Roger Mayer Octavia Octavio

[leonhendrix]

The input to a fuzz face was on the side. are you sure the green cable goes straight to the fuzz face? (it does go out of the picture)

[Skreddy]

Roger did say that the Octavia likes to be driven by a FuzzFace.  He also said that the version Jimi used in the BOG concert recordings (12-31-69/1-1-70) was one of the 10 wedge-shaped units he made with iron-core transformers.  Which means that the "correct" provenence of the Dunlop clone is properly the BOG live performance.  Perhaps not trivial that it's not the same version used in "Purple Haze" and "Fire" studio recordings, as claimed by Dunlop.

For what it's worth, I've heard a suite of Octavia-clone soundclips, and I actually did prefer the tone of the new Mayer version (transformerless) best.  Here's the discussion thread with the "shootout" clips... http://www.pedalpost.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83

Roger's informative posting, I feel, is not so much railing against the practice of cloning as a simple claim to a superior product.  Not only is that fair, I think it is at very least arguably borne out by actual comparisons.  If I had developed something (albeit from common building blocks) that I had spent years and many iterations improving, I'd certainly feel that my latest version would be better than clones of earlier iterations.  That's fair and just common sense.

[tcobretti]

That pic is from BOG where he certainly had a Univibe, so I think it is a very safe bet that the pedal in front of the monitor is a Univibe controller.

Analoguru, we had a thread here a while back where we talked about the possibility that the bypass of the octavia was wired in such a way so as to buffer the wah so it would still sound good before the FF.  However, I don't think anyone has seen a schem for the early Octavias, and I can't make it out from the pic you posted, so it's really just supposition.

I guess we could try to email Roger about it.

[Meanderthal]

Early 70's stuff

 Back to the future again...

 I'm firmly convinced the egg came before the chicken.

 That's an interesting pic...

[vanessa]

Sorry abut my question, but sadly I am not a guitarist:

As far as I can see, we have here Jimi and a guitar.
From the guitar is a cable to the Vox Wah (McCoy ?).
From the Vox Wah is a cable to a wedged Octavio and from there to a Fuzz Face.
the "pink"-cable has nothing to do with the setup....

Has this been the typical or "normal" setup and if yes, why this way ?
I would (at least) assume, that the wah would be after the Fuzz-Face...

thanks...

analogguru

The reason why the pedals are in this order is the because Fuzz Face sounds shrill before the wah-wah. But if the fuzz face is placed after the wah the wah effect disappears do to impedance issues. To get around this you can use the Octavio as a buffer (transformer version would help) between the two. Also I suspect the Octavio was not wired to be true bypassed so it would still act as a buffer even when the effect was off.

[tcobretti]

Vanessa, have you tried using the Octavia as a buffer and if so how did you wire the switch?

[vanessa]

Yes I have had the chance. The unit was not mine to dig around in but if it was wired up the way I think it was they are wired up the same way a standard VOX wah is. Maybe someone can elaborate, or provide the switching layout of the original?

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/wah_847_lo_orig.gif

I would factor it not being true bypass into the whole "Jimi Tone" mojo. I would do the same with all the pieces of the puzzle (Wah, Fuzz Face, Uni-Vibe). I also think that if that photo is correct the input of the Fuzz Face was moved over to the other side to be more practical with his pedal setup (not a hard mod).

[tcobretti]

Sorry for the confusion, but my question was how you wired the Octavia's switch to make the Octavia act as a buffer.  So, are you saying the Octavia's switch was wired like a Vox wah?

[puretube]

where`s the popcorn?   

(i`m with Roger, btw...)

[vanessa]

Sorry for the confusion, but my question was how you wired the Octavia's switch to make the Octavia act as a buffer.  So, are you saying the Octavia's switch was wired like a Vox wah?

What I should say is that I believe them to have been wired for normal (non-true) bypass (just like most effects were wired back in the day before everyone got obsessed with true bypass). The unit I had a chance to play was not my own and I believe to have been stock. I did a search today and found a few gut photos of the Tycobrahe's version and even though it looks like they used the Carling x-wing switches they seem to have been wired for normal (non-true) bypass. This seems to jive with what I heard. If the unit was off there would still have been a load in the signal path between the wah and the fuzz face. This may have gave some tone sucking, but my guess it was also a beneficial impedance match to gain back the wah sweep when the fuzz face was on.

[Skreddy]

That would actually hurt rather than help, I'm afraid.  Someone may or may not have added a buffer to the output of a Jimi wah.  Seems doubtful, but other than that theory I can't explain the deep wah sweep Jimi got unless he used wah after fuzz, which goes against what all the Jimi nazis insist upon. 

[vanessa]

That would actually hurt rather than help, I'm afraid.  Someone may or may not have added a buffer to the output of a Jimi wah.  Seems doubtful, but other than that theory I can't explain the deep wah sweep Jimi got unless he used wah after fuzz, which goes against what all the Jimi nazis insist upon. 

I was able to get a normal deep wah sweep with the Tycobrahe on and off ran into a Fuzz Face, go figure. I took special note of it. I'll have to build a Tycobrahe clone and see if I come up with the same results. I will also have to test both true and non-true bypass just to see.

[Pedal love]

 

Hollywood Pedal Pictures proudly presents:  Jimi live on stage together with wedged Octavio !



If not to confuse the issue even more, now I'm told by a good source,
there was a second wedge shaped box in there, apart from the fuzz
face the only other fuzz. It was very close to the Axis Fuzz in design.
So as Analogguru might put it, there are two rip offs of a Helios circuit,
in Jimi's BOG signal chain.

[petemoore]

  It is my belief that these bits of info, and the sound they produce are 'partials'...ie only part of what is in those boxes is actually known.
  Just a FF won't distort as hard as what I think I'm hearing.
  The Wah/FF, as shown gets loaded down by the FF, and doesn't work at all like what I think I'm hearing.
  Using what is shown in schematic form, and doing some of my own clone mods...gets 'it' alot closer to what I think I'm hearing.
  I don't know but suspect the schematics show 'most' but not 'all' of 'what was what, and when'.
  IMO...'what is the value of adding a transistor here or there in the 'JiaB' type setup?' [very useful, of great value...ie don't work right 'without'].
  'And how hard is it to do that?' [pretty darn easy].
  "Do you think the tweekers of the day noted and published every components value and placement in the form of schematic which provided the complete picture, a 'moving picture' [if you will..these things changed, I can envision RM whacking stuff together on a dialy/weekly basis, not noting every change and publishing it...kinda like I do...tweek here..tweek there...ahhh...much better]...seems bindingly logical in my estimation that the chain in question had alot of attention paid to it, but that every actual mod or addition mayer may not have been published'.

[joegagan]

+1 on the popcorn

BUt what the hell is all this about?

it seems to me that all this pseudo-science about some pedals played almost 40 years ago is silly for the following reasons:

- as some people have mentioned - jimi's pedals could have been and probably were hacked and rehacked weekly if not daily by numerous techs. pedals broke, got lost, jimi wanted to try for new sounds etc etc
as such, conjecture about order of pedals, possible buffers, amounts of gain , extremeness of wah etc are all moot 40 yrs after the fact

- sure , it was all great tone, but SO MUCh of it was in jimi's hands and his soul. how do you recreate or quantify that? you don't.

bottom line - the number of variables that are no longer verifiable is so large that all of this is like building a house of cards on quicksand right before a hurricane AND an 8.5 earhtquake.

I respect Roger's right to claim anything - he was there.
if Dunlop wants to make a pedal that the Hendrix geeks will buy i guess they will just go ahead and do that, won't they?

[petemoore]

  I see no reason why 'they' weren't faced with the same problems we face, and find ways to get that rig purring, somehow. 
  With the N/T bypass items and coiled cables, signal loading had to be an issue, whether identified, discussed and adressed or not, well, the recordings [most of the time] certainly don't sound to me like crap signal delivery, sounds to me like the rig-chain really got figured out.

[analogguru]

@leonhendrix
the photo is in this area so porr and scratched that the wiring of the fuzz-face can be wrong - i did´nt care about that, caus it´s not important for my question and concerns.

@tcobretti,  @vanessa
thanks for your answers and sorry about my poor english.

@joegagan
I am 100% with your opinion - Jimi would even sound good with the worst equipment.  And another guitarists may have the best equipment and will sound horrable.

So i don´t care about impedances.  Maybe I couldn´t ask my question coorect, so I will try it again.

As I said before, I am a technician not a guitar player.  Long time ago my Hair was longer and I was trying to play keyboards in a band - not with much success (the big names sound different to mine).

In a synthesizer you have a signal source (VCO) with waveform selector, after the signal source comes a filter (VCF), maybe a resonance filter and after that comes a volume control (VCA).  The VCo can create different waveforms (Sawtooth, Triangle, SquareWave, PWM,  Sine).  Every of this waveforms has a different amount of overtones (hermonics).

So here we a guitar, as you plug the quitar you get a signal with a limited amount of harmonics, changing as the signal decays.  If you feed this to a fuzz-face the output will be most of the time a square-wave. if you look the signal on an oscilloskope you will notice, that (depending on the input level) the duty-cycle varies what will have an effect on the harmonics - but it is still a square wave most of the time, (which sounds horrable).

So in this time most of the amplifiers were assembled with tubes and the fuzz-face was in principle was used as an amplifier to overdrive the input-stage (this makes the sound not so ugly).

We have here - without any doubt - the following configuration:
A signal source: the guitar(VCO), a  filter: the Wah (VCF) and after that we have the "waveform selector": Octavio or Fuzz-Face which should normally be part of the VCO to obtain the most sound flexibility.

In a sythesizer we have also an envelope follower and an ADSR-Generator.  An envelope follower you will also find in every auto-wah.  So in an auto wah, I see a reason why the auto-wah would be placed in front of a fuzz-face or octavia.  You need the original envelope of the guitar to obtain the auto-wah-effect.  If you would place the auto-wah after the fuzz-face (switched on) the effect would be poor.

Hey, did I listen now, that there will be presented a hand-painted "Insert-Wah" (to insert a Fuzz in the signal path) in Franfurt-trade-show ? 
Be careful, this is "MY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND COPYRIGHT" 
Also that you can insert a delay in the signal path of an auto-wah.

But here we don´t have an auto-wah....

So my question is:
Why was the "filter" (Wah) not used after the "waveform-selector" (Octavio/FuzzFace) ?

This time, did nobody use a wah on a distorted signal ?
In the shown configuration this would be impossible....

analogguru

[George Giblet]

>Long time ago my Hair was longer and I was trying to play keyboards in a band

LOL!

[analogguru]

@George Giblet

okay, okay.... I shouldn´t have mentioned this on that place here....

But to correct my bad behaviour here is one very important tip for guitarists on tour:

Everytime when you setup your equipment for a gig, control very carefully, that there is NEVER a cable connected to the remote-jack for the hold-function of your delay....

And if you see a cable there, carefully control the path of the cable....and make sure that at the end of the cable is not a footswitch, which is located near the keyboards....

because this can cause really annoying horrable nearly traumatic results.....when you begin your solo, and the keyboarder of your band - unintentionally - accidently touches the footswitch...

George, do you remember those times, when we were young and stupid ? LOL!
now we are only stupid... 

analogguru

[George Giblet]

>LOL!

LOL Indeed!