Fulltone Ultimate Octave

[Lola Bergo]

iplayed the octafuzz, really liked it, but haven't played the ultimate octave by fulltone. im just about the pull the trigger on a octafuzz, but a ultimate octave for not much more is also for sale, given it has more options and footswitchable octave, is the ultimate octave really a better pedal? how does it's tone compare?

Completely different in my opinion. The octafuzz nails that ratty octavia band of gypsies tone as you know already. The ultimate octave is an amazing pedal in its own right, but doesn't do "that" sound all that great. It is however far more versatile. I'm a fan of germanium fuzzes, fuzz face and tone bender clones are by far my fave fuzzes, the ultimate octave, however has a very full and consonant sounding silicon fuzz. Big thick monstrous tone, but not as "square" as a germanium type of fuzz. Great for thick leads with delay, not really gilmourish per se, but sounds good in that kind of situation. When you kick in the octave it tracks much better and you get that clear singing octave up sound rather than the splatty harmonically inconsistent octave of the traditional tycobrahe/roger mayer octavia clones.

Both are great pedals, but the octafuzz is what does it for me. I'm just a fan of that weird harmonic thing the old school octavias do. I've owned both, though I currently own neither, lol. If you are getting trigger happy on the octafuzz, then go for it, it won't let you down. If you really aren't sure, then try to find an ultimate octave you can try out, or a place that has a good return policy. Dig?

The PGS videos are an awesome tool, but the ultimate octave one is much different than the live in person sound of the pedal. It probably has a lot to do with the amp too. A fuzz that sounds great through one amp might do a 180 on you when you get it home and run it through your rig. Another poster mentioned trying the ultimate octave, and I second that. Also, anytime I try a pedal at a store I try to get as close to my rig as I can. Use a similar guitar into a similar amp, if not the exact of both.

Unleash your audio prowess with the Fulltone Ultimate Octave, a compelling fuzz/distortion/octave pedal that respects the venerable legacy of the Octavia. This dynamic accessory offers an LED display and an octave up foot switch, enabling a commanding presence in any mix. The Fat/Bright switch allows for seamless alternation between mids-focused and fully scooped tones, making it an ideal choice for metal, stoner rock, or psychedelic genres. Its intuitive design and potent feature set make it a must-have for any serious musician looking to make an impact.

I believe this pedal is a highly refined foxx tone machine octave fuzz. If you want Octavia look at fulltones smaller octave box. I enjoyed this pedal but prefer the more subtle, always-on univox/FZ-2/standard fuzz type of sound personally... all in all Mike Fuller did a great job with the ultimate octave tonally on both the fuzz and octave sections and it has a really low noise floor for this sort of effect.

The Fulltone Ultimate Octave pedal gives you fat distortion and fuzz tones, with an extra footswitch for piling on a screaming octave-up when you need it. The Ultimate Octave pedal features an active tone control and a "Fat/Bright" switch that lets you go from girthy mids to a scooped tone with bass-y and bright lows and highs. If you like that psychedelic solo tone that vintage octave fuzz pedals provide, you'll love the versatile, monsterous sounds you'll wring out of your rig with the Ultimate Octave pedal!

Long-lasting pots

Fulltone's custom-made brass-shaft pots are among the strongest and smoothest feeling pots available. These amazing pots are mounted to the interior PCB board via a proprietary "thru-PCB" method rather than having the pot be secured by the pot terminals, drastically reducing pot-related failure. This method keeps Fulltone pedals up and running for the duration of your playing days. Plus, this eliminates the need for a bunch of jumper wires, keeping your tone as pure as humanly possible.

Who uses Fulltone?

The list of Fulltone fans reads like a who's who of guitar heroes. Both Ron Wood and Keith Richards have Fulltone gear in their touring rigs, as does Nigel Tufnel from the legendary British metal band Spinal Tap, and Boston bad-boys Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton. Punk/rockabilly mainstay Reverend Horton Heat is a Fulltone convert. Other notable Fulltone users include Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, Jack Bruce of Cream, perennial alt rocker Lou Reed, and Tom Petty along with Heartbreaker Mike Campbell.

Sweetwater's Sales Engineers are regarded as the most experienced and knowledgeable professionals in the music industry, with extensive music backgrounds and intense training on the latest products and technologies. They are available to offer you personalized product advice any time you need it.

The Octaland is a no compromise high octave tone monster. The Octaland now features a wide drive control, this allows you to go from almost clean octave tones, to screaming, sustaining lead tones and everything in between. The BLEND control blends between the pure octave tone and a clean or fuzz tone. The blend feature opens up so many possibilities, just add a small amount of high octave to your favorite fuzz or overdrive pedal, this adds extra texture and depth to your tone. The VOICE control works like a two way tone control, when you roll it backwards it acts like the classic Octaland tone control, turn it clockwise and it changes the voicing of the pedal. The Voice control gives you so many new tones without loosing that classic Octaland tones. The Octaland also has more output so you can drive those tube amps into breakup ?

You cannot talk about Octave Fuzz Pedals without mentioning Jimi Hendrix and his sound technician Roger Mayer - who together collaborated to create the very first octave pedal - the Octavia - which reproduced the input signal from a guitar one octave higher in pitch, and mixed it with the original and added fuzz. This sound is best known via the classic Hendrix tracks Purple Haze and Fire which went on to inspire a whole category of pedals - including the other legendary octave pedal - the Tycobrahe Octavia.

The odd pedal out in this listing is the Evil Filter which combines a number of different effects under the same chassis, while my other favourite here is the really new Pigtronix Octava - another cool mini pedal - with 5 tone controls and the ability to turn down the fuzz.

So Roger has pretty much been making iterations of his original Hendrix Octave pedal since 1967. There are no existing demo videos of the latest 'Classic' version enclosure, but it is pretty much identical to the Octavio Vision featured in the above demo - it moves away from the original rocket-ship style 2-knob version with an additional Tone dial. The principal changes are in the layout and inputs/outputs but the internal components remain largely unchanged to preserve the legacy. Of course the Octavia sounds fantastic, but I fail to see why vintage pedals have to have such oversized enclosures. The Malekko Omicron Fuzz comes plenty close enough in an enclosure almost one tenth of the size? If Roger Mayer made his Octavia in a compact enclosure I feel sure he would make more sales.

As I mentioned in the intro, this was for a while my number one target - but I was a touch put off by its power requirements and need for isolated centre positive supply. The pedal is simple to operate with just Volume and Boost dials and a Octave / Fuzz toggle. This is an exact modern remake of the Tycobrahe Octavia which pretty much sounds the same - i.e. great - the only word of warning here is this pedal's power requirements - otherwise it's a great indicator for how easily vintage pedals can be compacted down and accurately remodelled when engineered properly.

This is actually a pretty decent Octavia clone - made pseudo authentic because of the Jim Dunlop company's ownership of Jimi Hendrix's licensing rights. It's sort of a classic example of marketing as the actual original derivations are the Octavia and Octafuzz, and unlike the Fuzz Face, there is no direct lineage or legacy here - this is actually a Dunlop clone of the original. With all that said - it actually sounds really good and is a worthy addition to this list.

I covered this pedal in an earlier post on 9 of the best Envelope Filter Pedals - yet this pedal gives you a lot more - it's also a formidable fuzz pedal, and it by mixing up the various filter dials in combination you can get a sort of glitched out octave fuzz in both directions. So it's a rather unusual both wholly justifiably worthwhile pedal for inclusion here - although significantly oversized compared to the others here. A really interesting pedal nevertheless.

A classic Octavio / Octafuzz style clone with 3 dials - Volume, Octave and Boost. It sounds pretty great and at a pretty reasonable price - and it certainly gives you a little extra feature set over the Hendrix Octavio. If you're budget conscious then this gives you everything you need.

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