Though it’s rarely a heavily employed effect, octave manipulation has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity over the last decade or so. For many, the immediate musical association with the effect is the deeper, darker facets of the metal genre. But octave effects can be effective in almost any guitar setting. When used with discretion, throwing in a sub octave or detuning a higher frequency can add a nice texture—an unexpected twist on an otherwise standard chord structure or lead. And when used less subtly, octave effects can define a whole tune and totally recast an otherwise ordinary guitar part.
Over the years, Boss has released several octave effects. The newest addition—the MO-2 Multi-Overtone—uses the company’s multi-dimensional processing (MDP) to create not just your average octave pedal, but a pitch-shifting unit that can accentuate high, low, or midrange octaves with a unique harmonized charm.
Boss Basics
The MO-2 Multi-Overtone is housed in the same box as all of its illustrious predecessors. And, like just about every Boss pedal that’s come before it, this thing will likely withstand stage use and abuse for many years without complaint. A 9V battery fits under the footpad, but a standard barrel adapter connects at the crown of the unit. At the top of the sparkled, sky-blue box are four controls that harness and manipulate the output—balance, tone, detune, and mode.
Balance adjusts the wet/dry ratio of your effected output. A fully counterclockwise turn leaves your signal completely dry. Maxing the control saturates your output, with little perceptible dry signal. The tone control colors the effect with a greater bass or treble response, with a balanced, neutral flavor around noon.
The mode knob switches between three settings that deliver different levels of overtone. Rather than selecting specific intervals (such as thirds, fifths, or sevenths) like a harmonizer, the MO-2 targets broader frequencies. Mode 1 accentuates higher frequencies, mode 2 takes the middle road, and mode 3 enhances low end along the lines of a sub-octave pedal.
The detune knob essentially pitch-shifts part of your output, and you’ll notice slightly different performance characteristics, depending on the mode you’ve selected. In mode 1, an increased detune thickens up your entire guitar signal. In mode 2, detune brings out more of a Leslie-like warble, and increasing detune in mode 3 infuses a chorus-like effect—albeit one that’s a little on the darker side of the tonal spectrum. There’s no speed knob to control the detuned swirl, but the speed of the effect seems to increase the more you twist detune clockwise, with a somewhat chaotic feel coming in at higher settings.
Pick a Frequency
Setting up a ’68 Fender Bassman for an essentially clean output, I paired the MO-2 with a Les Paul and started exploring mode 1. Increasing the tone and maxing detune get me pretty close to Jonny Greenwood’s intro lead on Radiohead’s “My Iron Lung,” but with less Whammy-style glitching. And the chord tracking is sharp and accurate enough to deliver a pretty decent-sounding 12-string simulation when you dial back the detune knob. There’s a nice weight to open chords in these settings, too, although I found myself having to roll back the tone to tame some harsh trebles—a little below noon was the best setting for most chord work.
Ratings
Pros:
Multitude of cool rhythm and lead sounds. Tracks chords and leads equally well. Stereo output.
Cons:
No dedicated speed/rate control for the detune effect.
Tones:
Playability/Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$129
Company
bossus.com
Mode 2 has a distinct organ-like quality that hums with harmonic gusto when all controls are set to noon. Adding a bit of reverb on top really rounded out the weight of full chords, but when I kept things dry the texture was actually quite effective for adding singing, organ-meets-cello overtones to neoclassical shredding. The single-coils of a Fender Telecaster added a nice sting to bombastic double-note pull-offs, coaxing tones that evoke frenzied Atomic Rooster riffage when you dial in a swirling detune setting. Turning up the Bassman to break-up levels increased this Deep Purple-style, organ-flavored output, although even in these seemingly meaty tone environs you have to roll off the tone when increasing balance to tame the biting high-end that the MO-2 generates.
The lowest octave tones are there for the taking in mode 3, which generates tones a full octave below the fretted note. Rolling off the tone and nixing the detune function makes rhythm chords enormous, not unlike the output you’d get from a chorused baritone guitar. Maxing the detune knob at these settings adds layers of chime to create a slithering, lush experience for chord structures built around open strings. Volume swells in this setup have a choir-like vocal quality and get dramatically more synth-like when you turn up the balance—a very cool effect. I also generated some very cool saturation for leads with all the settings at noon, and with a touch of amp gain the sound turned into a smooth, robotic croon. For heavier riffs, be sure to place your distortion box before the MO-2, otherwise you’ll lose some definition.
The Verdict
It’s a little difficult to categorize the Boss MO-2 Multi-Overtone pedal. Is it an octave pedal? A harmonizer? A modulator? In reality, it’s a bit of each, and the parameters are adjustable and flexible enough to accentuate and blend each of the effects or to enhance their individual voices, which makes the MO-2 a very dynamic pedal.
With a $129 street price, the MO-2 sits in the pricier end of Boss’ compact-pedal line, but it’s a lot cheaper than some of the comparable competition—and you get a lot of sounds that can be molded to rhythm or lead play. If you’re itching to blend some overtones and new textures into your rig and want to avoid some of the larger contraptions, this Boss is a little saddlebag of octave effects overflowing with harmonizing tricks.
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The Rickenbacker 481’s body style was based on the 4001 bass, popularly played by Paul McCartney. Even with that, the guitar was too experimental to reach its full potential.
By the early 1970s, the great interest the lads had sparked in 6- and 12-string Ricks had waned. But thankfully for the company, there was still high demand for yet another Beatles-played instrument: the 4001 bass.
Paul McCartney was gifted a 4001 by Rickenbacker in 1965, which he then used prominently throughout the group’s late-’60s recordings and while leading Wings all through the ’70s. Other rising stars of rock also donned 4000 series models, like Yes’Chris Squire, Pink Floyd’sRoger Waters, the Bee Gees’ Maurice Gibb, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Stu Cook, and more.
And like that, a new star was born.
So, what’s a guitar company to do when its basses are selling better than its guitars? Voilà: The Rickenbacker 480. Introduced in 1972, it took the 4000-series body shape and created a standard 6-string out of it, using a bolt-on neck for the first time in the brand’s history.
The 481’s slanted frets predate the modern multi-scale phenomenon by decades. The eight-degree tilt of the frets is matched by an eight-degree tilt of the nut, pickups, and bridge.
“It was like a yo-yo at Rickenbacker sometimes,” factory manager Dick Burke says in Rickenbacker Guitars: Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fireglo. “We got quiet in the late ’60s, but when the bass started taking off in the ’70s, we got real busy again, so making a 6-string version of that was logical, I guess.”
The gambit worked, for a time. Sales of the 480 were strong enough at first that, in 1973, a deluxe model was introduced—the 481—and it’s one of these deluxe versions that we’re showcasing here.
“The 481 features slant frets—pointing ever-so-slightly toward the body of the guitar—and the eight-degree tilt of the frets is matched by an eight-degree tilt of the nut, pickups, and bridge.”
Take a close look and you’ll notice that the body shape isn’t the only remarkable feature. The 481 was Rickenbacker’s first production run to feature humbucker pickups. Here, you can see each humbucker’s 12 pole pieces dotting through the chrome cover, a variant casing only available from 1975 to 1976. (Interestingly enough, the pickups had first been developed for the 490, a prototype that never made it to public release, which would’ve allowed players to substitute different pickups by swapping loaded pickguards in and out of the body.)
The new pickups were also treated with novel electronics. The standard 3-way pickup-selector switch is here, but so is a second small switch that reverses the pickups’ phase when engaged.
The inventive minds at Rickenbacker didn’t stop there: The 481 features slant frets—pointing ever-so-slightly toward the body of the guitar—and the eight-degree tilt of the frets is matched by an eight-degree tilt of the nut, pickups, and bridge.
Long before the fanned fret phenomenon caught on in the modern, progressive guitar landscape, Rickenbacker had been toying around with the slant-fret concept. Originally available from 1970 forward as a custom order on other models, slant frets were all but standard on the 481 (only a small minority of straight-fret 481s were built).
The 481 was the deluxe version of the 480, which preceded it and marked the first time the company used a bolt-on neck.
Dick Burke, speaking separately to writer Tony Bacon in an interview published on Reverb, only half-recalls the genesis and doesn’t remember them selling particularly well: “Some musicians said that’s the way when you hold the neck in your left hand—your hand is slanted. So, we put the slanted frets in a few guitars. I don’t know how many, maybe a hundred or two—I don’t recall.”
Even proponents of the 481 do not necessarily sing the praises of the slanted fretboard. Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno, a 481 superfan, told Rickenbacker Guitars author Martin Kelly, “I don’t just love the 481, it’s part of me.... The 481’s slanted frets have made my fingers crooked for life, but I don’t care, I’ll take that for it’s given me riff after riff after riff."
Initial 480-series sales were promising, but the models never really took off. Though they were built as late as 1984, the slant-fret experiment of the 481 was called off by 1979. And these slanted models have not, in the minds of most players or collectors, become anywhere near as sought-after as the classic 330s and 360s, or, for that matter, the 4001s.
For that reason, 481s—despite their novelty and their lists of firsts for Rickenbacker—can still be found for relatively cheap. Our Vintage Vault pick, which is being sold by the Leicester, England-based Jordan Guitars Ltd, has an asking price of 3,350 British pounds (or about 4,300 U.S. dollars), which is still well under half the going-rate of early 360s, 660s, and other more famous Ricks. Some lucky buyers have even found 481s on Reverb for less than $2,000, which is unheard of for other vintage models.
With its idiosyncratic charms, the 481 remains more within reach than many other guitars of a similar vintage.
Sources: Martin Kelly’s Rickenbacker Guitars: Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fireglo, Tony Bacon’s"Interview: Dick Burke on the Creation of the Rickenbacker 12-String | Bacon’s Archive" on Reverb, Reverb Price Guide sales data.
