Best octave pedals

Two specifications decide an octave pedal: whether it tracks chords, and whether you can blend the dry signal back in. Buy the BOSS OC-5 for both a mono voice and a chord-capable Poly mode with published electrical figures, the EHX Nano POG if you play chords and want a separate dry output, and the EHX Pitch Fork if you want intervals other than an octave and the ability to sweep them with a foot.

This is a category where the marketing word and the useful word are different. Almost every pedal here says "polyphonic" somewhere; what matters is what it does when the tracking fails, and how much clean signal you have left to hide behind when it does.

01The criteria, before any product

Note the last row, because it is a recurring problem on this site rather than a complaint about one maker. BOSS publishes a full electrical sheet for both pedals of theirs on this page; Electro-Harmonix publishes impedances for the Nano POG and no current draw for either. Where a figure is not published we say so instead of borrowing one from a forum — how we research is the full statement of that.

03Polyphonic and monophonic, and why it is the whole decision

A monophonic octave circuit works by locking to one fundamental frequency and generating a new waveform from it. Give it one note and it produces a clean, fat octave with a character of its own — the sound on a great many records. Give it two notes at once and it has no single frequency to lock to, so it produces something between a warble and a squawk.

A polyphonic circuit analyzes the whole signal instead and shifts everything in it, which is why it survives a full chord. What it gives up is character: the analog mono sound is the reason the OC-2 lasted forty years and the reason BOSS built a recreation of it into the OC-5 rather than dropping it.

04Where an octave pedal goes

Early, and before your drive pedals. Pitch tracking works on the fundamental frequency of what it receives, and a distortion pedal adds harmonics and compresses the signal — both of which make the fundamental harder to find. Feed a tracker a clean signal and it tracks; feed it a fuzz and it will glitch on notes it would otherwise have handled.

The exception is deliberate. Octave-into-fuzz is a documented sound in its own right, and it fails in a way people like. If that is what you are after, put the octave first anyway and drive it — you want the fuzz reacting to the octave, not the tracker reacting to the fuzz. Pedal order covers the full chain, and best fuzz pedals covers what to put after it.

One more placement note: an octave pedal near the front of the chain is looking straight at your pickups, so its input impedance matters more than it would in the middle of a board. The Nano POG's 2 M ohm and the OC-5's 1 M ohm are both high enough not to load a passive pickup — a 130 k ohm input in that position would audibly dull your top end. Buffer vs true bypass covers why.

05Three settings that actually get used

1. The bass line. One octave down, dry signal up, octave level about half. Used to double a riff so it reads as bigger without a second player. This is the setting the OC-5's Range knob exists for.
2. The organ. One octave up and one down mixed with the dry at roughly equal levels, played as chords. This needs polyphonic tracking and is the reason the Nano POG has three separate level knobs.
3. The sub. Two octaves down at a low level under a clean part, barely audible on its own. It thickens the low end without being identifiable as an effect, and it is the setting most likely to disappear the moment a bass player is in the room.

06What tracking failure sounds like, and what to do

It is not subtle. The octave drops out on fast passages, jumps to a wrong interval on the attack of a note, or warbles on anything below the low E. Every pitch shifter does this, at different thresholds, and no amount of money removes it entirely.

• Play higher. Tracking is worst at the bottom of the instrument, because low frequencies need more cycles to identify.
• Play cleaner. Let notes ring rather than overlapping them, and mute what you are not playing.
• Blend more dry in. A tracking error at 30% octave level is a texture; the same error at 100% is a mistake.
• Put it before the drive. Covered above, and it is the single most effective fix.
• Add a compressor in front. A steadier input level gives the tracker a steadier fundamental — best compressor pedals covers which ones have a blend control.

07Do you need one

Less often than the demos suggest. An octave pedal is a texture and a trick rather than a foundation, and it is the pedal most likely to be bought, used on one song, and left switched off. If you are choosing between this and a compressor, a tuner or a decent power supply, buy those first — your first pedalboard sets out the order.

Buy one when you can name the part. Doubling a riff an octave down so a three-piece sounds like four. An organ-like pad under a clean chord. A synthetic lead an octave up. Those are all real jobs with no other solution. "It sounds cool in the shop" is not, and this is a category where that distinction costs about the same as a good overdrive.