PelliX
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- Joined
- Jun 16, 2020
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This is not a happy new pedal day. I bought an EH Octavix, looking to get a little of those octave overtones a la Hendrix and Vaughan for example. Although EH don't mention Hendrix by name, the pedal and its description strongly suggest this is what it's intended to do. I've been around a fair deal of gear and I'm no stranger to FX chains, so I'm looking for some practical experience here. My problems with the pedal include the following:
* Fuzz is nasty. Sure, easy to say, but I mean it's worse than any other similar fuzz I've ever dealt with in a guitar signal chain. A can of bees would be musical compared to this. It reminds me of what happens when you drive a MOSFET totally beyond any reasonable expectation. When the fuzz is turned to zero, the rest of the pedal.. ehm, becomes usable.
* Loud pop when engaging/disengaging the bypass. Not the same as actually physically tapping the tip of your signal cable, but there is a distinct plop, generally when switching to bypass.
* Flipping between 9V and 24V also generates a fair pop which - without looking at the circuit - I can understand. It also does it in bypass though, so effectively there is no way to flip the switch 'live'.
* The signal input level has to be extremely low for the output not to turn into a bucket of mush - and I do mean bucket of mush, not just some hair on the tone but real indecipherable "mush". I have to dial the volume on my Strat (single coil, low output pickups) back to about 6 to accomplish this. A (single coil, standard) Tele needs even more rolling back.
* At any given setting, if the effect is "working" on the top two or three strings, hitting one of the lower two or three turns the entire output to mush again.
* As soon as the pedal is actually adding any kind octave effect it sounds as if there's a compressor engaged.
Now, I haven't actually looked inside the pedal, though I did obviously check the power supply and try the pedal with another one; same behavior. A lot of the problems I've described would lead me to suspect the voltage regulation inside the unit. Do the complaints above sound familiar with regard to this pedal? Does anybody have any hacks or mods that made it usable to them? Generally, I'd take such a thing apart and figure out what's going on and what needs rectifying, but I bought this pedal to avoid the "hassle" of building something similar myself. I might just gut it and put in a decent circuit, but let's hear what you guys have to say first. Thanks!
* Fuzz is nasty. Sure, easy to say, but I mean it's worse than any other similar fuzz I've ever dealt with in a guitar signal chain. A can of bees would be musical compared to this. It reminds me of what happens when you drive a MOSFET totally beyond any reasonable expectation. When the fuzz is turned to zero, the rest of the pedal.. ehm, becomes usable.
* Loud pop when engaging/disengaging the bypass. Not the same as actually physically tapping the tip of your signal cable, but there is a distinct plop, generally when switching to bypass.
* Flipping between 9V and 24V also generates a fair pop which - without looking at the circuit - I can understand. It also does it in bypass though, so effectively there is no way to flip the switch 'live'.
* The signal input level has to be extremely low for the output not to turn into a bucket of mush - and I do mean bucket of mush, not just some hair on the tone but real indecipherable "mush". I have to dial the volume on my Strat (single coil, low output pickups) back to about 6 to accomplish this. A (single coil, standard) Tele needs even more rolling back.
* At any given setting, if the effect is "working" on the top two or three strings, hitting one of the lower two or three turns the entire output to mush again.
* As soon as the pedal is actually adding any kind octave effect it sounds as if there's a compressor engaged.
Now, I haven't actually looked inside the pedal, though I did obviously check the power supply and try the pedal with another one; same behavior. A lot of the problems I've described would lead me to suspect the voltage regulation inside the unit. Do the complaints above sound familiar with regard to this pedal? Does anybody have any hacks or mods that made it usable to them? Generally, I'd take such a thing apart and figure out what's going on and what needs rectifying, but I bought this pedal to avoid the "hassle" of building something similar myself. I might just gut it and put in a decent circuit, but let's hear what you guys have to say first. Thanks!
