Octavia

The Octavia is an octave-up fuzz circuit: a fuzz pedal that also doubles the frequency of the note you play, producing a sound an octave higher than the input. It was designed by Roger Mayer in early 1967 and built specifically for Jimi Hendrix, who used it on "Purple Haze" and "Fire"¹. The debut of that frequency-doubled tone on "Purple Haze" in 1967 was the first time the Octavia sound was heard on record²³⁴.

The name is worth clearing up first. Roger Mayer always called the boxes Octavia, but Jimi and a few others called them Octavio, and the boxes were never labeled by Mayer himself¹. Both names refer to the same circuit, and you will see both spellings across vintage listings and modern clones.

Where the Octavia came from: Roger Mayer and Hendrix

Roger Mayer was a British engineer who had been working on Jimi Hendrix's guitar sound when he designed the Octavia in early 1967. In his own account, the debut of the frequency doubled tone by Hendrix on "Purple Haze" in 1967 began his relationship with Jimi². Mayer describes the design plainly:

Roger Mayer¹

The pedal was created specifically for Jimi Hendrix, who used it on tracks such as "Purple Haze" and "Fire"⁵. Mayer went on tour to the USA with Jimi from January 30, 1968 until April 19, 1968, where the first wedge shaped Octavia was used on a few special gigs¹.

Mayer's own history fills in the rest of the timeline. The first runs of the commercial Octavia were made in the U.S., before he departed New York to return to England in 1980⁶. The Octavia itself was reissued in the early 1980s, when demand and pressure from other players encouraged Mayer to put out the last version Jimi had used⁷.

How it works: frequency doubling and ring modulation

Electronically, the Octavia is an analog circuit with the properties of a frequency doubler, an envelope generator and an amplitude modulator, plus additional frequency shaping filter circuits¹. In plain terms, it is a fuzz whose clipping and transformer coupling interact to generate strong second harmonics, so the output contains a component at double the input frequency. That is what gives the octave-up effect: the OCTAVIA produces a sound that is an octave higher than the note you are presently playing¹.

What the circuit does to your sound depends heavily on what feeds it, and Mayer describes the two distinct behaviors himself:

• A fuzz unit in front of the Octavia produces an upper octave double¹.
• A clean tone with the tone control rolled off produces "ring modulated" overtones instead¹.

That second behavior is why the Octavia is often described alongside ring modulation. The amplitude modulator section of the circuit behaves like a ring modulator when the input is clean and dark, generating inharmonic overtones that change with the note you play. With a fuzz driving it, the waveform is already so squared off that the doubling dominates and the octave-up component comes forward. This is the practical answer to where the pedal belongs in a chain: it is designed to sit after a fuzz, not before one. The current Roger Mayer Octavia also contains a feedforward and gating effect¹.

For a player comparing circuits, the Octavia sits apart from a standard fuzz like the Fuzz Face: a Fuzz Face changes the character of the note, while the Octavia adds a new pitch component on top of it. It also differs from modern digital octave pedals, which track the note and synthesize a clean octave. The Octavia's octave is a byproduct of analog clipping and modulation, so it is strongest on single notes high on the neck and breaks up into harmonics on chords and low notes¹⁴.

Early versions, the transformer and the Rocket

The Octavia went through several distinct designs, and the differences matter to anyone chasing a particular version⁴.

The early Evo1 unit used germanium transistors and a ferrite transformer, and had limited drive capabilities¹. The latest evolution of the Octavia was then housed in the new wedge enclosures, and still used germanium transistors and ferrite transformers¹. A later Tycobrahe version, which Mayer considers an incorrect knock-off of an earlier 24-volt version of his circuit, was not designed by him¹.

The Rocket version is the end of that development line. Mayer describes it as the latest version connected with Jimi, and it does not use a transformer¹. The reissue in the early 1980s debuted the futuristic looking Rocket casting, which did not exist before then, and became the enclosure for the whole Rocket Series⁷.

The current Roger Mayer range reflects this evolution. The Octavia TC is described by Mayer as his most famous creation, first heard on "Purple Haze", with the TC version adding performance control of Drive³. The Octavia Classic carries the same tones as the Rocket Shape Octavia with an added tone control section, in a smaller standard enclosure with hard wire and dual buffered outputs⁸. The Vision Octavia is the latest version, an evolution inspired by Mayer's memories of Jimi and his music¹. The pedals are now power supply friendly².

The Tycobrahe Octavia

The Tycobrahe Sound Company Octavia is the version most modern players actually encounter, because it is the one nearly every clone copies. Roger Mayer's account of it is blunt¹:

Roger Mayer¹

Mayer describes the Tycobrahe clone, more correctly an inaccurate copy, as based on a 1969 variation of the Octavia for 24 volt operation, copied from the example Keith Relf had, and not designed to work optimally with 9 volts¹. Tycobrahe was only around for a few years and did not make a lot of units, which is why originals are incredibly hard to find⁹¹⁰. Voodoo Lab describes the Tycobrahe Octavia as one of the most desired pedals by vintage collectors, and as the model used by Stevie Ray Vaughan¹¹¹². Voodoo Lab also credits the Octavia sound with giving the "Purple Haze" solo its unique, stringy sting¹².

The practical difference between the two lineages comes down to this: Roger Mayer's own designs evolved past the transformer into the Rocket version, while the Tycobrahe copy froze a 1969, 24-volt-oriented transformer design and became the template almost everyone else builds¹.

Pedals based on the Octavia

The Octavia circuit has one of the longest clone lists of any fuzz. Some notable examples¹³:

The Voodoo Lab Proctavia is an exact replica of Tycobrahe Sound Company's Octavia, a fuzz which creates the octave doubling effect one octave higher¹¹. The Vahlbruch Octavia v2 is a Fuzz / OctaFuzz pedal made in Germany, using a special transformer with downstream clipping diodes in the style of the Tycobrahe, with a toggle switch for OctaFuzz or pure Fuzz mode without the octave-up; version 2 added the MagTraB switch, an additional Edge control and Schottky diodes instead of germanium¹⁴. The Beetronics OctaHive was based on the 1970's Tycobrahe Octavia and can produce classic and modern sounds¹⁶. The Tru-Fi Compact Octavia is built with the right transistors and the right transformer inside⁹. Pedal Pawn's Octone came out of the makers deeming a very rare vintage 1970s Octavia the gold standard¹⁸.

The circuit has also spread beyond standalone fuzz boxes. Source Audio's Kingmaker Fuzz includes an OCTAVE engine based on an Octavia²³. Kemper's Fuzz distortion effect lists the Roger Mayer Octavia among its models²⁴. Jed's Peds sells an Octavio kit, noting the circuit was famously used by Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan in their day²⁵.

DIY layouts for the transformerless Octavia

The Octavia is a popular DIY build, and the circuit splits into two camps that mirror the commercial versions: transformer-based Tycobrahe copies and the transformerless Roger Mayer design²⁶¹.

On the Tycobrahe side, madbeanpedals' Retrograde24 is documented as based on the Tycobrahe Octavia²², and PedalPCB's Ottava Octave Fuzz is presented as a comparison to the Lastgasp Octavella²⁷. On the Roger Mayer side, the original transformerless circuit has circulated as a stripboard layout: the Guitar FX Layouts blog published a 21 by 15 stripboard vero layout of the transformerless Roger Mayer Octavia in February 2014, noting it fits a 1590B enclosure. General Guitar Gadgets cites the Octavia as an example of a PNP transistor circuit in its power supply documentation, a reminder that the original polarity arrangement is the opposite of what most modern pedalboards expect, and that PNP builds need attention to how they are powered²⁸.

For builders, the choice between the two approaches is the same one players face with commercial pedals. The transformer-based Tycobrahe layout needs the right transformer, which Tru-Fi identifies as central to getting the sound right⁹. The transformerless Roger Mayer design avoids that hard-to-source part but reproduces a different, later point in the circuit's development.

Pedals on this page

Dunlop Fuzz Face

Dunlop · Distortion

$149 list price

Roger Mayer Octavia Classic

Roger Mayer · Fuzz

Vahlbruch FX Vahlbruch Octavia V2

Vahlbruch FX · Fuzz

Beetronics OctaHive

Beetronics · Fuzz

Source Audio Kingmaker

Source Audio · Fuzz

LastGasp Art Laboratories Octavella

Lastgasp Art Laboratories · Octave and pitch

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