clogging up your sound with awful sum & differences, it instead sounds more like it's adding harmonics, which I guess it is, in a way, very growly sound on chords, which I really do like, but as an octave pedal, I need something much more prominent.

Any suggestions?

[Top Top]

The octave up is definitely prominent on mine, as long as you are above about the 7th fret.

If you've still got it on the breadboard, try some different combos of PNP/NPN

Also, personally I have gotten better octave up fuzz out of it by driving it with it's own gain cranked, vs. a moderate gain setting with a fuzz before it.