Coppersound/Third Man Triplegraph

The Coppersound/Third Man Triplegraph is a digital octave pedal with a killswitch, designed by CopperSound Pedals together with Jack White and released through Third Man Records in 2020¹². Instead of conventional footswitches, it is played on three Morse-code-style telegraph keys: the left key triggers an octave down, the right key an octave up, and the middle key handles a killswitch or an auxiliary effects loop¹². MusicRadar called it "a retro-futurist's dream" of an effects pedal¹.

The high and low octaves can be triggered in parallel with the dry signal when the octave keys are pressed independently, and the whole thing runs on a DSP Blackfin processor with the octave algorithms designed and coded from scratch¹³. It sits in the wider family of octave and pitch pedals, but nothing else on the market is played quite like it.

The controls: three keys and the Loctave toggles

The playing surface is three proprietary, foot-sized telegraph keys built from custom stainless steel and aluminum components, described by Third Man as indestructible and exceedingly durable for hand and foot operation⁵². Each key has a clear job:

The Loctave toggles are the heart of how the pedal behaves. In latching mode, you trigger an octave to stay on, independently for each octave, with the toggles³. In momentary mode, the keys allow you to trigger effects much faster with your hand or foot than you could with regular switches³. That makes the pedal as much a performance instrument as an effect: you can tap octaves in and out mid-phrase like a telegraph operator, rather than stomping and undoing footswitches.

Auxiliary mode and the effects loop

The middle key has two modes⁶. In KILL mode it acts as a momentary killswitch, removing the dry signal so you hear only the wet octave up, octave down, or both². In AUXILIARY mode, you connect one or more of your own effects in parallel with the octaves via the send/return jacks on the pedal, then trigger them in momentary bursts with the key²¹.

Guitar World's roundup of the best new pedals of the 2020s highlighted exactly this combination: when the built-in effects loop is used with the killswitch, you can hear momentary bursts of your other pedals against the octave signal⁴. In practice, that means a fuzz, delay or filter from your own board can be punched in for a split second without ever leaving the Triplegraph's keys.

History: from the Telegraph to a four-year collaboration

The Triplegraph grew out of CopperSound's Telegraph pedal, a killswitch built around a single telegraph key, but it is more than a mod of that design. According to the story of its development, it is the first Third Man pedal that was designed and engineered from the ground up with Jack White, and the two parties worked on it for four years before it reached its final version in 2020¹³. The octaves were completely designed and coded from scratch rather than based on an existing circuit³.

Jack White used the Triplegraph in the studio during the recording of "Help Us Stranger" with the Raconteurs³. By 2022 it was still on his pedalboard, described by GuitarPlayer as the CopperSound/Third Man Triplegraph digital octave divider⁵.

Limited Edition and Standard Edition

The Triplegraph shipped in two editions²:

Both editions come with a custom designed book of more than 130 pages documenting the entire collaboration, designed and photographed by CopperSound²¹.

What reviewers said

Performer Mag reviewed the Triplegraph in March 2021 at a $399 street price and found excellent tracking and an interesting, creative approach to octave effects, listing no cons at all⁶. The reviewer's overall verdict:

For players comparing Third Man Hardware collaborations, the Triplegraph is the octave entry in a line that later included the Eventide Third Man Hardware Knife Drop, an octave fuzz with analog synth tones released in late 2024.

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