Behringer ULTRA OCTAVER UO300 3-Mode Octave Instrument Effects Pedal, Black and Silver

I know there are purists out there who want old school solid steel pedals. I have a friend who refuses to buy a Behringer pedal purely based on the fact that it is plastic. I bought this pedal and had a surprise blind test with him. He had no idea who manufactured the pedal which made the results oh so satisfying. The second I turned it on he immediately was interested. I played with the settings and ran some scales for a few minutes before asking him what he thought it was and how much it may have cost. His guess was a Boss pedal in the 100 dollar range; this guess was champion of my cause, as he used to own the Boss OC-3. After he guessed I couldn't hold it in anymore, I told him to open his eyes and bask in the glory that is the Behringer U0300 Ultra Octaver. He laughed because he knew what just occurred, inadvertent admittance that plastic pedals are just as good as metal ones. Now I will review the pedal for serious. The pedal has a 3 mode range selector, low, mid, and high. These settings adjust the frequency for use with different instruments. Yes, you can use this pedal with a keyboard, bass guitar, traditional guitar, electric-acoustic, whatever you want! You use the range to adjust to the instruments frequencies, so for example on Bass guitar you would want to use the low range output. Next is the Direct control. This control adjusts the original input signals level. So basically it is a volume knob for your guitars input. The Octave 1 control adjusts the level of the signal ONE octave below your original signal. It is pretty self explanatory, but basically if you play an open A note, the pedal will generate another A note, one octave below. This control is another volume control but for the generated octave. The Octave 2 control works the same exact way as Octave 1, except this control adjusts the level of the generated note that is TWO octaves below the original. This pedal has an LED that is not as bright as the other Behringer pedals. The battery is located underneath the foot switch which you can pretty easily get to using a ball point pen on the two spring latches. Note that this pedal has no on / off switch so you will need to remove your input jack while not in use to prolong the batteries life. All in all I give this pedal 5 stars because it's price is incomparable, the sound is exactly what I wanted, and the controls feel good and solid.

On a bass, the low end is weak, but.......that should be expected. A six string would perform well on this. I notice things really improve above the 3rd fret because of the higher notes. It is well made however, on mine the output jack is not tight to the plug but I am not complaining. If I were going to use it on the floor operated by my foot, the loose jack would be a major issue. Does not come with a battery but I don't mind...I paid less than $25 brand new. Behringer makes good gear at a very reasonable price. The case is made of a tough plastic and the knobs and switch feel strong.

After only a few minutes, the unit failed to work. Despite NOT including a power supply, I used one of my own 9 Volt DC power supplies and after a few minutes the unit stopped functioning. It also smelled badly of burning electronics. For the moment it did function, it was very noisy and extremely 'digital' sounding. The 'lowering' was NOT accurate, especially as it relates to lowering by an octave, or two, as the third pot is supposedly providing. It did not provide any adjustments as to the key or any other variable related to the 'lowering' of the tone of the output. It is the same size as a standard foot pedal.

Works like I expected it to. It's an analog octave pedal so it's not going to have perfect tracking, but it has very minimal "bounce" in the most common places. It doesn't track the upper octave of the high e string really well, but as with any analog octaver, it works best with a neck humbucker with the tone control turned to its darkest setting. Whatever minor drawbacks it has are offset by the completely usable tones and affordable price. My only complaint is that it is a little noisy, but that may be unavoidable in the design, I'm unsure so I won't ding it a star for my ignorance. The snob in me wants to rehouse it, the punk in me says leave it as a FU to the pair of Strymon pedals a few inches away, lol. Aforementioned noise is not as noticeable if you use distortion or some sort of drive with it. If you have a SuperFuzz or other type of octave up fuzz, it's really fun to run this thing into it for some massively wild tones.

I bought this to use with my bass guitar for a few songs that call for a octaver. It tracks and sounds pretty good on high notes or on a regular guitar but on any low bass note below a middle F it doesn't voice right and sounds terrible. It's a great pedal for the price though for fun with higher leads.

My opinion is split on this pedal. On one hand, it works wonderfully... the sound quality is excellent, and assuming you're playing with other effects as well, you'll never be able to hear that the octaves are synthesized (unless they cut out). The issues I have experienced are: 1) When the pedal is off, but plugged in, it can create a sound similar to when a battery is dying in an active pickup instrument or effects pedal -- that somewhat fuzzy cutting in/out sound we all hate. This includes when being powered by an external AC adaptor. I'm looking planning to bypass the pedal in my setup, but it's a needless "fix" for what should be simple for Behringer to resolve. 2) If you do choose to use battery power, it's a pain to replace the battery simply because you have to have a screw-driver to do it. Other brands enable you to open the battery areas with a hand-usable screw... this requires a phillips-head screwdriver. Not always handy when you're playing a gig... 3) The pedal needs an overall gain knob -- you have the ability to separately control the amount of original signal, as well as individually for both octave one and two, but not an overall volume control... which means that hitting the pedal can produce a boost in your volume which you would have to control with an external volume pedal. 4) It would be nice to be able to switch between lower and higher octaves. This only produces one or two octaves *below* your note(s)... if you're looking for higher octave production, this is not the pedal. Hope that helps!

norm

Behringer, like many other pedal makers out there, makes clones of other pedals. The difference is that Behringer isn't a greedy and doesn't as much or more than the original pedal. Most of Behringer's pedals are modeled on BOSS pedals and you can't go wrong with that! This one is a quality Octave pedal and like with any good pedal, if you can't get great tone out of it the problem is with you. This is a full size (think BOSS) pedal. Some are overly critical of the plastic housing, but it's a solid housing and I can't imagine what you're have to do with it to break it. Speaking of which, have you ever seen a picture of a Behringer pedal with a broken housing? Me Neither. This is the most versitile Octaver I've found andI couldn't be happier!