How I Use the Boss OC-5 in a Jazz Setting

Pick up the Boss OC-5 at zZounds - bit.ly/3rn6BXi
The old Boss OC-3 has been one of the most-used pedals in my entire collection. As a gigging musician (not so much this year), I found that it was essential to take with me on those solo of duo gigs where there was no bass player. It might not perfectly replace a bassist, however it does make it possible to play pseudo bass and guitar at the same time. Mix in a bit of the octave down tone and your sound will fill out a crowded room much better than a dry guitar tone would have.
In this demo, I was to run through a ton of the features on the new OC-5, provide some perspective on how to use it to play in any setting that you need to cover basslines and chords at the same time, and to do a shootout against the old OC-3. If you own the older version, is it worth it to upgrade to the new OC5? This video did get long, so please feel free to use the timestamps listed below.
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Janek Gwizdala has a fantastic video shooting out the even older OC-2 against the new OC-5: • Boss OC-5 For Bass | ...
▶️ Highlights
0:00 - Introduction
0:28 - Overview
1:28 - What is the OC-5 missing from the OC-3?
1:45 - How I use the the OC3 & OC5 for Jazz Guitar
2:45 - Octave Down Tone Shootout - OC3 vs. OC5
3:22 - Differences in the OC-3 and OC-5
5:00 - Octave Up Tones
6:31 - Polyphonic mode - true lowest note recognition
9:04 - The downside of the OC-5 and how to counter it
10:29 - Playing a Chord Melody with the Boss OC-5
11:01 - Outro
#BossOC5 #JazzGuitar #demo
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[@javiceres]

I appreciate that you openly explain the cons you’ve encountered.

[@nathanzech7061]

I love Gilad's use of these pedals

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Agreed!

[@nathanohaynie]

Many thanks for the excellent review. I just received an OC-5 and was fiddling with it and not quite getting what I had hoped out of it. Your video explained why and what to expect. I think I will add an EQ pedal (coming in a few days) before the OC-5 so that it will pitch shift only the low E and A strings. I hope that will work. Thanks again for the detailed review! Very helpful.

[@the1khronohs40]

Yes! My thoughts exactly when I found the OC-5. I need, rather it needs a filter sweep on the ‘lowest’ setting. It’s still a great pedal!

[@DominikFriedrich]

I have both and like the OC 3 much better. That function to only octave the lowest note works much better on oc 3. Even in simple chords the oc 5 jumps to the 5th instead of staying on the root.

[@JoshHGuitar]

When you’re playing solo, it’s very difficult to be clicking a pedal on and off, so I just stick with OC3 mode. Agree, if OC5 had an upper note cut off with note recognition together that would really be the best of both worlds…

[@brandoncher904]

thanks Alex for the reviews on both OC-3 and OC-5. I was considering to go for OC-3 but OC-5 just had came out. I plan to use it to apply on like Martin Taylor, Joe Pass- fingerstyle jazz kind of stuffs.

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Glad it was helpful Brandon! I personally think the OC-5 is worth it for us jazz players.

[@kylewarner7817]

Excellent Playing, Excellent Video

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Thanks!

[@kevinsavo718]

Excellent video sir. Excellent playing and tone.

Beautiful playing man. Cheers

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Thank Miguel !

[@johnbahler]

To solve the problem of single-note runs, maybe you could combine this with a crossover effect like the Rolls SX21 to send your low signals to the boss pedal but your highs go elsewhere. Then combine the signals later in the chain. This way, the OC-5 will work normally on your low and mids, but won't have access to the highs at all. I haven't used any crossover effects, so I'm not sure what the drawbacks of this approach might be. I'm a mostly acoustic non-gearhead, but when BOSS came out with their frequency analysis technology I was hoping they would get around to putting it in an octave pedal.

[@DonovanTekin]

This is the perfect octave pedal for finger style jazz

[@Paolo-xn3po]

nice playing!

[@drdre4397]

Because of Dan aurebach I love the oc3 octave down driven fuzz type sound but seeing this video made me realize I'm probably not using it the way it should be used. I guess I use it more like an octave distortion/fuzz. Cool to see it in a jazz context and to hear the octave up feature of the oc5. I certainly agree that unless you're like me and like the drive, then there's no reason not to go oc5.

[@eddiegalon3714]

that's what's so cool about pedals, skies the limit for use. I want that cool Steve Howe circa Tormato/Going for the One thing. Awesome pedal with bass to

[@GreenhamGuitar]

I should be able to use the BOSS SY300 "subout" to feed the OC5 a range of lower notes only. Then there will be low-note-only within a specific lower range like you wished @9:13. Thanks for the demo! Really appreciated that tracking comparison, too.

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Great idea! Thanks for sharing this

[@GreenhamGuitar]

@@AlexPriceMusician My pleasure! By the way... the OPFXS Dig Deep has this feature (lowest note only within a range below the g string). It is discontinued but they have a new V-Uno multi-programmeable pedal coming out with the Dig Deep built in.

[@Bugsinmoodcomedy]

You play wonderfully, and thanks a bunch for eventually addressing my main concern about using the pedal, which is to set it to "lower note" and hearing unwanted bass when playing a piece that originally doesn't have any bass notes, e.g. an arpeggio on the higher 3 strings. But perhaps, as you said, we can mitigate that by switching off the pedal.

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Yeah it's not perfect, but it's the best there is for this purpose short of getting a separate pickup for the low strings.

[@Bugsinmoodcomedy]

@@AlexPriceMusician I bought both pedals to compare their tones. From what I hear out of my acoustic amp, OC-3 has a much thicker (and deeper) bass than OC-5. Do you agree on that or it's just my amp?

[@giovannicosenza1034]

Thanks Alex😉

[@morganthus6323]

The Boss OC 20G with a GK3 pickup has the control you want.

[@RjBenjamin353]

OC 5 👍

[@gasarockband]

OC-5 rules! 🤘😃 I have got one ⚘ Awesome!

[@AlexPriceMusician]

One of my favorite pedals!

Great video. When I set the lowest note mode in my OC-5, I get noticeable latency and slightly delayed attack. Do you have similar feelings?

[@mattguitarheaton]

Hello Jackie.

[@kikodasneves1]

are you able to use the lowest note setting? I find it is too unreliable. If i sustain the chord for a couple seconds, it starts mistracking. I was able to do a send/return with my helix so that I only feed the OC5 the split frequencies under 100 HZ of my guitar, but the lowest note mode has a lot of latency if i do this.

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Oh wow, I haven't had that problem. I sometimes use the lowest note recognition but mostly I stick with the OC3 frequency cut-off mode. Are you sending it a clean, uncompressed signal? Is it possibly getting confused by additional harmonic information or feedback or something?

[@p_mouse8676]

I guess you could also split your pickup? In this particular case you can have piezo pickup under the saddle (bit tricky with floating saddles maybe) that only pickups up the 5th and 6th string (A and E). Maybe even the 4th (although I don't play bass notes on a D that much). The BOSS pedal is being used with this extra pickup. With a bit of blending and mixing you will never have some of the issues you're mentioning in the video.

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Yep! That'd be the more reliable solution. Check out the submarine pickup if you haven't yet!

[@rolcruz]

Thanks Alex ! , what is the "direct" output for ?

[@basil_jackson]

I'm completely unfamiliar with all that stuff. I'm planning on making myself an electro-acoustic harp. Which means a ton of strings with tons of sustain. Would an octave pedal be able to deal with all the signal going its way at all?

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Your best bet is going to be the Electro Harmonix POG. It sounds a bit digital but tracks better than anything else out there. These Boss pedals can’t handle more than one note at a time. amzn.to/3vSdUxa The Electro Harmonix Pitchfork uses the same engine but can do other intervals besides up and down, not sure if that’d be useful though.

[@basil_jackson]

@@AlexPriceMusician thank you a bunch! I was eyeing the Pitchfork as well. I heard it on up and down setting in some other video and quite liked the sound and if I understand it correctly I could play with fourths or fifths with it and that's something I quite like.

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Check out Emily Hopkins if you haven’t come across her channel yet. She plays harps through effects and maybe you can find a sample of her using the POG or Pitchfork

[@basil_jackson]

@@AlexPriceMusician I went through her videos before, however our goals are a bit opposite - I want to make the harp even more harpy, she's more into making it as little harpy as possible. Either way thank you again for the recommendations, I'll keep them in mind once the instrument will be actually ready and working.

[@steven_uk]

Good video. The tone doesn't sound different between the pedals.

[@AlexPriceMusician]

I agree - the same tone. The only differences lie in the features

[@MakoGo]

I was a little confused - you mentioned that turning off the pedal for single string runs was the way to mitigate having them be affected by the Lowest Note setting, but does the same knob, right before the Lowest Note parameter, also act as a range setting like on the OC-3, so you could just set it there instead of turning off the pedal?

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Correct, but the difference is that in lowest note mode you can use any chord voicing and it’ll reliable shift only the lowest note. In the mode similar to the OC-3, you have to be careful not to play more than one note in the range that the pedal will shift down. Otherwise it won’t track well.

[@MakoGo]

@Alex Price ok thanks. I just ordered an OC-5 after watching a band last night with no bass player, with the guitarist using his OC-3 the way you showed in another video. I wanted to jump back and forth between chords/bass and fills but now I'm wondering if I should have picked up a used OC-3 instead 🤔

[@evenseb7574]

@@MakoGo How was the Oc-5 for you?

[@MakoGo]

@@evenseb7574 it's been pretty good. I pretty much just use it for looping. The octave-down, lowest note on chords doesn't seem as dramatic as with the OC-3 performances I've seen, but it does okay.

[@fugalibrana]

OC-5: When I've tried to adjust the controls for only the bass lines (5th and 6th strings) I still hear the 3rd or even 2nd string. Is the pedal failing or I need something else? Thanks!

[@AlexPriceMusician]

You’ll need to set the parameter lower. I usually go with around 10 or 11 o’clock

[@dennisn.9583]

What’s the alternative to the Oc5?

[@simborar]

Hi, how are you doing? I'm looking for a guitar octave pedal. I intend to use it with nylon guitar and play genres like "Bossa Nova", "Samba", "Xote", "Baião", and others traditional Brazilian music styles. My purpose is to make bass lines using E-A strings, while in the other ones I will play the chords/harmony. I was thinking about Boss OC-5, but what could you tell me about MXR, Tc Eletronic and EBS? Another question, in the case of connecting the guitar cable directly to the pedal, which is the best option? In the case of using a special pickup to separete A-E strings, which one is the best in terms of timbre? Below some reference videos: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHrFpXacmLSgjM0 (In the situation above he's using an eletric guitar, but I would like to do that with my nylon one.) kzbin.info/www/bejne/eamooJV_lMmljM0 (In this situation he's using nylon, but not playing genres like the ones I intend to and the guy is doing in the first reference video). Thanks, Airton Júnior

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Hi Airton - I think the Boss series pedals have a nice sound for this genre. MXR is great too. I would stay away from the POG series though as they tend to sound really digital. I own two of them and think they're great, but would not fit in too well in your context.

[@sprontos]

Ghost cat!

[@tinyj4520]

CAT!

[@ushnicyuvnikof2748]

New and improved? Don't you just mean new?

[@AlexPriceMusician]

Im not sure what you’re referencing, but I definitely think the OC-5 is an improvement from the OC-3.