tedmanzie

Just put a Chunk Systems Brown Dog into Aguilar Filter Twin! Great fat vocal-esque synth! I'll try and put some sound clips up.

great to deal with. thanks

just bought a Zoom Ultra Fuzz from Rich, a pleasure to deal with. cheers

[quote name='johnDeereJack' timestamp='1335346053' post='1629475'] I was using a Boss ODB-3 into an MXR Bass Octave Deluxe for nice synth sounds with a very short-lived Electronica outfit. (bringing an envelope filter to the party created something quite special I can tell you!) I ended up selling the BOD a few weeks ago as I wasn't using it but I've decided to reinvest in one as they're excellent pedals. Initially I had some issues with tracking but after posting on this forum it was suggested I have my set-up looked at. After that there were no problems at all with tracking. Brilliant pedal. I've since purchased an El Grande and am using that with a filter for some heavy duty synth bass! I can't wait to hook that lot up to the BOD too! [/quote] the El Grande looks great - just watched the demo. do you gate the fuzz or put a noise suppressor in between the fuzz and the filter? the BODs got a great sound! - are you not having the noise issue i was getting [i]at all[/i]? (its pretty subtle)...

[quote name='1976fenderhead' timestamp='1334877710' post='1622986'] I'm going off my own topic here, but what about tracking, did you find one better than the other on that? [/quote] i've recently been investigating octave pedals... for me [i]by far[/i] the best tracking was the MXR bod, spot on every time. the aguilar and the boss oc-2 track about the same, which i would describe as ok tracking, not great but very useable. the aguilar in particular seemed to flake out on open strings and certain other notes, but i expect all these pedals might behave quite differently depending on strings and pickups etc. playing style too. i also thought the MXR was the best sounding and most synth sounding but it has a little noise issue - low level clicking when no note is coming through. another guy told me on this forum that theirs was silent but i demo'd a new MXR today and it had exactly the same issue, so not quite sure what to make of that. its pretty subtle but for me i found it a bit annoying. anyway, back on topic - i picked a zoom ultra fuzz but not had much luck getting a synth tone from it but only played around for about half an hour today. will try again tomorrow!

thanks, i found another post on talkbass with the same noise issue. seems like its a clocking problem or something. anyway, what ever it is its going back for a new quiet one!

Just thought I'd post this for anyone interested. I just demoed the MXR Bass Octave Deluxe vs the Aguilar Octamizer Both brand new. Had them in my studio for a couple of hours. I'm looking for a fat sound veering towards synth. Also tried both of these into an MXR M82 envelope. I play a medium scale japanese P-Bass strung with Thomastik flat jazz strings. There is a noise issue on the MXR which I'll come to later, but here are my findings: [b]Octamizer[/b] Built like a tank, heavy, nice rubbery knobs. Battery included. Has a nice variable tone control to effect the dry signal, as well as a dry level knob. The octave (1 oct lower) also has a level control, and a separate knob which is a low pass filter. You can really get a loud volume on this pedal. It was way louder than the MXR. I'm not saying this is a plus, just saying how it is. The octave sound is a nice thick bass tone, quite clean but with a growl. Increasing the low pass filter makes the bass smoother until you've really got a great sub tone, or degrees in between. The tone of the octave is nice enough to play on its own if your that way inclined. Tracking - I've read great things about the tracking on these but for me it certainly had issues, especially with open strings. The MXR was much better at tracking. Overall I could not sculpt the sound in quite the way I wanted, but this certainly is a very nice effect. Very thick natural sound and if you have the low pass on it is SO smooth. It could be described as 'synth-like' but a clean smooth deep fat synth. [b]MXR BOD[/b] Good build quality, not very heavy. No battery included. Three knobs - one for dry level, and two for different types of octave level (both 1 oct lower). I would describe one of the octave tones as [i]very[/i] similar to the Octamizer (with its low pass filter set at half way). MXR describe this as a 'deep tone'. The other octave on the MXR is described as 'throaty', its more mid range but to me it sounds a little more soft square wave, and in my book that's a good thing. By mixing different levels of the two octave voices + the clean you can change the sound a lot. It also has a mid range boost button, which I liked on, although I thought it was fairly subtle. Tracking - I've read people saying this doesn't track as well as the Octamizer, but I've got to say the tracking on this is excellent and miles better. Open strings, fast (ish) playing, right down to the first few frets on the low E, it never misses! Of course I liked bits of both units, and neither one could everything that the other did. However overall I prefer the MXR as to my ears its got a bit more synth like sound, a bit more flexible tone-wise, while also being able to [i]pretty much[/i] duplicate the cleaner sound of the Octamizer. The only reservation I have about the MXR is that my unit was producing a very quiet 'zipper' noise, a bit like static. Appreared on dry and octave channels (where the noise was 1 oct lower funnily enough.) I thought it was because I was using a power adapter but it was the same on battery. SO I'm hoping its just a dodgy unit. If its a general issue then it would be enough to put me off. Any other MXR BOD users getting this?! Cheers Ted