Octave Up for bass?

ICBM · June 2018

JezWynd said:

That sounds like a plan. I should take a pic of it first, perhaps you could check it's the right item? I spend most time on the neck pickup, though recently moving to the middle position more, with the bridge pu turned down to balance the two.

The original cap should be a .0047uF - AKA 4n7F, or 4700pF - not .047uF, that's the tone control cap value.

JezWynd said:

If I went with the vintage to modern sweep, is there much difference between the two, ie. are there distinct tones midway between the two extremes?

Yes, that's exactly why I did it like that - on my previous 4003 I found the difference too drastic. (For normal bass playing.)

JezWynd said:

Veering towards thinking that as there isn't a good clean octave up, perhaps I should incorporate a drive pedal with octave up mode using the POG2 to try for a distinct lead sound. The SD-2 sounds good (esp lead mode) and I imagine something like the Barber Direct Drive could be even better with its clean singing lead sound.

That's what I was thinking by suggesting the Foxrox Octron - although it is a fuzz, it's quite smooth by fuzz standards. I admit I may not have noticed quite how fuzzy it is because the guitarist in my band uses one and never has a truly clean sound on the amp...

JezWynd said:

It's probably a stretch hoping for a good clean sound from an octave pedal. The physics of a bass string, with its extra length and the way the string behaves when plucked means there's always likely to be those metallic sounding artifacts as the note fades (something to do with harmonics? Way above my knowledge ).

I think so, although I've noticed that metallic character from all digital pitch shifting, on either guitar or bass - with the exception of the Digitech Drop, but unfortunately that only does pitch down, not up (as the name implies).