First time plugging it in, I was surprised by how punchy the sound is, really natural sounding and responsive!
The two very different sub-octave tones can be finely balanced with the input signal, which provides a huge palette of possible sounds.
The "girth" octave is more of a sub-bass sound.
The "growl" octave is a very synth-like in your face sound.
Some favourite settings:
- you get a super "hi-fi" octave sound using "girth" and original signal only, both at 2 o'clock
- adding just a tiny bit of "girth" to fatten up the high notes on the neck, so more of a tone effect than an octave
- full on "growl" with zero original/"girth" gives you that cool "fake" synth sound, kind of like the famous boss OC2
The octave sound is very responsive to the way that you play, both in volume and tone, really wonderful. If you are dealing with a busy mix, there is a "mid boost" switch that can be engaged, it will affect the input signal only, making it cut through; pretty handy sometimes.
The only complaint that I have is that when using the "growl" octave on full, with nothing else mixed in, the signal level is a bit quieter than the input signal level, so you get a bit of a drop in volume. Would have been perfect if there were a bit more gain to push that octave sound to match the input level. (this is using a passive p-bass by the way).
Overall, an awesome analogue octaver, no surprise it's so popular! If I lost it I would get it again in a second!
