“A ferocious, thunderous and now tame-able circuit triumphantly returns”: Death By Audio has rebooted its gnarly Octave Clang – and it’s bigger, bolder and more versatile than ever

If there were an award for the pedal name that sounds most like the effect it delivers, Death By Audio's Octave Clang would surely romp to the title. 

Now, a decade and a half after the pseudo-ring/distortion/noise/octave pedal was first released, the brand has brought it back – and it looks to be bigger, bolder and more versatile than ever.

The manufacturer that brought the vintage sci-fi-sounding Space Bender chorus in 2022 went back to the drawing board to make the second version of the Octave Clang wilder and more user-friendly.

The triple threat pedal gets its quirky tonality from a specially sourced transformer – from where exactly is top secret, apparently – and precision-matched diodes. That circuitry combination is partnered with two out-of-phase copies of the input signal to provide “extremely rich harmonics” and a “pure, totally analog octave up” effect.  

As such, playing single-note phrases suits the pedal in a more traditional sense. Churning out chords and complex stacks of notes, meanwhile, “mangles and twists” the signal in a manner that its makers define as “organic and beautifully chaotic”.

Heading up the pedal’s host of improvements is an extended control range. Its original trio of control knobs – for Volume, Intensity, and Shape – and bypass footswitch are now joined by an additional octave footswitch. This lets players utilize the pedal with or without the ring modulation effect in play.

Its output controls now range from totally silent to extremely loud (a feature that should be handled with caution), and there's also additional “supercharging” under the pedal's cream-colored hood via a pre-gain tone circuit with tilt EQ. The extra-controllable octave effect, however, is where the true power comes from.

“Use this pedal as a great distortion pedal with the octave off,” says Death By Audio, “then kick on the octave to bring down the house.” 

The newly enhanced pedal now offers up to +39dB of gain boost, whilst its internal bias controls now allow for mis-biasing the distortion circuitry. This ultimately delivers a rougher, more unhinged sound to further accentuate the pedal’s calculated madness.

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Top-mounted input and outputs aim to make the Octave Clang pedalboard-friendly, although its slightly bloated size – 5.5cm (H) x 9.4cm (W) x 12.4cm (D) – does make it bigger than your average pedal. 

Made in the USA and powered by a standard 9V supply, it costs $225. That’s considerably cheaper than throwing your amp off the back of a moving truck as a means of achieving a ravaged, beaten-up fuzz and distortion tone. The pedal ships from March 14. 

For more information, head to Death By Audio.