Foxrox Octron

It's exactly what you need in an octave pedal; up octave, down octave and direct all with individual level control. Simple and perfect.

The lower octave sounds so good and tracks so well that you could fill in for the bass player. Upper Octave has fuzz added and is the best sounding octafuzz I've heard. The fact that you can have control over the levels, and internal control of tone and fuzz type, makes the sound palate really huge. This pedal reacts very well in combination with other effects- try the lower octave with direct into a decent auto-filter- awesome!

Only had it a month but no problem so far and I really don't expect any. The look of Foxrox pedals give you a sense of confidence that they will last a long time but you'd expect that from any quality builder. It's heavy for its size- a good thing.

Dave is great! It gives me a warm and squishy feeling knowing that the owner, designer, and builder of these fine pedals, (all the same person), can get back to me within an hour or so with an answer to any question. He even mails the pedals personaly.

I love guitar pedals...nice guitar pedals. I don't over-use them but I certainly have a lot of them and I have to say that the Octron is about the most fun I've had for $200 since.....well we won't get into that but, seriously, great, great pedal. Put it at, or near, the front of your chain and have fun. Dave could charge another hundred dollars for it and it would still be a bargain.

Foxrox Octron Review

The understated exterior of the Octron begs to differ with the sweet layered primal screams lurking below it?s steel shell. This pedal puts the lead instrumental right on top like a blast from a shotgun. Prepare to dance with the devil and fire up the beast..

Ease of Use: 10

Experienced Foxrox customers know the superb level of quality of Dave Fox?s products and the Octron is no different. Simple, eloquently understated appearance and well thought out control placements make this a breeze to use right out of the box. The instant ability to throw down the greatest octave up, octave down, or a literal plethora of sweeping combinations of the two - make the ease of use and quick dynamic results an easy 10 rating.

Sound Quality: 10

The Octron is an instant classic and an absolute desert island pedal. That?s a mouthful from a dedicated gear slut. The tracking on this pedal is hard to describe in words that will give it justice - smooth, well-rounded, deliciously thick, sweetly articulate, the Octron has to be the most musical sounding pedal that was ever created.

The compatibility of Dave Fox?s creations is also known world wide. He allows the user the tools (tweaks) to dial-it-in ?spot on? no matter what amp/guitar setup you are using. I have played thru this pedal solo, with a variety of fuzz and distortion pedals, with phasers and flangers and with a wah - (you can create tonal combinations that are almost endless with very little tweaking at all) - especially given the truckload of tone from this machine, through humbuckers and single coils and a wide variety of tube amps and the Octron widens the complexity of musical voicings that will leave you breathing hard and forgetting your household chores.

Pimp your instrumental brothers - this pedal can liven up the most arcane and overplayed riffs of the planet. The coolest thing about this pedal is that with the proper settings and just a little of your time, you can sound so unique that the mind opens itself to things you don?t normally think of when you?re in the middle of an instrumental. This is creativity 101 in a stomp box format. Pure genius from the man in New Jersey.

The octave down can be set to (my favorite) deep, thick, yet strangely beautifully articulate - molasses rich tasty ?ribcage vibrating? notes of pure rapture. The Boss OC-2 qualifies as nothing more than a paper weight in the shadow of the Octron -there is no comparison. OC-2 = Mud. Octron = Chello on steroids. God I love this pedal.

The Octave up is equally heavenly and is the closest you?ll get to string like synthesization without a GK-2 pickup an accompanying multi-effects processor. One other reviewer stated it becomes almost like a wind instrument at certain settings and I couldn?t agree more.

Breathless is how this pedal will leave the user. With fuzz or distortion you need to tweak a bit to get that bottom end more articulate - but once you do the sheer bark, growl and bite of this lethal combination will indeed take your breath away. Heart-stopping lead riffs to die for. I feel like I could type for another 2 hours and not cover all the ground that this pedal - along with different amp/guitar, and in conjunction with other pedals in the chain -will get to. Truly a masterpiece and a must have for the gigging musician - but equally and extremely usable for the bedroom player. Sound quality and with sooo many sweet spots all over the dials - gets this box a solid 10 (I wish we were using a higher scale to rate this one).

Reliability: 10

Based on years of gigging with Foxrox equipment - never had a problem -would gig without a backup anytime. Dave?s reputation for quality speaks for itself and the rigors of the road will easily speak to the quality of his products. Dave is an actual gigging musician, and his products show this with every note coming out of them.

Customer Support: 10

One of the very best in the business. Sets the standards like a handful of others on these forums. Excellent reputation, excellent feedback, and an openness to actually tweaking and further design modifications to suit his consumers needs. Top Ten easily - and proof once again why he was selected as builder of the year by the River City Rockets & Crew. Road hard.

Overall Rating: 10

Best bang for the buck with all of his products - but especially with this one. He could easily charge twice as much and still I would say it?s worth that and more. For all of you ?it?s all in the fingers? folks out there... you haven?t tried the Octron yet.

Rock on and, as always - thanks for reading!

Rev

Out of the box the Octron exhibits the highest standards of build quality, it's deceptively heavy and smaller than it looks on the Foxrox site. Also, the dedicated enclosure certainly provides that distinctive, individual look that all of Dave's pedals offer. It's one that folks will undoubtedly stoop to investigate when they spot your board at shows.

The layout makes it simple to see exactly what you're going to hear coming from the Octron, things really could not be easier here. Even the trimpots and a/b mode selection inside is simple and intuitive. They offer complete control to shape and define the upper & lower octaves to your personal taste.

How does it sound? Well, I can't draw comparisons with any previous octave pedals, since this is my first, but that does give me the advantage of coming at the Octron with an open mind, free from preconceived notions about how it might be. Armed with my Tele and a (set-for-home-volume) AC30, I began. Since I was most curious about the lower octave, that was where I started. With direct guitar up full and lower octave around 3/4, I played a few Band Of Gypsies riffs around the seventh fret ... only to hear Billy Cox playing with me! The tracking is astonishing, even down around the fifth fret, if you palm mute and play cleanly the lower octave is smooth, precise and much more musical than I ever thought it could be. The tone of the lower octave is wonderful, fat and warm in the factory setting and very convincing as a bass when played clean.

You can use pick up selection, tone control and damping, along with fretting and picking techniques to control how prominent the lower octave sounds, highly rewarding because it genuinely feels like something you're in charge of, not like the pedals doing the work at all. Even the strange ring mod moans that occur when you strike too complex a harmony is damn usable! The lower octave has gone from being an effect I thought I would rarely use, to being something I'll shoehorn in at every opportunity.

Next I blended in some upper octave, to further compliment the Band Of Gypsies thing I already had going. With direct guitar around 3/4 and both upper and lower octaves somewhere similar, the sound takes on a very different dynamic, it's almost like a wind instrument of sorts. The sound is very smooth and airy, but can also be remarkably expressive and is just as responsive to changes in pick ups and playing techniques. Once again it became part of the guitar sound, when bypassed you wonder for a second if you really do play such a naked and weedy sounding instrument!

I also put the Octron through my fuzz factory, set for a fuzz face type sound. The lower octave gets diminished by the distortion created, but again technique and experimentation can overcome this and reward you with sounds that are out of this world. It growls (very much like the engine sounds from the old Atari "Pit-Stop" arcade game) when you play low string riffs. These are seriously impressive sounds that become even more synth-like when you roll in the upper octave. I once had an FM4 that had sounds akin to this (Octosynth model?) except it was often unpredictable, always tracked terribly and frequently came across as harsh and cold in a live context. The Octron could not be further from that, it's warm, smooth grind really follows you just about anywhere on the neck and sounds outstanding through a fuzz. There is a little hiss from the upper octave when fully cranked and of course this is amplified by any dirt boxes that follow, but it's not at all apparent whilst actually playing.

Mine is still only a week or two old, but it easily ranks up there as one of the most solid, sturdy and reliable feeling enclosures I've owned. Absolutely no worries in this department...

Big thanks to Dave for providing a customer service that's every bit as strong as his product, he's a true gentleman to deal with. He sent email to update me about each stage of the ordering process and generally made me feel well catered for. Again, definitely up there with the best.

The Octron is utterly faultless, everything is as you would like it and I'm actually quite shocked they don't cost $100 more than they do! Exploring the internal pots and the a/b mode is the icing on an already deliciously sweet cake, if those options to tailor your sound weren't available, it would still be a pristine sounding, very rewarding effect to play and one that's well worth waiting for, if you are already thinking of adding your name to the Octron list, do it now before it get's any longer!

User friendly format; three knobs: Octave UP, Clean, Octave Down. Internal trimmer to add/cut fuzz. FoxRox one-of-a-kind enclosure we've all come to know and love. Classy silver colored with yellow LED.

My Octron is #7. I have literally spent two or more hours with the Octron only. And THEN I decided to mess with the octave down! The ability to dial in the amount of upper and lower octave ALONG WITH your clean signal is nothing short of brilliant! Wonderful upper octave fuzz appears as early as the seven fret. It has amazingly organic "bloom" and tracks like a homing missle! ALL ANALOG and it sounds like it. I can boost just the clean signal and have a great solo boost as well! Works well with both single coils and humbuckers. Playing single notes with both octaves dialed up is FUN! It can track diad chords as well. I try to keep it at close to my guitar in the signal chain as possible:
Guitar-
Strobostomp-
FoxRox ZIM, CH A
Octron
RMC3LE
Fuzz Drive
Moon Phaser
FoxRox ZIM, CH B
FoxRox TZF
Medusa

Praying for Dave to release a stand alone VIBE unit as well!

Built like a tank. Meticulously wired together. Mr. Fox is a player as well as builder. He knows what gigging musicians want/need, and it shows it the design and build quality.
Owing the ZIM and TZF I'm familiar with FoxRox's build quality. NASA might contract out with the lowest bidders, but not Dave. Top Notch parts all the way through.

Quick email answers. Frequent website updates. Along with his other pedals, he is as busy as a one-legged-man! Sure couldn't tell that from how he handled my order.

I've been playing for over 17 years now. When you find a product that does what its suppose to do, and does it well, you stick with it. The nice "extra" features on the Octron make it a permanent fixture on my board. A simple, yet complex device that will have you grinning the entire time your guitar is plugged into it. THAT is was makes all the difference to me.

Very easy unit to use and to get an awesome sound out of, but I'll give it a "9" here just because of the internal settings that are important as to the tone of the two octave's (the upper octave has internal tone/gain trimmers as well as a switch, while the lower octave has a tone trimmer).

I play a Strat into a 50 watt NMV Marshall/4x12 Greenback cab and combined with this setup the Octron simply smokes! Both the upper and lower octave's track incredibly well. Being able to dial in the exact amount of each of the octave level's wanted and the clean signal was a huge selling point for me. You can tweak the upper octave to scream or be fairly clean sounding with the internal timmers.

The Octron works very well when driven by a fuzz or overdrive/distortion or simply on it's own. I've had a few octave effects in the past and IMHO the Octron is in a class all by itself.

Haven't had it long enough to know for sure, but it's built very well and with "normal" use I can't foresee a problem other than the switch.

Dave answered all my emails prior to the pedal's release and was very helpful and friendly. I'm sure if a problem should arise with the Octron it would be taken care of quickly and professionally.

This octave pedal is everything I was hoping it would be, just incredible. I play mostly classic rock/blues/fusion and have been doing it for roughly thirty years. Octave up, octave down and clean all independantly setable combined with the awesome sound/build quality puts this one at the top of the heep for octave effects in my opinion.