Dunlop JH-OC1

Operation is simple. two knobs, one true bypass switch. To get a good sound, I have two favorite settings. For the octave up sound, level dimed, fuzz down. Other favorite setting is with fuzz dimed and level to match signal. Unfortunately to get a fuzz and pronounced octave together, you have to have a fuzz box after the octavio. When you turn up the fuzz, the octave up becomes more subtle, the seems to disappear with the fuzz dimed.

I'll limit my setup to just the pedals that really matter for this review. Strat neck pup (important! if I switch to my humbucker, the octave up disappears! If you use a hot sounding guitar or God forbid, active pups, this pedal will most likely not sound good for you) into a crybaby 535, then a Boss OC-2, the Octavio, then a Boss FBM-1, which is a emulated fender bassman 59 in a box, adds a nice overdrive. All this into the Marshall MGHDFX100. (a superlead someday!) The pedal is not noisy. Different sounds... Well the fuzz dimed is sick! But there are different things you can do with the fuzz down. The wah sounds good. I like to use my oc-2 with all the knobs dimed, and that into the octavio sounds incredible! With the fbm-1 on, you get an incredible overdriven 4 octave tone, basically you get amazing synth leads! I can't describe the feeling I had when I tried running my pedals in this order and turned everything on. WOW. And soon I will have a fuzzface to run into instead of the fbm-1. That will sound sick too, I know cuz I've already tried one with the octavio. As far as modulation effects, I haven't really tried any because I don't really have any at the moment. But know that Boss oc2 to octavio to fbm1 or other overdrive equals freakin awesome. For ease of use I lowered the rating, but when you finally figure out out to set this up and with what gear, it sounds incredible.

Battery cover already cracked, and when I tried to put the battery in, it cracked more. The knobs are plastic and seem cheap. Otherwise it looks and feels like either a brick or a tank, cant decide.

I've been playing for ten years. I've used my fair share of equipment. I've sold a lot of gear. I swear If I every sell this, it will only be if my family is starving. This is one of those pedals, that, with the right pedals around it, will actually inspire you to write stuff you'd never think of otherwise. You can take a simple little lead and make it sound very big and full. I love the kind of pedals where more is less, and the faster you play, the crappier it sounds, and this pedal is kinda like that! For the last time, use an octave pedal like oc2 to give it extra life, then run it into a good overdrive, and then you will cry tears of joy. I still can't believe I found this new for 100 bucks! But for everyone else, I drop the rating a tad cuz the price is high for regular guys like me!

Easy to use physically, but to play it requires a bit of practice.

Sound quality... a subjective thing.

After playing with a few clones of scramblers and green ringers I wanted the clangerous chords of a scrambler. Couldn't afford one and only one of the clones that I built worked properly and that was for a friend. This isn't a scrambler but its damn close in regard to the way the notes of chords clang together in that pinging way.
Some people describe it as a ring mod sound but thats not quite correct.

Its a frequency doubler and not really an octave up in the classic pitch shifter sense. When you double a fundamental not you also double the harmonics ALL the harmonics, when you play more than one note its doubling all of those harmonics in addition to the funamentals. This begins to sound like FM synthesis but its not really. The way the circuit works in all of these suckers is to rectify half of a wave and force the negative portion back to positive. This looks like a series of humps in an oscilloscope rather than the crest and trough of a regular wave.

So. My unit doesn't have the harsh top end that others have reported and its dead silent in operation. It does compress and wig out when the fuzz is fully dialed. This can be used to effect but is really the only real draw back I can see with the pedal. I guess this is why Jimi used a fuzz face as well as the Octavio/a.

Since mine was lacking in top end I put a Bad Monkey after it on minimum distortion 2/3 bass and full treble. This brought some of the top end I was after. But What I did next had a surprising result.
I plugged in my small stone(the old 1993 russian version) and the buffer on that circuit(even when off) changed the impedance of the guitar and then all the top end seemed to come back.

I've tested it with the folliwing guitars.
1. 197o's Guyatone Ventures II copy w/P90's
The jag style trem on this thing is a lot of fun, but yanking on the bar with the fuzz turned up made the guitar crumble and die. the pedal when maxed out wasn't coping with the high output of the P90's. When I dialed the fuzz off a notch then I got a nice clangy dirty tone. I love to play chords with octaves. Makes it sound like a valve died or something.

2. 1960's Teisco 3 pickup(5.6k output)
The low output and the bass cut switch gave up several options with the pedal on one setting, even with the fuzz cranked this guitar couldn't drive it hard enough for that compression effect to kick in.

3. 1999 Ephiphone Les Paul w/Kent Armstron Paf & coil tap.
Probably the least succesful with the octave but not without its charms anyway. Good for harsh sounding chords.

4. 1992 Mexican Telecaster w/Duncan Hotrails & no neck p/u.
This was the one I didn;t expect much from. The rails on the bridge really worked nicely and gave it a dark flavour and for once this guitar had loads of sustain.

5. 1999 Jackson Surfcaster w/Dimarzio Paf coil tap.
This one yeilded probably the cleanest results, its also the best setup of my guitars. The humbucker added the bite but the split and singles were clearly accenting the octave.

6. 1996 Ibanez Sound Gear bass w/passive pickups + preamp.

On the bass this thing is dirty. Just real mean and Dirty.
The octave effect is barely there but adds a shimmer to it and the fuzz just feels like mud peppered with broken glass.

If it breaks I can fix it. Not that I expect anything to break, its solid and I try to look after my gear these days.

May mod it with an LED and true bypass.

I really like this pedal. It might not be a clone of one Jimi used on any recordings, but that doesn't matter as this pedal is pretty cool in its own right and I'm not going for a Jimi tone anyway. I bought it for the clang and the fizz and the broken sounds it makes.

That said I can see why another reviewer hated it, its definitely not for everyone. It can sound terrible, and right out of the box I thought it sounded lousy and had that sick feeling you get when you lose money or break something expensive.

I had tried other octave pedals like the fulltone and fender blender(as well as clones of others) and this one did the big clang that I like the best, though I may go buy a blender reissue in a few weeks. The fulltone pedals weren't quite what I was after.

The only thing I wish it had would be a power socket, but I use rechargeable 9v's anyway so that's no big deal. I did read an interview with Roger Mayer stating that 9v was just for convenience for live and that they ran the pedals on 24 volts in the studio,

on/off switch, two knobs (LEVEL and FUZZ) and two jacks. any questions?
the pedal works only with batteries, which is the best for the sound, but it can be a pain in the ass on pedalboards.
a cool solution for this is the on/off switch in the LEVEL knob: when you turn the LEVEL all the way down and "click" it full left, the battery gets disconnected (like the input jack usually does).
a battery door on the bottom makes exchanges fast and easy.

first of all: forget the last review!! i can only laugh about someone who plays for 20 years and owns 100 pedals, but plugs an octave-fuzz in front of a fender combo! boy, this tool belongs to dark-voiced british amps like marshall or orange!

this pedal nails jimi??s tone like no other octavio clone on the market! it provides pure, clean upper octave sounds and becomes a real fuzzzzzz monster when you crank the FUZZ knob up. really sensitive to the guitar volume and the selected pickup.
it??s damn quiet on every settings, even with an engaged booster in front of it.
in comparison to the chicago iron octavian it has a bit more highs and can deliver more fuzz. it is far beyond the roger mayer octavia! sounds more authentic, dynamic and more..."dramatic". i??m sure the reason is that roger doesn??t use a transformer on his actuall version.

built like a tank! enclosure is made of 1mm thick steel and heavy like a wah. four screws hold the pcb and alpha pots are used as well as a dunlop heavy duty switch and "amp alike" jacks. i??m sure this thing will last for decades.

i give it a special point for the original design! has the original "cheese-wedge" enclosure and custom designed knobs. it looks exactly like the original, which i??ve seen in an old magazine. a cool piece of jimi!

i never had a problem with dunlop products. very reliable stuff. when i ever had a question they answered within 24 hours.

BUY IT if you love hendrix or octave tones or fuzz or all together!
i love it and will never sell mine. get your experience.

difficult because its useless.

this is hands down THE worst pedal I have ever heard in my life,I thought the BOSS MD-2 was the worst,but thats changed now.I cant describe in words how bad it sounds,so I wont bother trying.

I left it at the store so I will never know.

I've been playing for more than 20 years and own about 100 pedals,I collect them and use them,each one has its merits no matter what a persons particular tastes are.I drove to the music store fully intending to buy this pedal,I couldn't wait to try it out and bring it home and let er rip.When I got to the shop I thought I better just try it out,not something I always do when I know I want it anyway.I must say its one of the coolest looking boxes I've ever seen.Well I plug a stock strat into a RI fender deluxe and get prepared to have some fun.It took less than 2 minutes to realise that this thing,no matter what I did to the controls,was shit from top to bottom.Octive up effect????? I sure as fuck didnt hear it AT ALL!!! the so called fuzz was so bad you just have to hear it for yourself.I walked back to the counter laughing so hard I thought I'd piss myself.This pedal was either defective,had a bad battery,or the designers at dunlop are the deafest mofo's on the planet.this and the Boss MD-2 are the worst pedals I have ever heard,but I own and love other pedals by both these brands.

Very easy to get great Octavia sounds right out the box.
The manuel has three settings that they recommend

This is the best Octavia tone I have heard instant Band Of Gypsy's
sound. They really nailed it at Dunlop. I have had a few of the prescription electronic
experience pedals and some of the other octavia pedals and this pedal as far as the over all octave tone is concerned beats them all. I don't use it for the fuzz sound at all.
I have a awesome fuzz pedal The Lovepedal Karl fuzz.

The fuzz on the Octavia sounds the best to me at just a hair I set the volume up
on the Octavia and ad just a touch of fuzz and the tone is perfect IF I want to boost the signal I use the Cot50 or the Eternity or my Fuzz But to me the Octavia has a very unique
tone of it's own.

no problems

Excellent customer support I had a question regarding the battery adapter and I e-mailed
Dunlop and they got right back to me and helped me find the proper supply to run it with my
pedal snake.

I play Classic Rock Blues funk and Gospel. I have been playing for 32 years and I am still learning. I really dig this pedal what I really like about it is the way the octave fades out
after you hit a note it kind of rings out and then it fades away with a hint of ring modulation
on it. Plus it sounds really sick with my Moogerfooger MF104Z analog delay.
It blends in well with my Sweet Sounds Mojo Vibe too. I don't like the fuzz on it
but I didn't buy it for that feature so that's not a big deal and for the sound quality of the octave on it it really doesn't matter. It's in my opinion it's the best octave out there. I compared it to the Fulltone Octafuzz and the fuzz on the Fulltone was way better but the Dunlop had a much better octave tone to it in my opinion. The prescriptions electronics experience pedal is a good one as well the swell feature on that pedal is very cool.
I sold mine and like my dunlop better it just has a freaky vibe to it and it sounds fatter
and the ring modulation it gets is a very cool. Sometimes that type of sound can be harsh
and it doesn't sound harsh at all in this unit.

www.myspace.com/fazeblaze

2 knobs = 1 foot switch = simple = 10

sounds great! really balanced eq. sounds cool how the tracking gets all wonky and chokes out a bit when playing full chords. but it smooths out when i turn on my comp before the oc1 in the signal chain.
the oc1 thickens up solos when i use it before my maxon od9 in the signal chain. sounds over the top/ out of control when i use it before my tonebone plexitube tube in the signal chain.
also its true by pass

built like a little tank. metal pots and foot switch. no back up needed

called them on phone and talked to a real person. didnt get stuck on hold for too long.

i play loud indi/alt rock n roll. i've been playing over 10 years used many fuzz pedals. i would get another oc1 if this one were stolen or lost.
only real problem with this pedal is, it is hard to hook up with any power source other then 9volt batteries because, of how the pedal uses the groud circuit. but i got lucky because i figured out that if i use the same power source as my fultone soulbender (wich works on the same proper ground source circuit idea) but i reverse the polarity and connect directly to the 9vlt battery plugs inside the oc1 everything works fine.
i would give this pedal 8 but i got lucky with the whole power source thing, already having the the right adaptor. also it's true by pass so it gets a 9/10

A very simple pedal with two knobs - volume and fuzz and one footswitch.
The manual had three great settings one for Hendrix Band of Gypsys era, one from Jeff Beck wired era, and one with over the top fuzz. Also includes a nice note about Dunlop seeing the original Roger Mayer pedal that is on display at the EMP. I have seen it and this thing is exact.

It was easy to conjure up some classic Hendrix tones regardless of where I had the knobs set. Definately sounded great with my Strat. For those that have not used an octave-fuzz before I recommend playing with the volume on the guitar. The Octavio pedals sensitivity can change dramatically when you do so, it is a key to getting the various sounds you hear on Jimi records. With full volume it is very Fuzz, with volume rolled back it is very octave. Man I love the tone of this pedal. I don't know why Roger Mayer ever tweaked his design after Hendrix's death. This thing rocks!

Seems very heavy duty. I like some the volume knob that is also on/off.
Probably done to be historically accurate, but is good for saving batteries.

Never had to call Dunlop.

I having been playing the Octavio almost four hours straight. Came home from GC and plugged it in, and have not been able to stop all day. I strongly recommend this pedal if you are a classic Hendrix fanatic. Like me. Can hardly wait for the Fuzz Face to come out.

Easy to use,very intuitive. Like any octavia,a little experimentation is need for best sound.

Ok here's the deal; I have owned the two best availible octaves around,the Chicago Iron Octavian and the Roger Mayer Octavia. I was able to get one of the second batch Dunlops available. i was struck how TREBLY it was. Sounded not good. They obviously used the wrong taper for the fuzz pot as unity gain is not possible only 5% of the pot is usable. just not good on any level. I spent a good hour playing with it and A/B-ing it and it lost with the other two. Despite what Roger may say,Kurt's Octavian is clearly the best hands down for the closest sound to Jimi..

It looks sturdy enough. However,the insides show Alpha pots and a propritary footswitch with a big "D" on it.Who knows how that will hold up? The circuit board looks fine and the transformer says made in the USA..Still,I get the feeling that for 170$ it was a hair cheesy.

I have had Ok dealings with them before. Not really Cust Service kings thats for sure. Friendly but not really on top of it. I had a really bad time getting a Rotovibe fixed a while back.

I like classic rock and this applies sometimes.I've been playing for over 15 years. I own too many guitars,amps and effects to list. I wouldnt buy it. It dosent compare with better built pedals for just a little more money. It seems like a clear hustle to make some cash off of Jimi's name. He'd be pissed I'm sure as he was the KING tone generator and knew EXACTLY what sounded good.

Pretty straightforward... it has two knobs, one for level and one for fuzz. Not very hard to get the sound (hendrix-like octavia) I wanted out of it. The manual for it has a couple settings for a jeff beck song, hendrix - who knows, and one other. Overall pretty easy to use.

For me this is exactly what I thought it was going to sound like, and it is perfect to my ears. The fuzz can get a little too much treble when it's turned up all the way and the level is up all the way too. I prefer to use my ts-808 and bd-2 with it, with the fuzz turned down and the level up. My setup is 1960 strat relic -> teese rmc-2 -> keeley ts-808 -> keeley bd-2 -> dunlop jh-oc1 -> t-rex replica -> boss looper. Sometimes I use my other strat, it's a maple-neck parts-o-caster but it really nails hendrix, i think because of the 1969 pickups and the maple neck. I'm playing through a vibrolux. Overall pretty good sound quality, especially with the level all the way up and no fuzz. I'll give it an 8 because the fuzz can be a little better.

so far so good...

didn't need to deal with customer support, pedal is working

for the hendrix style of music, an octavia is a necessity. This is probably the best octavia I have ever played, and I recommend it to any person who wants to sound more like hendrix, or even broaden their sound. I really think this pedal has something to offer for everybody, because it's always cool getting new sounds out of your guitars. I do wish it had a little bit better fuzz when it's cranked but since it's an octavia and that's what I wanted it for.. I can't really complain about that. Very good pedal, and I'd personally like to see dunlop make some more cool stuff like it.