Octavius Squeezer?

[Finbar]

Okay, so I think I've hit a bit of a point with my pedalboard now that I'm just fed up of it. If anybody has seen the photos in the pedalboard thread, it is basically very full and has about 25 'things' on it of various persuasions, including a couple of things to split it into two signals to power two amps clean and dirty. It takes up loads of room, it's the heaviest thing I own, and if something comes loose, troubleshooting it is the worst job imaginable. I think I want to downsize it all to less than half that number of pedals really. It was fun while it lasted!

So I was thinking... I currently have an OC-2, a gated fuzz and a saturated distortion, which are all used in various combinations to form the basis of my 'synth' sounds. Basically glitchy, spluttery fun. Would I be able to create patches similar enough to these on something like the Octavius Squeezer? I know we have a few people with them here. Does it do a decent job of just an octave down effect, for example? If it could replace a few pedal combinations, that would be great. Also, does it have a clean blend on it?

I guess I've just picked out the Octavius Squeezer as it seems to be one of the pedals that will do just about everything by the looks of it, even if it is costly. So any similarly sized/priced pedals with the same functions and quality would also be good if anyone has suggestions?

[Chris Ramlar]

ok this is my first post, well yes you can do a lot of cool patches in the OS and not just Octave + Fuzz you can add filtering post or pre Fuzz and add as well clean blend its a pretty versatile box but its pretty hard to use you'll have to spend a lot of time to get into it but I think its worth the time and money.
Here you can find clips of it not all of them make justice to the pedal but you can get the idea:
[url="http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=887810&content=music"]http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cf...p;content=music[/url]
every single one (except delayed 1 2 3) is made with the OS and "SMB" adds some delay.
and a video [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-dB0sUbFqU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-dB0sUbFqU[/url]

cheers

Chris

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='Finbar' post='613482' date='Oct 1 2009, 12:37 AM']Does it do a decent job of just an octave down effect, for example?[/quote]

No. Tracking on the VCO is currently not good enough. I've tried everything, it just isn't good enough. There's a promise of future firmware updates to improve matters, but I've had my O.S. since February and haven't seen a firmware update since then, so don't hold your breath.

[quote name='Finbar' post='613482' date='Oct 1 2009, 12:37 AM']Also, does it have a clean blend on it?[/quote]

Yes. It can be clean blend + fuzz, or clean blend + VCO, or fuzz blended with VCO. The VCO must always go through the filter, but either the input or fuzz signals can be mixed in post-filter if required.

[quote name='Finbar' post='613482' date='Oct 1 2009, 12:37 AM']I guess I've just picked out the Octavius Squeezer as it seems to be one of the pedals that will do just about everything by the looks of it, even if it is costly. So any similarly sized/priced pedals with the same functions and quality would also be good if anyone has suggestions?[/quote]

I still think the O.S. is worth the money just for the filter and fuzz if you use filters a lot - having an analogue low-pass filter + gated fuzz in one box with LFO and sample & hold modulation plus patch memory to deal with it all is great for live work. But don't expect to get waveforms out of it reliably - and that's a bitch for me because I really wanted it to do a decent job of replacing the octave-down sawtooth on my old G5, but the tracking just isn't good enough yet, and may never be, judging by the current rate of progress.

[Finbar]

How bad are we talking for the tracking? I'm used to the OC-2's tracking, and don't find myself wanting for more, even though I know it isn't brilliant.

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='Finbar' post='613958' date='Oct 1 2009, 04:37 PM']How bad are we talking for the tracking? I'm used to the OC-2's tracking, and don't find myself wanting for more, even though I know it isn't brilliant.[/quote]

Yeah but the OC-2's tracking is analogue and predictable, this is a different kettle of fish.

If you set the tracking sensitivity fairly low you get ****-all sustain before it glitches out. If you set it high then you get very weird artefacts from string noise - tap a string or pick an absent-minded mute note and it'll be voiced as a note at some random pitch it might pick out from a harmonic it heard, and because it's all going through the VCA with an ADSR envelope for amplitude, it won't be subtle either!

Stopping notes causes problems too: You might never have noticed before, but the act of stopping a string vibrating, whichever hand you mute with, will sharpen the note slightly before it dies. This is barely noticeable normally because it's quiet - you're in the process of muting the string - but when it's all being heard at the Sustain level set on the VCA you hear it very clearly, and it's not nice. This also has the effect of making the Release portion of the ADSR envelope useless - the last thing you want is your now-out-of-tune note released over a long period of time. But it's audible and annoying even if you're not using any Release time.

The O.S. can also get confused about which octave is the fundamental sometimes, which is semi-fair enough, you can feed it a simpler signal to improve matters, but when it gets it wrong and you've got the portamento settings on much hilarity ensues. Imagine playing a note and the O.S. initially tracks it as a note two octaves below, then realises a fraction of a second later what the real note is. The portamento then sets about glissing up through two octaves to get to the right note. Hahaha.

So yeah, to summarise: The poor tracking makes a lot of the features pretty risky to use or useless, and because of the nature of the VCO->VCA setup, glitches are loudly and proudly produced! I really hope they improve things though because the oscillator does sound good, the square/pulse and sawtooth waves are both really nice.

[thisnameistaken]

I sat down with the Squeezer again for the last half hour, because it's been a couple of months since I last fecked with the VCO stuff and I wanted to see if I was remembering it properly. And I've revised my opinion a little bit:

I was right that using the Release part of ADSR on the VCA produces un-musical results, and the Portamento settings are wildly unpredictable (but amusing sometimes), but maybe overall you might be able to use the oscillator.

It's a bit flaky if you play fast, and I wouldn't trust it with especially long notes if I were you, but overall I'd have to give it a "not bad" but I wish they'd come up with some smarter tracking software.

All that said, I've never used the Boss SYB-3 or SYB-5, and the only complaint I've heard about them is that they don't track fast playing very well. So maybe they'd be just as useful as the O.S. for a lot less money - assuming you don't need/want all the filter and fuzz stuff it offers.

[thisnameistaken]

Incidentally, I just asked Richard from Chunk if they're still intending to update the firmware again in future, and he says:

[quote]Yes we are most certainly working on a new firmware release. There have been a number of things that have caused this to take longer than expected. The main one is that we're not talking about a few tweaks to the tracking algorithm here. We've come up with an entirely new algorithm. The other one is that the tools that are available for writing code for the microcontroller in the OS are a bit substandard so we have to write it mainly by hand in assembly - which is really time consuming.[/quote]

So that's that. Still no idea when it will be coming but it's good to hear they are working on it.

[Chris Ramlar]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='614447' date='Oct 1 2009, 09:07 PM']Incidentally, I just asked Richard from Chunk if they're still intending to update the firmware again in future, and he says:



So that's that. Still no idea when it will be coming but it's good to hear they are working on it.[/quote]

do you mind if I post that information in other forum? (talkbass)

Edited October 2, 2009 by Chris Ramlar

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='Chris Ramlar' post='614449' date='Oct 2 2009, 04:45 AM']do you mind if I post that information in other forum? (talkbass)[/quote]

I already did in a thread where the O.S. came up in conversation recently.

[Finbar]

Hmm. Interesting stuff again. Well I really want something which caters for the gated fuzz/octave stuff mostly with a little bit of filter thrown in for good measure in varying combinations, which is why one box seemed a nice idea. Think of Nerve or something I guess. The ability to change between several different patches at the touch of a button was the main selling point really. So if this pedal doesn't do all of that, then I may just have to reconsider my options! Which leaves me no nearer to when I started

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='Finbar' post='615080' date='Oct 2 2009, 06:31 PM']Hmm. Interesting stuff again. Well I really want something which caters for the gated fuzz/octave stuff mostly with a little bit of filter thrown in for good measure in varying combinations, which is why one box seemed a nice idea. Think of Nerve or something I guess. The ability to change between several different patches at the touch of a button was the main selling point really. So if this pedal doesn't do all of that, then I may just have to reconsider my options! Which leaves me no nearer to when I started [/quote]

One thing I would point out is that they're not re-selling very well. So if you're not convinced you'd have a use for it, bear in mind that you'll probably lose out a lot selling it on. And I can't recommend you buy a used unit either because there's been some issues with customers who bought them second-hand who got referred to GodLyke for repairs rather than Chunk. I bought mine used and sent it to Chunk for a fix - which they sorted out for me no questions asked - but I've heard other people have had problems doing that.

[Finbar]

One thing I was considering was dropping the cash on a Deep Impact, for that very reason. If I don't like it, I know the resale value will still be there... I don't really know how the two compare though!

[thisnameistaken]

Might as well give it a go if you see one, you'd definitely get your money back. I always thought they sounded a bit fizzy and fake but then I never liked the G5 I had either but there's plenty of people out there who rate it. The DI does at least have enough memory settings to make it useful if you do like some of the sounds.