12 of the Best Octave Fuzz Pedals

As I mentioned in the intro, this was for a while my number one target - but I was a touch put off by its power requirements and need for isolated centre positive supply. The pedal is simple to operate with just Volume and Boost dials and a Octave / Fuzz toggle. This is an exact modern remake of the Tycobrahe Octavia which pretty much sounds the same - i.e. great - the only word of warning here is this pedal's power requirements - otherwise it's a great indicator for how easily vintage pedals can be compacted down and accurately remodelled when engineered properly.

This is actually a pretty decent Octavia clone - made pseudo authentic because of the Jim Dunlop company's ownership of Jimi Hendrix's licensing rights. It's sort of a classic example of marketing as the actual original derivations are the Octavia and Octafuzz, and unlike the Fuzz Face, there is no direct lineage or legacy here - this is actually a Dunlop clone of the original. With all that said - it actually sounds really good and is a worthy addition to this list.

I covered this pedal in an earlier post on 9 of the best Envelope Filter Pedals - yet this pedal gives you a lot more - it's also a formidable fuzz pedal, and it by mixing up the various filter dials in combination you can get a sort of glitched out octave fuzz in both directions. So it's a rather unusual both wholly justifiably worthwhile pedal for inclusion here - although significantly oversized compared to the others here. A really interesting pedal nevertheless.

A classic Octavio / Octafuzz style clone with 3 dials - Volume, Octave and Boost. It sounds pretty great and at a pretty reasonable price - and it certainly gives you a little extra feature set over the Hendrix Octavio. If you're budget conscious then this gives you everything you need.

This modern evolution is quite a different pedal to the others listed here - not just because its octave down, but you have a dual channel dual fuzz with a mix of dark raspy fuzz and some really synthy like fuzz tones. I really like this, just my usual complaint about enclosure size - that said there is a lot going on here and properly innovative.

This is a really unusual noisemaker - actually specifically an Upper Octave Feedback Fuzz - which sounds suitably squelchy and doomy - and perfect for a post apocalyptic soundtrack - as demonstrated in Dennis Kayzer's above video. Really cool sounding as far as I'm concerned and a slightly more textured flavour than the others on the page - well worth consideration for the more experimental of you - purists however are unlikely to like this.

I was lucky to come across a mint version on Reverb.com going for just £100 - this pedal is based on the legendary Univox Superfuzz. It looks really simple on the surface with just Drive and Volume dials - but the real magic happens inside the pedal where you can toggle between Octave Fuzz | Fat Fuzz | Octave + Fat. 3 cool modes which sound great. I did an article on how great all these mini fuzzes were, and I am slowly but surely acquiring all those listed. This one now has a degree of competition from the very new Pigtronix Octava Mirco - but they not sound significantly different - and I will get the Octava too eventually!

Only the second Octave Down pedal featured here, and this is quite a different proposition to the multi-faceted Okto Nøjs. The Blue Box generates heavy and glitchy / almost synth-like at times - sub octave fuzz tones - pitched 2 octaves below input signal. You just have two dials here - Output and Blend - so this is definitely one for the purists - just really the opposite of the Octavio - and pitched down instead of up, but sounds really good for pretty reasonable money.

This is newest kid on the block - released late 2107 if memory serves - a great little octave up fuzz pedal with 4 dials and a Fuzz on/off button. Sounds really cool, and gets added to my must-have mini fuzz pedals list which I'm doing rather well with at the moment - still plenty to get there, and I still haven't acquired a Dr Freakenstein Dwarf Bleep yet or the Zvex Fuzzolo - both of which mini fuzzes have been on my wishlist for the longest time. For the Octava you have Volume | Blend | Filter | Drive - so really good tone-sculpting options for such a small pedal, and quite different to how the Malekko Omicron Fuzz does it.

This octave-up fuzz from Canadian fuzz specialists delivers a relatively unusual warm and really musical Germanium tone. Sounds quite different to the other mostly Silicon octave fuzzes in this listing - with its additional 3-way Texture voicing toggle too - this is sort of the Thorpy Fallout Cloud of the Octave Up pedals and will really appeal to vintage style fans. I really love the sound of this. Note that the stock model comes in rather ugly yellow colourway and the above is the more limited custom aged copper colourway. This is a really cool pedal actually and probably my favourite sounding of the Octave Up ones! I may see if I can hunt down a copper version at some stage. Reverb.com actually has a really nice custom weathered rust colourway version at the moment - going for around £150.

Another slightly smoother sounding Octave Up style pedal, but not close to as warm and rounded as the 76 Octave Fuzz above. Here you have the customary twin Volume and Effect dials, but also a 3-way tone toggle which provides additional low end and mid-range boosts. Quite a different sounding Octave Up pedal - yet not quite as cool as the 76 Octave Fuzz which is my favourite sounding one in this listing.