tc electronic Sub'N'Up Octaver

When I received it, someone had already taken it out of the packaging, even though I bought it first hand. The inside of the box had been destroyed on purpose by someone over at Thomann. The outside was fine.

The plastic cover-stickers of my Sub’n’Up pedal have also been removed, even though normally you do find them on your pedal. There was no manual inside, but I’m not sure whether they supply it, since there’s a manual on the box.

At first I figured I let it slip, since Thomann had served me really well before and a one-time slip with a bad employee wasn’t going to hinder me, since the pedal worked fine. By now more and more of my products turn up in damaged boxes, stepped on, even though I for instance bought the software on DVD so I had a proper hardcopy at home as well, rather than just a soft-copy on my computer. The box all of the products get shipped in was in premium condition.

Customer care refuses to contact the distribution center to catch the culprit.

This is the original review that I wrote, and that I still write because of the formidable quality TC Electronic delivers:

Officially it’s called the Sub ’N’ Up octaver, but in practice it does provide you with a sound that will make your balls drop.

The tone print setting is nice, because it allows you to try different types of octavers with different effects added to them, like basic drive and added chorus or vibrato, that allow you to craft your own sound.

The one downside to me on the poly or classic setting, is that the EQ limits the range within which the octaver adds the SUB 2, SUB, and UP to your signal. In the toneprint setting your can turn this off, opening up the full range, but when playing my mouth harp with the fixed poly or classic settings, the octaver doesn’t respond to the higher tones in the higher octaves, so I have to use the toneprint setting to add the SUB 2 and SUB, with only a bit of UP.

I would prefer to be able to turn the limiters off for the poly and classic mode as well in terms of frequency response.

Pros: Almost flawless polyphonic tracking, when you need it (without the weird fizz on top, like you get from Brainwaves, for example (different pedals, I know, but still)), and glitchy 'classic' one, when you don't.
- It's true bypass. Except when it's buffered bypass (there is a switch inside).
- TonePrint functionality. In this mode all physical knobs and the curves of their response(!) can be remapped to around 50 different parameters. There are 8 different octaver settings, input EQ, EQs for each of the 2 subs and an EQ for up, modulation tab, etc. Although I feel that not that many people would actually get past beaming ready-made presets into the thing, which in itself is a coolest process ever. It uses electromagnetic vibration in a coil of a smartphone speaker (and not the sound made by speaker cone) to communicate digitally with the pedal. Also it does organ sounds. How cool is that?
- The price.

Cons: I guess 'classic' mode could be a little glitchier? And there is no 'tracking accuracy' settings in TonePrints either
- Needs more TonePrint slots
- Maybe i'll find more cons along the way, I only had it for a day.

this is a phenomenal pedal. many compare these to EHX micro POG. since I have owned both I can say they certainly aren't the same.
while micro POG is a beast of its own and a wonderful octave generator, to my ears it has slower tracking specially on lower tones. on high notes it produces the classic glitching tone which makes it suitable for dirty sounds and that's where it shines best.
on the other hand since I use this pedal in a very unconventional manner, I needed a very natural sounding octaver with less to no glitches and the Sub'n'Up Octaver exactly does that.
also instead of having both high and low signals in one pedal, I decided to separate them by using Sub'n'Up Octaver particularly for low octaves (sub1 and sub2) and for high octave I use Digitech Mosaic which is a specialized high octave generator.
now I have far more natural sounding octaves with complete control over the high and low tone and can switch from sub octave to octave above without bending or taking my hand off the fretboard :-)
luxury

I never really liked the sound of octave pedals in general, but I saw some decent reviews of this one, and decided to try it out. When I put this in front of a distortion pedal with the up octave and a bit of sub 1, it sounds absolutely insane. It made my green russian big muff sound so much better.

The pitch tracking is very good, even on the low E string of a bass guitar. It's built very strongly, and the addition of toneprint is nice (although as with my other tc electronic pedals, I probably wont end up using it much). I found that the "poly" mode sounded a bit better, but had some ever so slight latency, whereas the "classic" mode responds almost instantly, but sounds a tiny bit robotic. Would be nice if it had an overall volume knob, as there are noticeable differences in volume depending on how you set the dials.

Overall, a great pedal if you want those muse/royal blood distorted bass tones.

I bought this pedal after aquiring the "nether octaver" which i found absolutely not satisfying (frequent tracking issues).
I have to say I am very statisfied, The polyphonic mode tracks really well and allows you to play chords which is quite amazing. The toneprint mode lets your guitar sound like an orgamon.
This wont transform your 6 strings guitar into a 12 strings, but it does pretty good job, the only thing I could say is that the output sometimes lacks of "definition" (i don't have a better word to describe it), it seems that it sometimes is difficult to distinguish the sounds of the different strings, depending on how your play with the knobs. But I am being picky here.

Originally I got this pedal just to use it as a substitute for a bass in solo-looping situations. Even though the tracking is great, doesn't really sound like a bass, however with some levels adjustment I can use it for the purpose I wanted. It has high, sub and 2-octave sub down, also you can get a good 12 string emulator. Which is my extra benefit. I wasn't aware of that at the moment of my purchase.
And of course you have the toneprint feature, that I don't use a lot but hey....

The list on the toneprint catalog is long and it also simulates "organ like" sounds, I used to be a keyboard player so I now want to focus on more guitar and bass stuff...but to have a few different sounds, this thing makes the job pretty cool.

for a moment I thought I should have gotten just a simpler octaver pedal for less money, but now I'm pretty happy with all what this thing packs in. Also just to add, mine came with a cut in the circuitry, - I think that's the problem - because it sucks batteries everytime. I mean, it consumes the charge of the battery in maybe two short sessions. I would have loved to return it, but the process for that, from Kazakhstan where I'm based now, is too complicated. Pity because sometimes it comes very handy to use it with batteries. I will have to keep it powered by the cable.

Get one and have fun mates!