Gunny47
New member
Hey guys, my new pedal came in a few days ago and I would like to write a little review on it after fooling around with it for a while. Hope you enjoy!
Opened the package - Fulltone Ultimate Octave. Black casing, white knobs, yellow writing. Basically, it is an Octave Fuzz or Octavia unit. It has a an on/off switch (true bypass), switch to turn on the octave setting, little switch to toggle between fat and bright, and knobs for fuzz, tone and volume. It is based off of a Foxx Tone Machine, for those who aren't familiar, it's really heavy with tons of gain on tap! Sounds like a Fender Blender to me.
Before we get to the octavia goodies, I'll talk about the standalone fuzz first. It is VERY thick sounding. It's got a giant bottom end compared to my Tweak Fuzz, but not quite as crunchy as my Tweak Fuzz. The Ultimate Octave's fuzz is more along the lines of a Big Muff in my opinion, maybe not quite as fuzzy or muddy. But just fat fuzz tone, I like to keep the tone knob at about 1 oclock to compensate. I think it cleans up better than my Tweak Fuzz, definitely more volume and gain on tap as well. Tweak fuzz you can dime the controls and the volume will be much louder, but with the knobs dimed on the Ultimate Octave, it dwarfs the Tweak Fuzz's *on* volume level. Good thing in my book for solo boosts and stuff. But the Tweak Fuzz is still my go to toy for straight in your face standard fuzz tones. I think it sounds better with chords and rhythm notes cutting through, while the Ultimate Octave sounds better for solos. Both are GREAT in my humble opinion though!
Now, the 2 way switch on the right of the pedal. It has settings for Fat and Bright. Now, first, I personally don't care for the bright. What it does is cut out the mids, but it just sounds too harsh for my tastes, especially when you lower the fuzz level. The Fat setting has either a boosted midrange or a flat midrange. Whatever it is, it defintely sounds FATTER than the bright setting, more of my taste.
Finally, the Octave. It is great having a footswitch to turn on the octave, it's like having two pedals in one. The controls are very responsive. The tone knob greatly increases the overall volume once it is dimed. It is not exactly like an old Tychobrae type clone (chicago iron or octafuzz or roger mayer). The higher octave is way more present in the tone. I think this is a good thing, it was exactly what I was looking for. Of course, chords are insane, you are not going to get anything to ring out more than power chords. And with all other octavias, you get the crazy ring mod sounds when you play double stop bends and lower down on the fretboard. The best setting I've found is strat neck pickup with the tone rolled down to nothing on the guitar. Volume at about half, tone at about 11 oclock, fuzz about half - fat setting. Gives a great all around octavia sound, very heavy, plenty of high octave in there. Also, it seems to be much less noise (hum) with the octave switch engaged compared to the plain fuzz tone.
Another cool thing would be to dime the tone on the pedal, lower the fuzz all the way and increase the volume, in addition to lowering the volume on your guitar, and you can almost get a Rhodes keyboard tone out of it! Sorta hard to tweak out, and you won't get it too convincing because you can't really play chords with the octave setting on, but you can sorta get that cleaner octavey sound out of it. Pretty cool.
Just fiddling with the knobs yields a ton of tones. I haven't really tried it with humbuckers yet, I'll chime in once again once I give it a few days with my R7. I really like the pedal. Like a wah, not something to use every tune in your set, but cool to jam with and mess around with and certain tunes. Definitely great for Hendrix covers too! Very good octavia if you want not as subtle effect as a tychobrae type.
Last word of advice, don't listen to the clips on the internet of this pedal. Most of them are not a good representation. The one on the Fulltone site is not bad, but others are just very thin and crappy sounding. Great pedal
Opened the package - Fulltone Ultimate Octave. Black casing, white knobs, yellow writing. Basically, it is an Octave Fuzz or Octavia unit. It has a an on/off switch (true bypass), switch to turn on the octave setting, little switch to toggle between fat and bright, and knobs for fuzz, tone and volume. It is based off of a Foxx Tone Machine, for those who aren't familiar, it's really heavy with tons of gain on tap! Sounds like a Fender Blender to me.
Before we get to the octavia goodies, I'll talk about the standalone fuzz first. It is VERY thick sounding. It's got a giant bottom end compared to my Tweak Fuzz, but not quite as crunchy as my Tweak Fuzz. The Ultimate Octave's fuzz is more along the lines of a Big Muff in my opinion, maybe not quite as fuzzy or muddy. But just fat fuzz tone, I like to keep the tone knob at about 1 oclock to compensate. I think it cleans up better than my Tweak Fuzz, definitely more volume and gain on tap as well. Tweak fuzz you can dime the controls and the volume will be much louder, but with the knobs dimed on the Ultimate Octave, it dwarfs the Tweak Fuzz's *on* volume level. Good thing in my book for solo boosts and stuff. But the Tweak Fuzz is still my go to toy for straight in your face standard fuzz tones. I think it sounds better with chords and rhythm notes cutting through, while the Ultimate Octave sounds better for solos. Both are GREAT in my humble opinion though!
Now, the 2 way switch on the right of the pedal. It has settings for Fat and Bright. Now, first, I personally don't care for the bright. What it does is cut out the mids, but it just sounds too harsh for my tastes, especially when you lower the fuzz level. The Fat setting has either a boosted midrange or a flat midrange. Whatever it is, it defintely sounds FATTER than the bright setting, more of my taste.
Finally, the Octave. It is great having a footswitch to turn on the octave, it's like having two pedals in one. The controls are very responsive. The tone knob greatly increases the overall volume once it is dimed. It is not exactly like an old Tychobrae type clone (chicago iron or octafuzz or roger mayer). The higher octave is way more present in the tone. I think this is a good thing, it was exactly what I was looking for. Of course, chords are insane, you are not going to get anything to ring out more than power chords. And with all other octavias, you get the crazy ring mod sounds when you play double stop bends and lower down on the fretboard. The best setting I've found is strat neck pickup with the tone rolled down to nothing on the guitar. Volume at about half, tone at about 11 oclock, fuzz about half - fat setting. Gives a great all around octavia sound, very heavy, plenty of high octave in there. Also, it seems to be much less noise (hum) with the octave switch engaged compared to the plain fuzz tone.
Another cool thing would be to dime the tone on the pedal, lower the fuzz all the way and increase the volume, in addition to lowering the volume on your guitar, and you can almost get a Rhodes keyboard tone out of it! Sorta hard to tweak out, and you won't get it too convincing because you can't really play chords with the octave setting on, but you can sorta get that cleaner octavey sound out of it. Pretty cool.
Just fiddling with the knobs yields a ton of tones. I haven't really tried it with humbuckers yet, I'll chime in once again once I give it a few days with my R7. I really like the pedal. Like a wah, not something to use every tune in your set, but cool to jam with and mess around with and certain tunes. Definitely great for Hendrix covers too! Very good octavia if you want not as subtle effect as a tychobrae type.
Last word of advice, don't listen to the clips on the internet of this pedal. Most of them are not a good representation. The one on the Fulltone site is not bad, but others are just very thin and crappy sounding. Great pedal
