Whether fattening up your clean tone, creating an all-out octave-fuzz assault, simulating a 12-string, or something just completely different, an octave effect can turn your guitar into a whole ’nother animal and inspire your sound crafting. We’ve rounded up a sampling of 10 solid options for you to get your octave on.
Octave OC-5
Features on this updated classic include a vintage mode for the mono sound of the OC-2, a poly mode for chord playing, and a new octave-up effect which can be blended with the octave-down effects.
Purple Platypus Octidrive MkII
Like the original, this stompbox has a frequency doubler to create an octave-up effect, which cleans up nicely for ring-modulator-style sounds to all-out huge octave fuzz.
Sub 'N' Up
This polyphonic octave pedal features an old-school monophonic octaver and individual blend controls for dry, octave-up, and two sub-octaves—to cover everything from complex chords to groovy single-note lines.
Tentacle V2
This analog octave-up pedal features the octave effect from EarthQuaker’s Hoof Reaper, and makes easy work of going high and tearing loose with it’s no-control design.
Pure Octave
Featuring 11 different octave modes and the ability to adjust the lower, upper, and sub sections of a signal, this mini was designed to deliver precise octave effects with no distortion.
Octapussy
This pedal’s preamp section is specially voiced for very dynamic playing response for high-octave lead tones on the neck’s higher registers, but also a big array of fuzz tones anywhere else on the neck.
Luminary
Here’s a quad-octave generator that provides the ability to conjure up any combination of four separate octaves, and features three presets, a filter control, and a tremolo effect.
Quint Machine
Offering octave-up, octave-down, and a 5th up, this pedal boasts ultra-fast polyphonic tracking, individual volume controls, and a master-mix dial.
Nano POG
The smallest member of the POG family, this polyphonic octave generator was designed for stellar tracking, features separate level dials for dry, sub-octave, and octave-up, and houses an extra dry out.
Jonny Octave
This analog octave-up pedal lets you play up either one or two octaves, and features separate volume dials for each channel along with four internal gain trimmers to adjust for playing style.
In the annals of Gibson Les Paul players, Charlie Starr is an under-the-radar aficionado. Starr’s stable over the course of his career with southern-rock group Blackberry Smoke has been stocked with some of the sharpest old-school LPs on earth, and he’s got a particular predilection for Juniors.
But what sets one Paul apart from another? Starr, Rhett, and Zach go down every rabbithole in their hunt to nail down what makes a particular Gibson great, including misconceptions around P-90s and their relationship to PAFs, Juniors versus Standards, and whether wood and total construction have a big impact on tone. Some players argue that the sound is all in the pickups; tune in to learn why the trio thinks that theory is bunk, right down to the last, least consequential cap.
Plus, find out when Starr thinks Gibson perfected the Les Paul’s neck shape and bridge positioning, how top-wrapping impacts your sound, and a foolproof way to I.D. a legit, vintage PAF. (If it’s original, it’s gonna stink.)
