Octave pedal?

[mrmrcoleman]

Hello, I went to see a band last night and the guitarist was playing bass lines using a pedal which dropped his guitar by an octave (or two?). Is  this a common effect? Is it possible for a hobbyist to build? Also what is this effect called? I really want one!

Mark

[MartyMart]

It's an "octave" pedal such as a "Boss OC-2"
This will give you a quite clean 1 or 2 octaves down, or both !
Not too easy to DIY ad get as "clean" but not impossible !!

MM

[smashinator]

It's a common enough effect.  Around here we refer to those as octave down pedals.  A quick search of the forum for "octave down" should turn up plenty of results for you. 

Check out the Blue Box (here's one link: http://www.tonepad.com/project.asp?id=33)

[mrmrcoleman]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Apologies for the moronic question, I just googled and found the answers I needed.

My bad.

Mark

[smashinator]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Apologies for the moronic question, I just googled and found the answers I needed.

My bad.

Mark

Just don't let it happen again.  Just kidding! 

[Dave_B]

A few people here tend to squelch this type of post, sometimes in a less-than-polite way.  That's a pet peeve of mine since these basic questions occasionally inspire the really smart folks to offer some new insight.   

[Mark Hammer]

In the spirit of be-careful-what-you-wish-for-because-you-just-might-get-it, be aware that this category of effect, with only a couple of digital exceptions, is a MONO effect.  It will get very confused by playing more than one note at a time.  If you want to hear a terrific digital version of what such an effect CAN be, ask to try out the Electro-Harmonix P.O.G. (Polyphonic Octave Generator).  It is pricey but very impressive.

Note as well that if you start wondering about building an octave-down project, there are several excellent ones to choose from at both www.generalguitargadgets.com and www.tonepad.com.  Please keep in mind that octave-down and octave-up are two different things, using different principles.  A project listed as doing one will not do the other.

[jmusser]

You can go to Joe Davisson's http://www.diystompboxes.com/analogalchemy/index.html and check out his "Shoctave Harmonizer". It does a wonderful job doing a one octave down. You can also buy a cheap Arion MOC-1, and it'll give you one and two octaves down blended with the fundamental, in any combination. It's a wonderful pedal, that just happens to be inexpensive. It is filtered very well, so it makes the tone sound more like a bass, instead of down octave, buzzy square wave, and a lot of people like that.

[Doug_H]

I really like my old DOD Octaplus for this sort of thing. I hauled it out at rehearsal a few months ago and I had forgotten how cool it sounded. It's been over a decade since I played with it. The bass was deeper than deep, and competed with the bass guitar for the lows in the mix. I used it for a solo in a funk tune we did and it sounded great. The tone control and octave and direct level controls make it pretty flexible for different sounds. I'm not a big proponent of DOD pedals but I think this is one they got right, typical bypass issues etc nonwithstanding. You can get these pretty cheap. I've seen them used for $10-$20.

Doug

[D Wagner]

Mark,

Check out a Pearl OC-07.  One octave up, one and two octaves down, and a clean blend.  Very impressive pedal, indeed.  Yuo should hear what it does to a bass.   

Derek

[aron]

Danelectro model. Works great. CHEAP.