Sonicake Octaver

An octaver goes back to the 1960s, originally designed by Roger Mayer for Jimi Hendrix. As applicable for the bass player or keyboardist, an octaver adds breadth, depth, fullness and a hint of eerie edginess to a tone. Certainly, an octaver plays a role in make a smaller band sound much larger, as extra tones meld into the mix.

The Sonicake Octaver provides three levels of control/mix – how much dry, how much of one-octave down desired, and the same with two-octaves down. An octave-up would have been a good addition, ideal for bass and down-tuned rhythm players, but for the price and the quality of sound, that is my only complaint (and the reason for four stars). The included demo has the dry mix all the way up, except for one instance; and for my use, I prefer keeping the dry up full, then adding a touch of octave, in order to enhance and swell the original tone. The dry knob does come in handy if increasing the octaves a lot, since volume is affected somewhat and it may be necessary to reach parity with a few of pedal tweaks.



Although not demoed in the video, the Sonicake Octaver does sound excellent with a cleaner signal, including acoustic guitar. Again, it adds a fullness to the original sound, and compliments other effects, like a modulation or chorus, for an even bigger sound and detail. The cleaner the signal, the smoother and more realistic the effect achieved from this true-bypass, analog pedal, although distorted tones (as per the video) still present themselves well. I did compare this octaver to those available on the Fractal Audio FM3 – the latter has a smoother effect, albeit more digital sounding. The Sonicake Octaver’s sound is fuller and more natural sounding to the ears. For the price, this is a very good deal.

30% off code: SONICAKE2022 (until June 5, 2022) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09XXF31K8