Ocelot Octave: No Sound

[Vipersassasin]

I just finished building an Ocelot Octave and there is no sound coming from the effect. The bypass works great and the LED comes on when pressed but that's about as far as I get.

On this pedal, the build does call for 1/4w resistors instead of 1/8w resistors... would this make that much of a difference if I mixed and matched? I can try to say which ones are 1/8w if you want but if it doesn't matter than I won't bother.

My other question, I think I installed the TL072 IC's correctly but since they don't have a notch, I am unsure. I do get 9v when I test what should be pin 4 and 8 but that might not mean much.

I am not sure where to go next... Oh, and almost ALL Vref points are ~5v. I checked all of the VCC too and they show ~9v. I am stumped here but this is my first time troubleshooting a pedal that wouldn't work.

 

[PJS]

My experience with the real one is that with only octave 1 on you don't want to go much lower than the b on the second fret of the a string. From memory you can go a little lower but you have to be careful. Octave 2 I always turned off. If you go too low the second octave will easily go below the range of any amp and any human ears.

 

[daeg]

My experience with the real one is that with only octave 1 on you don't want to go much lower than the b on the second fret of the a string. From memory you can go a little lower but you have to be careful. Octave 2 I always turned off. If you go too low the second octave will easily go below the range of any amp and any human ears.

That's right. Octave 2 is so low that what you're mostly hearing is ripple / harmonics from stitching it together with the clean signal.

A sine at those frequencies would be borderline inaudible.

 

[PJS]

The other thing to try is turn the clean all the way down and just use Oct 1. There's only one sound available bit it's cool synth sound.

 

[PJS]

Another tip I remembered. Play closer to the neck of the bass (or guitar), not the bridge. You want as much fundamental frequency and as little as possible of the upper frequencies for good tracking.

 

[Feral Feline]

What PJS said, and if you've got multiple pickups use the neck pickup and roll off the tone control if there is one.

This particular effect, especially on bass, needs a different touch than normal playing through other effects such as fuzz or flangers
— you have to play the pedal itself as much as you play your bass.

Oct 2 is about useless on bass, though sometimes I'll roll a little in on my digital emulation of the effect; I've yet to build my Ocelot.