Just yesterday a new Micro Pog landed at the clifftop citadel. Early impressions are very favourable indeed but it has yet to perform in a full auditorum setting.

Utilising the effect convincingly entails some technique. I'm aiming for full-on Rickenbacker-twelve sound, so no point in big bends or wild bluesy vibrato. Keep the playing square and clean and treat the top two strings with a little circumspection, the better to conceal their non-unison. Pog is first in the chain, being careful to set the upper octave as low as you can get away with and just a hair of lower octave, then into a Pod2 set for a touch of compression and a tempered treble tone to homogenise and bind it all. So far, so good.

Any tips and impressions of the Micro Pog or any octave generators would be lovely. Pull up a chair.

I got lost after, "Just yesterday..."

Hey Shu,

I've enjoyed octave and harmony effects from time to time, from the Boss OC-3 through rack effects with multiple harmonies. Now have the HOG, which does multiple octaves up and down as well as other intervals, all blendable – with some envelope and filter control. The tracking is excellent, and it's "fun."

I've never really heard a convincing 12-string emulation, but find various other combinations "pretty cool." They used to market some octaver as sounding like Eric and Jack playing together, and that's anomalous (as even when Eric and Jack played together, they didn't play together) – but it is great fun to use an octave (and/or two) down and do some rippity split riffs. Even improvised stuff sounds like...some crazy tight guitar-bass duo doing tightly rehearsed stuff. "Sir Duke" on steroids. Unison parts of "21st Century Schizo". Etc.

And with judicious (or abandoned) distortion, various screaming rock textures are possible. Add 5ths for that added-5th effect. The HOG can almost be set up with drawbar registrations. (Assuming simple registrations using only 5ths and a 3rd.) Then it sounds like a B3 being articulated as a guitar. Only not in a good way. And really nothing like that, but ... kinda like that. Use volume swells and the illusion gains in credibility, but it's still a lousy-sounding organ.

I always thought I should be able to add chorus/Leslie/delay/whatever to fatten and enrich the sound, and that does work to an extent, but not as well as I always hope it will. Probably because the less it sounds like a guitar, the more it sounds like a poor version of something else, and while there's some novelty appeal – the first time – to hearing your guitar sound like a different instrument, it quickly wears thin. (You've heard piano patches from guitar synths.)

What I like best is finding settings that could only be guitar, but in some otherworldly manifestation. Then I end up writing around those alien emanations, and that's good for something. But I've never been able to make it an integral part of my regular rig.

This will have been no help at all. Glad you asked!

I've been lost since 1982 Bear, so don't worry.

Proteus, that's some excellent input right there. And you are right to caution against the fools errand of putting faith in an ersatz twelve-string-u-lator. But I do think the machine is doing enough, the rest is down to the brain and hands. It certainly functions effectively in a controlled setting, how well it manages on-stage is another matter. I will know more tomorrow evening, between post-gig sobs of frustration!

I've heard great sounds out of the regular larger EHX Pog. The 'guitar-to-organ' mode is amazing, to me the 12 string simulation can sound very nice. Not the easiest pedal to dial in and not cheap. But you can't buy an organ and a proper 12-string for the money. There are nice reviews on the tube. It's on my list.

ah, Shuie, I apologize, i know you hinted this at another thread and i neglected to respond -- my apologies...

loves my micro pog for the right thing, but its such an identifiable sound that it grows weary quickly.

My general defaults are the dry at about 10 o clock, the sub octave at about 2 o clock, the high octave a hair past noon. all subject to change of course.

I think its a poor 12 string emulator, as the pitch accuracy just isnt there - so its better to treat it as something altogether different.

I also think its a little blah unto itself -- its magic is how it plays beautifully with other pedals. That said, ive also found it can be finicky for where it is in the chain,but once you get it where it likes its neighbors, it can do cool things.

Put a Big Muff after it, and you 've nailed some quintessential Jack White tones (in fact his work was what inspired me to get one). Reverbs , delays, etc all can sound nice, but as Proteus implies, its difficult to dial in something in that context that isnt a bad organ. its possible, but...tricky.

My secret weapon is a wah directly after it: as the wah sweeps, it draws out the MP's splayed frequencies in a very cool way. Ill do this on single line work, or hold a chord and do it ( thats one way to morph the organ vibe into something not-quite-organ-ish, but still kindof).

I use it for either heavy , in your face buzz saw type textures, or at the other end of the spectrum, chirpy single lines. I do more with it on my fretless than i do on my Gretsch, but i'm still dialing that in.

I'll post some clips from the duo days.

Enjoy!

"Ah, Shuie, I apologize, i know you hinted this at another thread and i neglected to respond", laments Mustafa.

No apology necessary, dear sir. That was a completely different topic, if I was determined to enquire further I'd have posted this topic a week ago. That the Micro Pog was on your board at all gave me all the confidence I needed to take the plunge.

I'm hoping that it will lead to other, unforseen adventures in sound. My eyes and ears are open to that and would enjoy hearing you use the device in your distinctive setting.

The entire notion of the ringing anchorage of drones is so captivating and 'right', it crosses time and space. It's not a Middle Eastern, Indian, Blues, Celtic or Oriental predisposition- it's in all places and in all of us. It could well be the latent sound of humanity itself.

I don't know about the latent sound of humanity, but it turns out (if I understand aright) that the earth - or at least the atmosphere - has its own continually-excited resonant frequency. Around 8Hz.

As I understand it (100 years after the incomparable Tesla hypothesized it), it's the sound of lightning/thunder (constant on the earth, somewhere, at all times) reverberating between the surface of the earth and the top of the atmosphere.

(I've probably balled up the description, which will fall quickly enough to hand in a googlesearch, but I'm more interested in the concept anyway. Like a metaphor come to life.)

OK...see Schumann Resonance .

Love this stuff!

shuie, youre the best

here's a sound cloud of something fast and furious: NewHeavy

here's a video in the more chirpy setting. Id advise skipping the first 2 minutes or so, my intonation is pretty awful and in retrospect i probably should have never posted this clip. t settles in, though, and theres some nice interplay . ...

Sama Duo: O.P.

Proteus, what a great description of a remarkable phenomenon that is new to me. Fascinating, illuminating and humbling all at once.

Mustafa, Kiss Coffee OP is a heck of a performance. I have no idea why you're apologising, for that is one of my very favourite Sama Duo pieces. So full of vigour, invertion and tracing the most beautiful elliptical form. The Pog serves you very well in this, providing a massive and unified linear orchestral slither.

My own Pog experiments have been of a more demure stripe. It's been used live as an ersatz 12-string on about half-a-dozen numbers, refined over the last ten days whilst touring in Scotland. First insticts on the settings (keep the upper octave at 12 o'clock, dry at 3 o'clock and the lower at about dinner time, 7.30, with some Byrdsy compression and treble attenuation as a garnish) have proved ideal. There is a just-perceptible delay as the octaves are added, it can get a teensy bit baffled on second-degree intervals but it's quite a marvel, it really is. I no longer gaze wistfully at Rickenbackers I can't afford so that's a real result in itself. And it never needs to be tuned or restrung- bonus!

I bought a Boss PS-2 Pitchshifter / Delay today. http://www.bossarea.com/loa...

Basically an octaver OR delay. No combining. I didn't expect anything, just read a few reviews and I'm surprised. The delay can sound fine to my ears. More on the old-school side. Slapback no problem, longer delays fine. The octave up mode is really usable. I can dial in organ-like sounds and even a 12-string-effect is possible. Using it in a live situation for a few songs (rather than buying and carrying an extra guitar) would be no problem to me. The sounds are never perfect and for some of us that might be something good. A nice, weird lil' box.

Anyone ever played one?

Are those still in production? I had an early one that I loved, particularly because of the manual mode...i did some very painful things with it (stacked major and minor seconds or quarter tones). ;)

Discontinued in the early 90s. The Manual mode is something really weird that I will have to explore.