Electro Harmonix Harmonic Octave Generator (HOG)

by 44ofjuly

Pardon for the absence last month as life in Gadgetland has sort of taken its toll on me. To the point I couldn’t understand the connection between words, guitar effect and tone. Every pedal sounded nice to me and it became a matter of using them in the right situation, right music. If tone is just in the fingers, then this will probably be the end of Gear Gawk. You see, one can’t tweak one’s fingers to get all that coloured noise. Tone’s in the gadget, you see. Pardon the rant; I can get over modulated and start to oscillate till the point of irrelevance, sometimes.

Anyway, we’ll be looking at something new this issue. Bring on the HOG, the Harmonic Octave Generator from Electro Harmonix. Carrying off from the POG last year, the HOG not only offers similar sounds to the POG, it actually brings it several levels higher in terms of the available sound options and control functions.

Before going into it, if anyone likes to find out about what HOG is, you can find the manual here:
http://www.ehx.com/instructions/HOG_MANUAL.pdf

Let’s take a break for those wanting to go through the manual first. It should be clearer as we proceed further. Some information from the manual will also be touched on in this review.

 “Eyes rolling, serious silence and thunder rolling wash of crashing brain cells”

All right, let’s get back to more reading. To understand the HOG, it will be better to divide it into a few portions, namely:

Audio controls
Voice controls
Envelope/Filter controls
Expression controls/mode
Spectral gate and expression reverse

From the manual, there are quite a few things within audio controls. For now, we will just look at the 2 main slider parameters, input gain and dry output. With the input gain, any adjustments will affect the input signal (before processing) and output signal (processed sound from the pedal) levels while the dry output slider is to balance the dry signal level between the effect in its “on” state and bypassed.

One observation about the dry output slider is that in order to achieve unity gain, I have to set it more than ¾ of its full range. And together with the input gain slider set to moderation, noticeable hiss can be heard when the pedal is activated but without playing the instrument. While the hiss can be a problem to some, I believe the amount of sound/texture/functions that can be gotten from it surpasses this minor issue, at least for me, that is… Worse come to worst, stick any pedal that can modulate the hiss after it and out comes another sound on top of the guitar signal!

Onto another issue, when the HOG is activated in the signal chain, I noticed a slight loss in the highs. While the tolerance level of individuals to tone might vary, I really hope it won’t stop anyone from checking out this awesome sounding effect!

Moving on to voice controls

Basically, these are 10 sliders of different octave ranges. The 10 sliders are divided into lower 5 voices and upper 5 voices. Within the lower 5 voices are

1) -2 octaves
2) -1 octave
3) Original
4) +5 octaves
5) +1 octave

On the other end, the upper 5 voices are

1) +1 octave +5 th
2) +2 octaves
3) +2 octaves +5 th
4) +3 octaves
5) +4 octaves

The reason why the above are divided into 2 categories, as some might have read from the manual, is due to the interaction with the envelope section.

For the voices controls, I will only touch on 2 areas. As for how it sounds like, well, I can only say that since the HOG is digital, it will sound digital and that is ABSOLUTELY THE BEST PART ABOUT IT!

Basically, all 10 different octave sliders control the volume of the generated octave tone. One slider of special mention is the slider labelled “original”. This slider functions as a blend to vary the amount of dry signal going into the expression mode and envelope/filter section. With the original and the dry output slider set accordingly, it will thicken up the dry instrument tone by adding in the octave/envelope/filter effect to the unaffected sound. Tasty funky digitalized octave sound! (analogue/analog/”anarog” worshippers need not apply!!!)

One obvious thing I noticed was that in order for the lower octaves (-1 octave/-2octaves/original etc) to be heard clearly, I often had to push it a bit higher whereas with the higher ones (+3 octaves, +4 octaves etc), the changes could really be heard with smaller increments. This could be due to the different frequencies involved and the perception of volume to the human ear. But it’s not a problem too big that can’t be solved by some sliding/setting and saving into the HOG foot controller…

Envelope/Filter Section

Going a bit more to the right of the pedal, another 4 sliders to play around with. The envelope and filter section will greatly shape/vary the quality of the octave sound. I believe the envelope/filter section and the expression mode is part of the beauty of this pedal, lifting the octave sounds into another different level. Anyway, back to the envelope and filter slider.

Basically, these 4 sliders shape the octaves’ tone, the response and the frequency, activated via the footswitch. Many shades of sound can be obtained using different settings, from swelling octave effects to instantaneous string plucking tones and anywhere in between (have a read through the online manual if you have not done so to “see” what it does).

For the limited time I had with it, there were a couple of settings that sounded pretty good to me.

1) Having the enveloper slider set to a slower attack and longer decay with the various octaves set to taste.

2) Having the filter frequency and resonance set to high, various octaves to taste, expression pedal control for sweep, expression mode set to filter and fuzz pedal after the HOG.

3) Having the lower octave set to more prominent sounding and higher octave to a moderate level without overpowering the lows.

For 1), add plenty of delay and reverb and soon you will find yourself lost in heaven. Taking out the delay or reverb, it can do a pseudo reverse sounding effect too.

2) sounds like some synth sweep, especially when rocking the expression pedal. A big fat sounding one!

3) can act as tone shaper for some dull/uninspiring dry sound.

Of course, other then the above settings, there are so much more sounds waiting to be discovered!

Up till now, if anyone is wondering how the HOG differs from the Polyphonic Octave Generator (POG), I can tell you that the HOG does all that the POG is capable of, has its own neat tricks and also provides many more parameters for the player to twiddle with!   The function that puts the HOG way ahead over the POG will be touched on next: the Expression mode, the spectral gate and the expression pedal control.

It's all about expression...

The Expression mode offers another 7 different functions to further allow the player to manipulate the various generated octave tones into another different world! An expression pedal is an absolute necessity to fully explore the expression mode function. A brief look into these 7 modes:

Octave Bend - As I have always wanted a whammy pedal, but never gotten to get one, the inclusion of this function eliminates the thought of getting one. Single notes, complex chords, whatever, can shift up one full octave on top the set octave ranges when rocking the expression pedal. At some point with the higher octave sliders set very high, playing high up the guitar neck and further shifting it one octave will result in the notes becoming barely audible, and any more shifting will produce notes beyond the audible human range. Watch out for your pets when trying to do this with them around. Who knows, they might go bonkers (Ed.: A dog howling moment. MrMisse can try it on little Joey.)! Anyway, the tracking of the HOG is splendid, be it notes or chord. Everything will sound clear accurate. No latency or weird dissonant sounds when chord work is involved. No wonder it prompted a famous effects maker to proclaim “Whammy killer” in a popular online effect forum

Step bend - Similar to bending a note up 1 step on the guitar. This can be useful if one is too lazy to finger bend the note. Just step on the expression pedal when at the end of a solo and let the pedal shift the sustaining note 2 frets up.

Volume - Like a volume pedal, gradually bringing out the instrument sound. This mode will fade in/out the octave effect as set with the various sliders. There are 2 ways to play around with it, one is to have the dry input slider at minimum (only the generated octave tone will come on or go off when controlling the expression pedal) or having the dry input slider at unity gain (dry signal in foreground while the octave tone comes on/goes off in the background)

Freeze + Gliss – An awesome function that is really suitable for some ambient-ish moment. With a delay and reverb effect along side, it enables the player to hold a note or chord while playing the original instrument sound over it. With the expression pedal control, the octave effect can either be frozen in the background while playing a melody over it or shift/slide between the notes/chords being played. This is totally dependant on the position of the expression pedal and is one of the unique features of the HOG.

Freeze + volume - Similar to the freeze + gliss function except that the octave effect will not shift/slide in accordance to the played note/chord on the instrument, but gradually fade in/out or freeze at the last played note/chord while allowing the original instrument sound to be played over it.

Wah wah - Like the usual wah pedal effect.

Filter - Another distinctive feature, when in line with a fuzz/distortion pedal, turns the guitar into a synth. Fat funky sounding sweeps can be obtained through rocking the expression pedal while playing the instrument!

Spectral Gate and Expression Reverse

Next up, the spectral gate and exp reverse button. For the spectral gate, this button is useful when wanting to emphasize the more prominent octave range as set with the octave sliders. You can use this to produce more prominent low or high octaves without pushing the particular octave sliders all the way up.

As for the exp reverse button, this changes the sweep direction of the octave effect according to the expression mode chosen when rocking the expression pedal.   More details can be found in the manual for this.

On top of all the already mentioned features/functions, there is a separate 6-stompswitch controller that allows storing of presets, further enhancing the functionality of the HOG.

Up to this stage, hopefully most would have a better picture of what the HOG is capable of doing. Personally, I really like the many features/functions available from it and EH has once again impressed me with this new offering. While most octave effects in the market can produce the classic octave sound, the HOG brings out the textural side of it that is unheard as yet for octave effects. While its price might be on the high side, it is definitely one of the more unique effects in the market right now.

Using the HOG by itself or combing it with other effects, it really stands out, for it can produce quite a number of unique tones that can never be achieved by just having good playing technique! Be it tone is in the finger or the gadget, if it inspires more ideas for playing, it’s all good!

Once again, thanks for reading through all this. If you find it boring, then give a listen to the sound clip of the wonderful capability of the HOG. And if you still don’t trust the sound clip, no worries dude, get one, slide it, play with it and be happy!

Lastly, Thanks to Ah Seng for bringing in the HOG! Drink on!

2 easy listening tunes made with the HOG (mainly) and the rest of the effects pedals shown in the picture:

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=3771073&q=hi

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=3771102&q=hi