Boss OC-2 Octave

The pedal only has three knobs, one for volume, one for the first octave tone and one for the second octave tone. This seems simple enough, but it took me a fair amount of time to get the sound I wanted. All things considered, this is still a pretty easy pedal to use. The manual does give you a few suggestions.

It's a boss pedal -> high quality and very quiet. However, it sounds much more amazing on high leads then full chords, but really this all depends on your settings. I use this pedal really only once in my band's set, on a closing lead to a song...it sounds amazing.

I've had this thing for about 4 years, always worked.

C'mon, dude! It's Boss!

I play early '90s-style alt-rock. This pedal makes a great addition to my setup. Think of this pedal as an accent piece -- you might want to use it sparingly, but when you do use it, it will sound amazing. Spending some quality time tweaking the pedal will give you a variety of different sounds. And hey, regardless of anything else, it is a wonderful brown sparkle color!

This is like playing bass. Easy to get started with, but difficult to do well. 3 knobs don't seem difficult to deal with, but there is a fine line between not enough octave and too little. To match the in and out volumes takes a little tweaking.

I use a Carvin LB 75F Fretless, through a crate amp EQed fairly flat. It works well adding one octave down. the 2 octave settings do not work well for bass. It is designed for single notes and works well doing it. The sound is a bit froggy with a weak fundamental. It works very well with fretless, and can do anything from adding some low end on high notes using the bridge pick up, to making a thick rattly 8 string bass type sound using both or the neck pick up. PLEASE READ OVERALL RATING

No problems here

Never needed

It needs a strong signal to track well. Also a stronger/tighter fundamental helps a lot. I learned about the pedal from a Bass Player article long ago. That helped me to understand how it works and what to expect. Normal bass tracking is down to a low C. A-string third fret. My Kramer was a very solid 4 string fretless and would track well to an A. My Carvin is a through body and will track well down to the E, despite the bass's relatively low output level. I can raise the output level, and can expect better performance. I believe most judgements of low sound quality relate to its difficulty in good set up, and the lack of understanding how it works. I would like to try the Arion. I heard that it has a better octave down tone, but does not track as well. Tracking can be improved by giving it a hotter signal.

With only three knobs for blending your direct signal, octave 1, and octave 2, this pedal is very easy to use. The manual is straightforward and as explanatory as it could be for the pedal being so simple.

I am currently using a late 90's Marshall 50-watt SL-X head, Marshall 2x12 cabinet, modified Fender Strat with Dimarzio HS-3 pickups, Vox wah, and BOSS DS-1 distortion. I am running the OC-2 after the wah and distortion and I have found it to be very quiet and noise free. The ability of the pedal to track your guitar signal 1 and 2 octaves lower than the original note is very good although notes extremely high up on the neck don't seem to produce anything. Thesed notes do sound affected by the pedal, but often tend to just relay some digital twang through the amp. I have not found the unit to be muddy in the lower regions of the neck as others have stated in their reviews. It does sound very synthy and will add lots of fatness to single note lines (can't play chords with it) and it doesn't so much sound like a guitar and bass in unison as it does a guitar and synth player in unison!! Blending ocatve 1 and octave 2 with the direct signal is as easy as turning some knobs and you should find a cool tone within minutes. Basically though, it does what it does in a good fashion and it is very quiet. You won't have this pedal on all the time....only as a passing effect maybe at the end of a song or as a little change up in a solo...or possibly to carry a songs melody. But this won't be an integral part of your guitar sound.

It's made like a little BOSS tank and should last and work forever!

Never dealt with them as of this review.

As I said, this pedal tracks the guitar signal 1 and 2 octaves lower than the note played and you can mix and match these sounds. The tracking ability of the pedal is good, but could be better in the really high range. It will probably be used here and there and I do like the pedal and enjoy playing with it and using it as a color. If it got stolen, I'd get another, but I might try and find one used.

If you don't know how to use this then i pity you. Two volyme knobs for octave one and two, and a master level knob.

When I used it more I noticed that it's almost only for high solos... It sounds a little bit muddy if you play the bass strings, and it sounds like crap if you a chord (I think that the manual didn't recommend playing chords on it?). It's basically like a bass would play along with the guitar, and that's how it sounds. If you strum a chord on the bass, then it sounds crap, same goes if you have the OC-2 turned on...

But I have noticed that it has sort of a clicking sound sometimes... it might be something wrong in the cords or inside the oc-2? I don't know...

It's a Boss! Built like a tank! It will probably last your whole life...

Never dealth with them.

Whell, if you play lead solos then this might be something to give an extra set of balls to your sound, but it's definately not for any rythm guitarist! :)

If you know your ass from a hole in the ground, you should have no problem tweaking this pedal.

Everybody seems to hate this pedal, and I can't figure out why! It does its job, which is to track your guitar signal 1 (or 2 if you fancy) octaves below the original note, and it does it well. The effect is strong, but it doesn't have a ton of sustain. So the sound will break up once the volume of the note gets too low. Oh yeah, don't waste your time trying to play 2 notes at once, because it will sound like SHIT! I can guarantee that! Hey, you can't win 'em all. Also, the tracking delay is non-existent (thats a good thing, BTW). There are some interesting sounds that can be achieved when combined with other effects...feel free to use your imagination. If you add a little distortion, you get a sound very reminicent of the Electro-Harmonix Micro Synth, which kind of does the same thing as this pedal (i said kind of!) If that interests you, then this pedal is definitely worth a try.

I would depend on this thing to stop a bullet...and gig with it...on the same night. But that's Boss for ya!

Synopsis: If you want fat (or "phat", as the kids like to say) leads or solos, get this pedal and accept no substitutes. Just don't play chords with it. Baaaaaaaaad, very baaaaaaad.

It's very easy to use.There are only three nobs. 1octave nob, 2octave
nob and direct sound volume.

First,I thought it can be used when I play one string. But then I found out if I put 2octave nob to zero, I can play code too. and it sound great. With Boss Metal Zone, it can creat very heavy, thich satisfactory by most of Hard or Punk guitar player.

I don' know. I just bought one.

Regardless

Very easy. Three knobs for each octave. The manual spends most of it's time telling you what not to do which is funny. I plugged it in straight away and was making low noises with no hassle.

I use a Telecaster into a Laney Amp with the following pedals: Lonax Analoge Delay, Boss Super Overdrive, MXR blue box, RAT, DOD Grunge, DOD Flanger, DOD Gonkulator, EH Frequency analyser, Boss DD3.
The Pedal is noise free and very quiet. But then the problems start.
There is a delay of about half a second before the new notes come in and the notes don't sustain at all. At the slightest drop in volume it actually splutters and then dies. Someone said it sounds like the delay from hell in an earlier review, which can be cool but not when you're trying to do a solo. I don't expect an octaver to have much sustain but this pedal is pathetic. The delay and sputtering makes this useless for playing solos.
The Sound is soooo synthetic on octave 1, but not in a cool synthy way it just sounds cheesy especially on the D and G strings. The only thing I could play that sounded right was the Addams Family theme. Go Figure.
You can get some Big deep powerchords with this, My mate got a really heavy Flipper sound with this pedal but you could recreate that sound just the same with an EQ pedal or second heavy distortion set to a low end.
Octave 2 sounds muddy and distorted. Really bad tone. The most annoying thing about this pedal is that some notes don't play, eg C on the B string as someone said before.
This pedal has REALLY bad tracking problems.
At a push you CAN use this pedal as a crude volume boost. Set Both the octaves to 0 and set the main volume to your preference. Now turn the pedal OFF when you want a slight boost in volume (the standard volume). This is about the only use this pedal has. It's a shame pecause it's a nice glittery brown colour.

It had a big scratch on it when I took it out of the box. This meant that I wasn't allowed to exchange it when I took it back and had to take #20 second hand price. Annoying.
Apart from that yeah yeah yeah

Well their website sucks....

I play noise rock and got this to try to get some extra heavy low sounds on some songs. I now get those sounds with extra Low end distortion pedals or occasionally an EQ. I have the MXR Blue Box which is a similar Octave Fuzz unit with terrible tracking problems but that sounds great, it makes a huge noise. But this pedal is aimed at more conventional players and just sounds horrible (and not in a good way!). It has so many glitches I'm surprised it even got released. I sold this after 3 weeks and it was the most rapidly dumped peice of equipment I ever had. Bear in mind when I say this that I like the wierd DOD pedals like the gonkulator and others that sound terrible in a fantastic way to make a huge noise.
If you want to make noise get a MXR Blue Box or Buzz box if you can find one. If you want a basic Octaver get the Danelectro mini pedal (much better than this!) or if you have enough money then get a pitch shifter (even better sound quality). If you want synthy sounds get something else.
This is the worst pedal I have ever owned (including Rockteck and EMA!). This Pedal SUCKS. It has so many simple problems it becomes unusable.

3 knobs, anyone who can't figure it out must be very stupid.

Jumps around too much, sounds very digital, like a video game or something. Noticably changes the sound coming out of my amp when it is in my fx chain and turned off. I got sick of this pedal after about an hour and took it back for a refund.

Boss pedals are very strongly built.

Didn't add anything to my playing. I have no use for this pedal, it doesn't seem like a very good pedal to me. Yes, the intro to 311's Homebrew sounded way cool with this thing, but that was all I could think of to use it for.

The is as easy as it gets. Volume for the 2nd octave, Volume for the 1st octave, and the original signal. I use this for bass, so the 2nd octave is turned all the way down, because it is virtually useless and only adds a muddy tone. A manual would be usless, but I bought this used and did not get one. Very easy to get a good sound out of this pedal.

The EBS Octabass only has one octave down, and this is originally made for guitar...so no points lost for having the 2nd octave down on the pedal. I just turn it off anyway. The sound out of this pedal on bass is exactly what you think it would supposed to sound like. It actually was less synthesized than I thought it would be...I'm very happy with the tone. You can't go below about the C on the A string but that is common among octave pedals. My akai SB1 synth bass does track down to low B though, so maybe in the future it will happen on these octave pedals. Very good sound for bass, never have used it on guitar.

Boss is reliable

Good customer support, to me, is building a good enough product to not use customer support.

This is a very good octave pedal for bass. I have not used the Octabass, but I can't imagine it tracking much better than this. You can play as fast as Stanley Clarke stuff and it keeps right up with you. I love this pedal for what it does...definitely a keeper.

well, no comments... What did they print the manual for?

I play fretless Kania active bass with EMG humbuckers, Dean Markley .40 string and a Laney RBG400 amp. I also heard some guitarist play with OC2. For bass, it's not the best choice for an octaver. Sounds much better with guitar. However, you can get a sound close to organ (like in Deep Purple's 'Black Night') which I found very useful.
Lower octaves get distorted when playing low sounds. It's okay as long as the clear sound remains the 'main' sound, but otherwise it is a problem.

Never had any problem with it.

as above...

As I mentioned before, the Deep Purple keyboard sound can be easily achieved with a bass guitar. I don't find it really useful when playing background bass, though it adds some funny tones to solos. It would be cool to have an extra output for clear tone and lower octaves seperately.