COG T65 owners please help

[GisserD]

Im experiencing a strange behavior with my new (to me) pedal.

when all dials are at zero, i still hear some of the "up" sound. this can never be dialed out.... so the deep subby synth tone i look for from an octaver is not within reach on my pedal.

is this the same for all T65s? or is mine a dud?



Note: i have already emailed Tom at cog effects but no response as yet. understandable really as im sure he is a busy man!

thanks

Edited October 11, 2017 by GisserD

[CameronJ]

My T16 (octave down only) has the same thing. It's just the character of the octave down sound, but can be dialled out with a little turn of the Filter knob.

Edit: unless you mean the filter knob doesn't get rid of the upper harmonic sound?

Edited October 11, 2017 by CameronJ

[GisserD]

[quote name='CameronJ' timestamp='1507727101' post='3387509']
My T16 (octave down only) has the same thing. It's just the character of the octave down sound, but can be dialled out with a little turn of the Filter knob.

Edit: unless you mean the filter knob doesn't get rid of the upper harmonic sound?
[/quote]

do you mean to say if all dials are zero, you still get a trebley distorted scratchy sound?

[CameronJ]

Zero in the sense that, in theory, there shouldn't be any sound at all? If so then that's very weird.

[Al Krow]

I think the point here is that the T65 has an "up" which is effectively a dirt whereas the T16 (which I also have) doesn't. So it's quite a model specific question as to whether the dirt can be dialled right down to nil or not. The dirt ("up") is only on the T65s and T70s and not on the T16 and T47s.

I saw dannybuoy mention about his AO pedal on another thread that [i]“... Mine's still pretty dirty with the gain all the way off!" [/i]which is kind of a similar observation. And dirt pedals have a tendency to be a little nosier anyway.

So I guess the question here is specifically for other T65 owners can you dial the dirt (or "up") all the way down to nil so you end up with a completely clean sound?

Edited October 11, 2017 by Al Krow

[CameronJ]

Ah, that would make some sense - I was under the impression that the second footswitch disabled the octave up altogether but I must have been thinking of a different model. One would expect, though, to be able to dial out the low octave, the clean or the high octave entirely with the sweep of the associated knob. Seems like an odd decision - if that is in fact normal behaviour.

[lee650]

When I turn the" up"channel off on mine, it goes clean as my T16 used to!! I'll try it when I get home from work and confirm (as I've been using it with a touch of up on all the time! )

Edited October 11, 2017 by lee650

[GisserD]

[quote name='lee650' timestamp='1507741764' post='3387664']
When I turn the" up"channel off on mine, it goes clean as my T16 used to!! I'll try it when I get home from work and confirm (as I've been using it with a touch of up on all the time! )
[/quote]

Greatly appreciated Lee! It would be odd to design a pedal with this behaviour. Let me know what you find.

Cheers

[0175westwood29]

on my t70 with the up down theres no octave up, however you might be hearing the filter control acting on you signal?

[lee650]

Well I tried mine with all the controls off and "well I never" there is a slightly (very quiet) buzzy tone!! When I turn the clean and low octave on it sounds clean! Albeit with the tone I have on the filter mines a much older one!

[Al Krow]

[quote name='lee650' timestamp='1507757521' post='3387844']
Well I tried mine with all the controls off and "well I never" there is a slightly (very quiet) buzzy tone!! When I turn the clean and low octave on it sounds clean! Albeit with the tone I have on the filter mines a much older one!
[/quote]

Lee that's actually really interesting, cheers mate. That almost exactly ties in with what I think I was hearing on the one year old T65 which I sold to Gisser - and the thing I think he is also hearing on his. I wrote up a short A/B of the T16 and T65 on the [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/302205-if-you-could-only-choose-one-octave-pedal/page__st__120"]Octave Pedal thread[/url] (see #144) and noted the following:

[i][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- The "up" dial adds something extra to the tonal palette, for sure, in the T65[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- The corollary is that the "clean octave" on the T16 is a touch cleaner than the T65, due to the presence of the dirty “up” in the T65 which doesn’t completely disappear even when dialled right down.[/font][/color][/i]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Seems like it's an inherent circuitry feature in at least some of the T65s if not all of them, then? But we probably need Tom to confirm one way or the other to be absolutely certain.[/font][/color]

Edited October 11, 2017 by Al Krow

[Cuzzie]

Now I have no experience of the pedal in question, but isn’t it an inherent feature of electrical equipment that there will potentially and probably is some form of back ground hum.
You have active pups in a bass and your mobile phone is in your pocket, you get a hum.
Most distortion pedals, give some hum, or any pedal has the potential (least being a tuner)
Pre amps in an amp can give a slight hum.
The simplest is touching the jack on a cable, or even a little rattle in the socket gives a hum.

The real question is how much does it matter.
Headphones and silent practice at home, everything becomes monster, your playing sounds worse because you hear everything and every nuance, but actually you start playing along a track or in a band mix and I would wager that it all disappears and you won’t have someone out front saying “crikey the bass players pedals at scratchy, I couldn’t sing along to Mustang Sally it was so off putting...”

Just my opinion of course.

[GisserD]

[quote name='lee650' timestamp='1507757521' post='3387844']
Well I tried mine with all the controls off and "well I never" there is a slightly (very quiet) buzzy tone!! When I turn the clean and low octave on it sounds clean! Albeit with the tone I have on the filter mines a much older one!
[/quote]

cheers lee. that sounds like what im hearing! so are you able to hear the buzzing when just soloing the ""down"??


[quote name='Cuzzie' timestamp='1507791499' post='3387908']
Now I have no experience of the pedal in question, but isn't it an inherent feature of electrical equipment that there will potentially and probably is some form of back ground hum.
You have active pups in a bass and your mobile phone is in your pocket, you get a hum.
Most distortion pedals, give some hum, or any pedal has the potential (least being a tuner)
Pre amps in an amp can give a slight hum.
The simplest is touching the jack on a cable, or even a little rattle in the socket gives a hum.

The real question is how much does it matter.
Headphones and silent practice at home, everything becomes monster, your playing sounds worse because you hear everything and every nuance, but actually you start playing along a track or in a band mix and I would wager that it all disappears and you won't have someone out front saying "crikey the bass players pedals at scratchy, I couldn't sing along to Mustang Sally it was so off putting..."

Just my opinion of course.
[/quote]

its not a hum. the pedal is passing signal. the pedal is actually very quiet when on, but not playing.

[Quatschmacher]

I have a similar thing on both my Octamizer and MXR and it was on my T-16 too: the knobs all the way still allow a faint signal through. I just assumed it was normal for analogue octaves.

[lee650]

[quote name='GisserD' timestamp='1507793145' post='3387919']


cheers lee. that sounds like what im hearing! so are you able to hear the buzzing when just soloing the ""down"??
[/quote]

No I don't!just the octave down tone with the filter. Tbh I agree with Cuzzie! Are you ever going to using the pedal set like that? And in a band mix it's all a moot point
The T65 is simply the perfect Octave for synth tones as it gets extremely close to the OC2 but the dirty octave up adds a very moog like quality.
I am finding that when putting my pedals in the loop I'm having to turn the octave down off so I can utilise the looped pedals on their own. This is causing problems with my clean tone,as the loop volume is adding a lot of high mids and treble with the looped pedals turned off. I'm going to try a better quality Y splitter cable to see if that helps.

[lee650]

[quote name='GisserD' timestamp='1507726631' ]



Note: i have already emailed Tom at cog effects but no response as yet. understandable really as im sure he is a busy man!

thanks
[/quote]

Any news from Tom? Interested to know

[GisserD]

[quote name='lee650' timestamp='1508280604' post='3391125']
Any news from Tom? Interested to know
[/quote]

had a reply from tom...


[font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]Hello,[/size][/font]
[font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]
Sorry for the delay in my reply, very busy here at the minute [/size][/font]
[font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]
It's not the octave up, it's a byproduct of the down octave generation. At playing volumes it shouldn't be audible over the main voices though. [/size][/font]
[font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]
Thanks,[/size][/font][font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]
Tom[/size][/font]
[font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]
so its confirmed. the pedal is designed like that. [/size][/font]

[Al Krow]

[quote name='GisserD' timestamp='1508829667' post='3394611']
had a reply from tom...
[font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]Hello,[/size][/font]
[font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]Sorry for the delay in my reply, very busy here at the minute [/size][/font][font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]It's not the octave up, it's a byproduct of the down octave generation. At playing volumes it shouldn't be audible over the main voices though. [/size][/font]
[font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]Thanks,[/size][/font]
[font=arial, sans-serif][size=3]Tom[/size][/font]

[size=4][font=arial, sans-serif]So its confirmed. the pedal is designed like that. [/font][/size]
[/quote]

Thanks very much for confirming. But it's kinda weird and a bit unexpected though that it's a feature of the octave down and not the dirt up - it's not something I'm getting on the T16 octave down, but maybe that's because it's a gen 1.0 T16 circuit which is different to the T47 and T65 circuitry, whereas the new gen T16s have the same circuitry as their bigger brethren? It was the ability to get a "completely clean" octave down that led me to keep the T16 in preference to the T65 - I guess for exactly same sonic preference reasons as you Gisser.

But if the new T16s have the same "glitch", well I'd better hold on to my old T16 in the same way folk prefer their Boss OC2s to the newer OC3s.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Al Krow

[Quatschmacher]

I had an original T16 and this low-level noise was in mine too.

[MGBrown]

I had a similar issue with my T65: A sort of fluffy distortion even when on 'clean' only. It wasn't overly loud but it drove me mad. In addition the octave up seemed to be a distorted version of the main signal - not an octave up at all. Sent it back but it apparently tested fine. Using an EBS now - works great with the Le Bass pre.

[Quatschmacher]

[quote name='MGBrown' timestamp='1509182812' post='3397154']
I had a similar issue with my T65: A sort of fluffy distortion even when on 'clean' only. It wasn't overly loud but it drove me mad. In addition the octave up seemed to be a distorted version of the main signal - not an octave up at all. Sent it back but it apparently tested fine. Using an EBS now - works great with the Le Bass pre.
[/quote]

About the octave up being a distorted version of the main signal - that is intentional and is explicitly stated in the Cog advertising copy:

“The octave up is a bit dirty and helps add some presence back in to your sound when in a live band mix. It is by no means a clean reproduction of your sound an octave higher, and it isn't designed to be used as a standalone octave up on bass, but instead as an integrated part in this octave machine.”

Edited October 28, 2017 by Quatschmacher

[Al Krow]

[quote name='Quatschmacher' timestamp='1509207076' post='3397342']
About the octave up being a distorted version of the main signal - that is intentional and is explicitly stated in the Cog advertising copy:"The octave up is a bit dirty and helps add some presence back in to your sound when in a live band mix. It is by no means a clean reproduction of your sound an octave higher, and it isn't designed to be used as a standalone octave up on bass, but instead as an integrated part in this octave machine."
[/quote]

Hi Q (ah yes finally the obvious abbreviation for you!). I don't disagree with that statement.

I think the point here is that with the T65 (unlike e.g. the T16 or T47 - which is in effect two T16s) there seem to be various "glitches" (whether intentional or not) e.g. not being able to get pure clean octave down due to the residual dirty "octave up" even when the dirty octave up is dialled back to nil. It's the inability to get rid of this "dirty signal" entirely that seems to be the annoying design feature for a few of us on this thread and which has caused a few of us to separately to move our T65s on.

For others it's a not a concern (or one that becomes a non-point when gigging) and that they are therefore completely relaxed about. It's a bit like the underpowered filter issue on the Gen 1.0 T16s that Tom has now fixed on the more recent issue Gen 2.0s; for me it's a non issue as I'm not using the COG as a filter (I've got my Aggie FT and SA Manta which are both much more capable dedicated filters) so I'm just using my Gen 1.0 T16 as an (excellent) clean octave down which interacts really well with other effects on my board, in a way that the "dirt tinged" octave down on the T65 did not.

Tom at COG seems to have confirmed to Gisser that this was very much "how the T65 was intended"; but it's definitely not to everyone's taste, so I'm really glad Gisser has brought it to our wider attention and folk can be aware of beforehand rather than after the event.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Al Krow

[lee650]

I can hear a slight octave up , but in a dirty brass master style. Ive used many different octaves over the years and as I prefer to use an octave as part of a synth engine the T65 is perfect for me. It can even be used on its own to good effect with the octave up for synth duties.

I do agree that the T65 doesn't do completely clean in the same way I found the T16 could, that's why I'm considering a custom Cog, which would be switchable between a T65 and T16 (kind of a T47 with a loop and one channel having the octave up).

For clean octave tones, my favourite is the EBS Octabass! Clean smooth sound that tracks really well. I'd buy Oldman s but I've no room on the board!