3 Leaf Audio Octabvre MKII

The 3 Leaf Audio Octabvre MKII is an analog octaver pedal, a stompbox that generates harmonically rich sub octaves below what you play. It is built on the tonal blueprint of the older Boss OC-2 octave pedals, and RockBoard's PedalPedia describes it, in both MKI and MKII form, as giving you "the sound of the classic OC-2, gritty 808, and the Mutron Octave all in one pedal"¹. It is a dual-mode octaver: two footswitches give you two distinct sub octave voices, and a toggle switch selects between two voicings of the circuit.

It sold direct for $259 as of January 2017².

Two footswitch voices

The MKII is really two sub octave pedals in one box, and each side has its own character¹².

• Left footswitch: engages a super-fast tracking, warm sub octave, with controls for the dry/wet mix level and the overall output level².
• Right footswitch: engages a vintage, sub-octave only, OC-2 style tone, with a tone knob that adjusts high and mid frequency presence².

Bass Musician Magazine's reviewer Jake Wolf described the right side as "vintage 'sub-octave only' OC-2 heaven: big, dirty, synthy grit with loads of bottom"². The maker also notes you can click the second footswitch to solo your sub octave sound¹.

The idea for that second footswitch came from watching bassist Tim Lefebvre at work. Designer Spencer Doren saw Lefebvre bend down mid-song to turn off the dry knob on his own OC-2, and reasoned that "a 2nd footswitch that cut the dry signal would let him use the octaver effect more effectively"². That observation became the MKII's defining feature.

The controls and the Tim Tuning switch

Alongside the two footswitches, the MKII carries a toggle switch that chooses between the pedal's original voicing and the popular "Tim Tuning" voicing¹. The Tim Tuning is a sound based on the mods Tim Lefebvre did to his own Octabvre¹, and according to Spencer it is more true to the OC-2 tone².

Wolf compared the two positions in his review:

Jake Wolf of Bass Musician Magazine found the Tim Tuning position to be a little deeper and purer sounding, with less gritty mids than the switch's other position².

So a player who wants the grittier, mid-heavy character of the original voicing keeps the toggle one way, and a player chasing the cleaner, deeper OC-2 flavor flips it the other¹².

From the Boss OC-2 to the MKII

The Octabvre's lineage runs straight back to the Boss OC-2. The OC-2 is a basic octaver that can produce two extra voices in addition to the original signal³. It was produced from 1982, with the label changing early in 1984 from "Octaver" to "Octave"³. It found favor with bassists: it was used live by Sonny T.³

3 Leaf Audio took that tonal blueprint and built the Octabvre around it². The MKI established the core sound, and the MKII added the voicing toggle and the second footswitch¹. The family later grew again with the Octabvre Mini, a more affordable version with fewer features that offers only one voicing, a modified version of the Tim Tuning setting². The Mini pares its controls down to Volume, Mix, and Tone knobs⁴, and its circuit starts with the Tim-tuning mod from the original, taken further with a reworked tone knob that runs from OC-2-inspired thump to sub fuzz⁴.

What reviewers said

Reviewers have been positive about both the build and the tracking. Wolf opened his Bass Musician Magazine review of the MKII by writing that "the build quality and componentry is superb," calling the enclosures heavy duty and solid feeling, with switches and knobs that are smooth and sturdy².

On the tracking question, the Premier Guitar review of the Octabvre Mini, which shares the family's circuit approach, was direct⁵:

The same reviewer noted that the Mini "does provide the tone-blending options of the first incarnation for really fattening up your bass sound"⁵, which speaks to the line's shared purpose: thickening a bass tone with sub octave content while keeping the dry signal under your control.

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