Octave Down Pedal to Thicken Guitar

AngryGoldfish

I love the sound of an analog octave down pedal and will be replacing my OC-2 (which didn't quite have enough output) with a Octron3 for single notes, but I also need an octave pedal to help thicken my guitar up when playing complex chords. I've decided to write a one-man-band EP, and if I ever record it and perform it live I think I'd run a bass amp along with a guitar amp. That's kind of overkill for now though so until then I'd like to run an octave down pedal to help mimic the thickness and depth of a bass guitar. Anyone have any opinions on what's available? I pretty much only care about the octave down + dry of all of these pedals. The EHX stuff is very popular, but it sounds very organ-like, which is not exactly what I want. It sounds a little plastic-y. 

Digitech Drop
Digitech Whammy Ricochet - I like the momentary function of this where I would be able to add octave to just a few bars
EHX Pitchfork - Even though I'm mostly interested in the octave down, the other modes could be cool 
EHX Nano POG
Boss OC-3 - This sounds the best to me and I like that it won't track my higher notes
Mooer Tender Octaver MKII
TC Sub 'N' Up

victorludorum

Lovepedal Monkey Fist

thecolourbox

Do not rule out the Boss Multi Overtone. It sounds awful on clean sounds but with drive or fuzz or distortion it sounds massive. Has a organ type effect to it as well which would for the thickening requirement quite well.

Demos sound bad because they seem to use it clean but it honestly sounds huge. Low power requirement too

The OC3 thing of being able to set it to not pick up above a certain note certainly sounds useful though

AngryGoldfish

@victorludorum That sounds amazing, but I need something that can be clean as well. It's why I haven't gone for something like a Blue Box. It sounds massive and awesome, but it can't do clean as well. 

@thecolourbox I do play a lot of clean stuff though. 

thecolourbox

In that case, the multi overtone is not for you, it sounds as terrible as it does in the demos clean

VJIves

Ricochet's very good, Tender Octaver II doesn't track as well as the lawsuit version, Sub n Up sounds great low and pretty poor high.

PolarityMan

left field suggestion but have you thought about a looper and a bass?

AngryGoldfish

@PolarityMan I have, but my songs don't follow any normal structures. It might make looping impractical or silly sounding. 

JMP220478

Drop fan here .. complex chord tracking - low latency and accurate half step divisions down to octave below .. 

AngryGoldfish

JMP220478 said:

Drop fan here .. complex chord tracking - low latency and accurate half step divisions down to octave below .. 

I haven't been able to hear enough demos of The Drop or Ricochet being used as an octave down pedal with the dry signal as well. Everyone just demos the crazy noises with the Ricochet and the standard drop tuning of The Drop. 

Moe_Zambeek

Does the Ricochet do Octave down + dry mix? I had one and can’t remember! Anyway, that was the only real use for it that I had and it worked OK though with a bit more synthyness than I was after.

ICBM

Boss OC-3. Jon Gomm uses it exactly for this.

I actually prefer the OC-2 for the huge analogue-synth tone and the sometimes wonderfully erratic tracking it has, but the OC-3 does everything else better.

The Digitech Drop would only work in a parallel loop, I think - otherwise you can't mix in the dry guitar. It does sound very good, but it also has a tendency to cause noise on other pedals on the same supply, even with isolated outputs.

AngryGoldfish

@Moe_Zambeek Yeah, it has a setting where you can drop down one octave with the dry signal mixed in. I like synth sounds. I don't really like organ sounds as much. The Boss OC-3 and Digitech stuff seem more synthy while the EHX/TC/Mooer stuff seem more organ-like. 

@ICBM I loved the sound of the OC-2, even its glitchiness, but the output was never quite enough. I'm gonna pick up a Octron3 to replace it. I do need some polyphonic as well though. 

The Drop does have a dry + wet setting. It's the very last option at the bottom after one octave down. 

ICBM

AngryGoldfish said:

The Drop does have a dry + wet setting. It's the very last option at the bottom after one octave down. 

Ah, sorry! I must have missed that. It's not me that has it, it's the guitarist in the band I play bass in...

Funkfingers

AngryGoldfish said:

The EHX stuff is very popular but it sounds very organ-like ... It sounds a little plastic-y. 

This is exactly why I sometimes combine Pitch Fork and Lester G pedals.  

I fully understand why you might not require this sound on your guitar.

Slimbert

Digitech Whammy 5th gen if you have the floor space as it's polyphonic and tracks really well.

thecolourbox

ICBM said:

AngryGoldfish said:

The Drop does have a dry + wet setting. It's the very last option at the bottom after one octave down. 

Ah, sorry! I must have missed that. It's not me that has it, it's the guitarist in the band I play bass in...

I don't think you have ability to mix them though, they are both on full aren't they?

AngryGoldfish

thecolourbox said:

ICBM said:

AngryGoldfish said:

The Drop does have a dry + wet setting. It's the very last option at the bottom after one octave down. 

Ah, sorry! I must have missed that. It's not me that has it, it's the guitarist in the band I play bass in...

I don't think you have ability to mix them though, they are both on full aren't they?

No, that's right. It's a set mix of both the dry and wet at maximum. The Ricochet is the same. I think I could live with it because that was the most common setting of the OC-2 that I used, but ideally I'd have a blend knob to fully control the dry and wet. 

spirit7

The Foxrox Octron II is the best there is!

TTBZ

The drop sounds pretty good to me for this purpose. It's never gonna sound like a proper bass but it'll do the job.

Matt_McG

The Sub n Up will do what you want. Tracking is good. I use it to add a lower texture or just to put down a bass line into a looper for practicing. I had a Ricochet, and it is built really well and sounds good, too, but I couldn’t (and this is a bit pathetic) handle the lights.