The cult classic is back and better than ever. Death by Audio has finally released Octave Clang V2. This pseudo-ring/distortion/noise/octave pedal is both more ferocious (and easier to dial in) than ever.
Get the Octave Clang V2 on Reverb: https://tidd.ly/3Vv0nGm (affiliate link)
Seen and heard in the video (affiliate links)
Fender Vintera ii Jazzmaster: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/vinteraiijazzmaster
Squier Bronco Bass: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/jrgkGP
Benson Chimera Plugin from Mixwave: https://imp.i114863.net/BensonPlugin
Guitar Rig 7: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/GuitarRig7
0:00 Intro
3:30 Octave Clang on guitar (through an amp)
8:19 Clang
12:07 Octave Clang on guitar (DI)
16:16 Octave Clang on bass
21:24 Final thoughts
The secret weapon praised by Ty Segall and others, Octave Clang has been unavailable for nearly a decade. Now it’s back, and has some huge improvements.
First of all, you can now turn the octave on and off with a footswitch. That’s huge. In addition, DBA says they extended the range of the original controls and did some “under-the-hood supercharging.”
The Octave Clang is a lot easier to use and more versatile than I expected. You can get some EXTREMELY weird tones here—don’t get me wrong—but you also get a straight-up beefy fuzz, some cool low-gain filter sounds, and a tremendous octave fuzz sound that I missed whenever I turned it off.
Get it directly from DBA: https://deathbyaudio.com/products/octave-clang
Transcript
(Please note that this was automatically generated and likely contains errors).
Guitarists have a funny habit of mythologizing hard-to-find and discontinued gear.
Especially after someone like Ty Segall outs it as his studio secret for direct-in guitar tone.
The original Octave Clang disappeared ten years ago and has been one of those if-you-know-you-know pedals.
And it’s been remarkably hard to find one.
The last one sold on Reverb went for $690 earlier in March. Others have landed between three and four hundred dollars over the past two years in varying conditions. All in all, I could only find four sold Octave Clang listings on Reverb. None on eBay.
But I’m happy to announce that your search for the Octave Clang is over. Now, finally, Death By Audio has blessed us with the Octave Clang V2. Let’s get into it.
Welcome to Get Offset, my name is Emily, and I appreciate you.
If you want to go ahead and skip to the sounds, skip to the time stamp shown on screen. There should also be a clickable time stamp in the video description.
The Death by Audio Octave Clang V2 was sent to me to demo, so let me say thanks to the Death by Audio team! As always, thoughts and opinions are all mine.
The original Octave Clang was obviously a cult favorite, but it was also a tricky pedal to tame. I mean, it’s billed as a quote pseudo ring slash distortion slash noise slash octave pedal. If you’re curious, the octave up effect is achieved by adding two out of phase half wave rectified copies of your signal together.
Like a lot of octave pedals, it works most cleanly with single notes, but you might get some satisfaction from the way it mangles chords.
The Octave Clang V2 attempts to improve on the original in a variety of ways—more ferocious, more thunderous, more versatile.
With the Octave Clang V2, Death by Audio, and I quote, “refined and extended the range of the original controls, added a foot-switchable octave, and did some under-the-hood supercharging.
One the face, the Octave Clang V2 seems to have the same three knobs as the original—this right-angle scalene triangle controls the volume, this weird square wave controls the intensity slash gain, and this six-pointed star is the shape or EQ.
This thing has a LOT of volume on tap. The manual specifically says it goes from totally silent to extremely loud, giving it the ability to drive your entire signal chain.
Intensity slash gain can and will drive the pedal into overdrive and fuzz. Speaking of intensity, this proves up to 39 decibels of gain.
Finally, shape is a pre-gain tilt EQ and is extremely interactive.
But there’s one more knob you can’t see. If you open up the back of the pedal, you’ll see the inner control, which allows the misbiasing of the distortion circuitry. 5-6 is the quote normal setting. Changing it skews the sound.
The big change with the front of the Octave Clang V2 is the octave up footswitch. Now, you don’t HAVE to use the octave control if you don’t want to.
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This thing, in a word, RIPS. But I want to know what YOU think! Let me know in the comments and check the product link in the video description to get your own.
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Thanks for watching, thanks for understanding, keep being yourself. Until next time, my name is Emily, goodbye.