Boss OC-2 Octave

Not easy because it doesn't track well. You have to play one note at a time, be careful and pray that it tracks the next note you play. Chances are high it might, but sometimes it does not and spoils your music. With a pitch shifter pedal there's lots of more options and it will track perfectly and allow playing chords, so why buy an octaver instead of a pitch shifter?

Sound quality was good but it didn't track well, so it wasn't useful anyway.

I tried and compared results with the pitch shifter effect in Boss GX-700. Effect quality was the same (I expected better quality with the octave pedal), but the octave pedal didn't track even single lines well enough, even though the pitch shifter did perfectly. That's why I didn't buy the octave pedal, and don't recommend it to anyone.

Very easy, you'd have to be pretty stupid to find it confusing. The manual for my MT-2 was better(there aren't as many suggested settings in this manual). But it's easy to get cool sounds.

I was going for the tone on "Speed Metal Symphony" & "Dragon's Kiss" by Marty Friedman (better known from Megadeth). I'm using a USA Jackson KV-1 Dave Mustaine model with Seymour Duncan JB pickups. I'm NOT a big effect pedal guy at all! I use this OC-2 into a MT-2 into my Marshall. I'm not into Chorus, Wah and Flanger and all those wierd effects. Octave is a more musical effect if you ask me. My only complaint is that the low notes get a wierd echo sound for some reason. But it's really cool for solos. DOESN'T get muddy going fast either.

So far no problems

Haven't delt with boss, but i have a 5 year warranty :-)

Very cool! I tried a PS-5 for it's "Harmonist" settings, but i returned it because it got muddy during fast solos. The OC-2 only oes octaves but it is crystal clear.

Requires a little bit of playing around to get accustomed to Octave 1 and 2 controls, but very fun to mess with.

I use Strats and Teles with mostly Fender amps (I borrow an old Bassman most of the time).

This thing has a lot of trouble with multiple notes and chords, but most pedal octavers do. With the guitar signal turned all the way down, it does a decent job of imitating a bass, but is subject to some glitching here and there on lower notes. Adds great flavor to middle-eastern in fluenced and shredder-type runs, and does a bit of a cool, weird faux 12 string effect for '60s freakout tunes. I love it for little bursts of low frequency mud to sprinkle throughout tunes.

Have never needed

I'm an indie rock geek, and this is great little contraption for that. It's fun to goof around with, but doesn't have the cool anarchic streak that an MXR Blue Box has. But I like this one for live applications more, it's just easier to wrangle in and doesn't color my tone when bypasses. I use both of them pretty much the same way, just in different circumstances. Boss makes great stuff.

If you know what an octave is and how to adjust levels this should be pretty easy. Generally I don't like the sound of OCT 2 and use OCT 1 at 75% of volume and main signal at 100%--sounds more vintage that way.

Hardest thing (or easiest) is signal chain placement--this should go before ANYTHING else other than perhaps EQ in order to allow for note tracking. Don't stick it after your distortion pedal or you will experience less than satisfactory results.

For those of you that don't know what an octave pedal is good for, you should first consider what it is NOT good for:

1.) Octave pedals will not 'fatten' out your playing in a general sense. More than 1 note will freak it out and cause it to wiggle.

2.) Octave pedals don't 'double' your sound--they add a square wave (hollow synthy sounding wave) underneath your sound. This means the more of your sound you hear the more 'tone' you get from the pedal.

3.) Octave pedals can sound cheesy if used too much.

Past that, octave pedals are good for fattening up single note lines, adding interest to flourishes and other slightly special effects. Think the opening solo to Prince's "When Doves Cry" or "Fire" by Hendrix--both awesome uses of an octave device.

Sounds okay, but does introduce noise--which is then amplified by your distortion if you put the pedal placement right. It's an octave pedal so don't expect too much "tone" wise; if your unaffected tone is good then your octave tone will be--if it's bad this will not help you.

The octave sounds like a square wave. To avoid sounding too 'synthy' I suggest mixing down the octave levels to 50-75% volume and your main signal at 100%. Maxing everything out at 100% sounds like crap if you ask me.

It's not a Fulltone Ultimate Ocatave, but it costs so much less than one--sometimes these go for 20 bucks used on eBay. Someone gave me mine.

Overall the tracking is about 95% accurate. Obviously if you play more than one note you will hear the octave get confused as hell and it produces a bassy 'wiggle' sound; however, sometimes it does this if you add a little too much vibrato on a note in the lower registers. For the most part it tracks pretty good, but before you know it is is wiggling on you for a second.

Boss is pretty good.

I play indie noise-rock; think Big Black, Rapeman, Soundgarden, Nirvana. For the occasional foray into single-note fun this is a great pedal. For best effect don't overuse it--only once in awhile do you want to use this pedal.

Generally this pedal is for some people, and not for others. Myself I like octave pedals for their subtlety and the Boss is the best *affordable* one on the market now.

1,2,3 knobs, very PLAIN - if you can't figure it out, I don't know what to tell you. Perhaps you will need to RECONSIDER EVERYTHING or VISIT a psychiatrist.

schecter c-1-->boss tu-2-->dunlop 535q-->boss oc-2-->hughes & kettner club reverb.
This pedal produces a small but noticable hissing sound when activated, but this doesn't matter unless you are just standing still and listening to nothing. It doesn't really COLOR your sound. If you are playing, obviously this small amount of hiss does not matter.
There are many stupid people who have submitted reviews of this pedal complaining that it doesn't octave chords. You play a chord, and the sound is ALL MIXED UP and it begins to FREAK OUT and be very RANDOM and LOCO. You'd have to be LUCKY and it would be a FAT CHANCE that it will ever work this way. WHAT DO YOU DO? First, cease with the MISDIRECTED HOSTILITY, and ask yourself WHAT WAS I THINKING?. The instructions manual says to not play chords through it. The whole PURPOSE of this pedal is to play single-note riffs through it. For this purpose, the pedal rules. FROM CHAOS will come clarity. I would call it PARADISE. It will certainly DO YOU RIGHT.
The direct knob should be all the way up. After that, just experiment with the other two until you find the spot that complements the direct signal in the way you like. I put the 2nd octave DOWN at about 1/8, and the first octave at about 2/3.
311 uses this pedal on many of their songs, such as HOMEBREW and JACKOLANTERN'S WEATHER. It's SICK TIGHT, and SWEET.

Have owned for a while now, and seems very dependable indeed. This pedal goes for the HIVE like YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE.

Contacting them would be a confusing USE OF TIME and a MINDSPIN.

If I were to LOSE it I would buy another. If it were stolen, I would SEVER the head of the thief from their body, and declare unto them, "YOU GET WORKED!" Super cool pedal if you use it for what it is intended, which is to COME ORIGINAL and to WAKE YOUR MIND UP. I will be using this for EONS.

Three knobs.

Getting a good sound out of it is totally subjective to your ears. I think most other people playing this would think it would sound terrible for chording, but I love the brutal fart that this brown beast possesses (no pun intended.) For single notes though, I think it sounds terrific, especially for Sabbath/Che/High on Fire type riffs that require a big fat sound. Sounds especially good through a 4x12 cabinet at high volumes with distortion.

I wouldn't reccomend this to most people for chordwork though. If you're into Isis or Neurosis, or just about any doom/sludge type stuff, you'd dig this. Stoner rock guitarists take notice!

I'm giving this a two because it would sound terrible to most, but for the heavily processed, lo-fi yet thick and doomy sound I'm going for, I give it a ten. I keep it on a lot, along with a slapback delay to give the guitar a little more depth. It's a little muddy but I like it that way.

I've never had problems with any other Boss single pedals. I hate the new dual pedal things that they're releasing now, although the reliablity is not the problem where those are concerned. I just had a bad experience with the loop section taking away the gain on my Marshall, but that amp doesn't have an effects loop anyway.

I play heavy music, and I try to be original. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it, but I'm heavily influenced by bands like Neurosis, Isis, You and I, Orchid, At the Gates, and His Hero is Gone. I've been looking to expand my tonal pallate with one of these things for a while now, and I happened to get a good deal on one the other day. I've been playing close to five years now and I own the following: a Marshall JCM 800 2203 100 watt head, a Gibson Les Paul Standard, a Line 6 Delay Modeler, a Line 6 Modulation Modeler, and a '62 Fender Jazzmaster reissue. If this pedal were stolen, I would be upset, but instead of replacing it, I would probably start saving up to buy a second amp to complement my Marshall.

Listening to this pedal through my amp made me come to the realization that blending my Marshall with something like...the bottom end of a 5150 would probably turn out very thick and chunky if tweaked correctly. Even if I don't keep this pedal, it has helped me to determine an ideal setup for live and recording use that I want to reach at some point.

Pick this up cheap, but make sure it's your thing beforehand.

Super easy to use. Three knobs. I don't use the second octave setting very much since it makes the bass sound muddy. The second octave only really works when you play above the 12th fret. Tracking is really good, but I find that it works better with active basses than passive ones. This might have to do with the output of the instrument. You also have to make sure that you only hit one string at a time and that you play cleanly.

Used it with a 70's Fender Precision (with flatwounds, the classic sound!), Godin L.R. Baggs Acoustibass fretless, 90's Spector NS2-C (the cheap bolt-on model).

It gets a bit noisy with the passive basses when the note is decaying. The active bass is much cleaner, even when the note is fading out.

Octave sounds are great. This is easily one of the best effects for bass.

Like most Boss pedals, it's reliable. I don't have the AC adapter so I only use the battery power source. You can easily tell when the battery is dying with the brightness of the LED when the pedal is on.

This is a great little pedal to have if you play a variety of music. It's a lot of fun to play with and I always look forward to turning it on. As I mentioned before, easily the best and the cheapest effects pedal for bass you can buy. Don't get it new, there are so many used ones floating around that you can always pick up one that's second hand.

three knobs - just fiddle with 'em and you'll find what you are after

i play gordon smith sg> ds1 (or a bigmuff)> dano flanger>carlsbro 50 top. i picked this pedal up cheap recently and really like it. it sounds truly rockin with some distortion/fuzz. now that i've used it i've noticed octaves cropping up on all sorts of stuff - mountain, clutch, kyuss, zep...it's everywhere! obviously it's a pretty unusual sound - you're not gonna use it on everything, but for some tasteful solos or single note runs, it's just great.

duh. it's a boss.

for a bit of colour in your sound this is great. it's not going to be to everyones taste, but if you know what you want then this is a versatile, usable pedal. i've tried the dod octave box and this one definatley tracks more closely. chords are out, but then you know that already. one to stamp on and go for it!

Dead easy to work, less easy to get a decent sound out of it, especially when listened to in isolation.

I use this at the moment with a Squier Strat with Les Paul humbuckers, into a 70s Vampower 100watt head, in conjunction with an Ibanez compressor, Crybaby, Marshall Drivemaster, and a CH1 and TR2.
It's not noisy or anything like that. However it sucks at anything except single notes, so if you're thinking of buying it to thicken the sound of chordal work, don't bother. It's not perfect, sound-wise, by any means, so I wouldn't suggest using it as a prominent effect in its own right.
On the other hand, it's brilliant at thickening riffs if you keep the octave controls down below about 3/4 and the direct volume on full. Use it with several other pedals. Basically if you're into wacky sounds and you see one secondhand, then buy it.

Well, it's BOSS. It hasn't broken down on me yet and I don't expect it to.

Dunno, never had occasion to find out :)

Well, I'd give it 5 overall. It's not vital to my sound, but on the other hand it's fun to have it around for the odd occasion when you want an even madder sound. I wouldn't buy it to put lower octaves on chords and the like, in fact I think my Zoom 505 was better at that and that's saying something. On the other hand, if you like wacky sounds, well, even then I wouldn't buy one new, but I'm happy having paid 40ish (I think) UK# for mine.

How hard is three knobs?

I've read all the reviews listed below this one. Some say it's great, some say don't even bother. I play bass and this unit sounds great in my setup. I play an Alvarez AEB-250 through a Shure Diversity wireless,Boss PSM-5, the OC-2, Boss ODB-3, Boss DS-1, Big Muff ( the newer Russian one ), Boss FZ-3, Dunlop Bass Crybaby, Boss PH-3, Digitech BP-8, Ibanez volume pedal, and a Peavey TNT 115. The OC-2 brings out the lows a bit. I really like using it with one of the distortions or distortion and phaser, flange, or chorus. It won't track down below the A on octave 1 and I don't use octave 2. I don't have any problems with warbles or any weird noises. I tried putting it toward the middle of the chain and ran into some problems, especially when using other effects so I put it first, which Boss recomends doing with the bass.

I depend on it a great deal. I use it every Sunday.

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I really like this pedal. I play industrial to worship choruses in church. The OC-2 can make the bass sound a little like an organ if you want. Use with some wah to get a cool synth type sound. I would get another one if it were stolen.