The POG2 (Electro Harmonix)

If you know the kind of guitar player I am, you'd probably be surprised to hear that one of the acts I'm working with these days is using me as a rhythm and acoustic player. You'd probably be further surprised to hear that it's a Led Zeppelin cover band. Is it going to go anywhere, I don't know, but it's good practice and shows promise, and besides, there's nothing wrong with killing a couple of hours in a studio on a weekday night.

One of the songs we targeted is "Since I Been Lovin' You". The lead guitar player is a total Jimmy Page disciple--in fact, it seems to be more or less all he's really interested in playing--so the song lets him showcase. The singer can pull it off, which is enough of a reason to hang in there and see where it goes, and of course if we actually can nail it in front of a crowd, it'll probably land well.

But...we don't have a keyboard player. So the guys were a little tentative when the lead guy pushed to get the song on the list. I understood the hesitation; if you listen to the song, there's no rhythm guitar, it's all keyboard swells and fills, and without them, the song would probably still work, but it wouldn't be the whole pig.

I'd actually been working on my synth/octave sounds recently, and had achieved some organ-like effects, and was looking at some other devices, in particular, the POG2, or "Polyphonic Octave Generator" from Electro Harmonix; it's brand new, and is an upgrade to their previous POG. I couldn't find it anywhere though, I'd only seen demos online, so figured "sooner or later", but I believed it was now my best chance to fill the keyboard void in this song.

I'm pretty heavily invested in Line 6 stuff; I've got a GuitarPort (if you don't have one and you're a guitar player, for shame, it's 80 bucks and, coupled with a GuitarPort Online seven dollar a month membership fee and a computer, is easily one of the best play-along, sound experimentation, learning tools ever made), a PodX3 (the BIG, BIG pro brother to the GuitarPort) for recording and sometimes stage work, and an M13 Stompbox Modeler for stage.

With all that digital wizardry, you'd figure I could get that organ sound; Line 6 offers a variety of octave, synth, etc. effects that I can mix and match pretty much any way I want. But, no; I tried and tried. I couldn't get the sound I wanted, simple though it may seem. Line 6 makes great distortion and time based effects, but IMHO, their octave stuff isn't really that strong.

I called the guys at Sweetwater (they're great, I mean they actually place follow up calls just to see "how it's going"), and inquired about the POG2; they said it was shipping in a few days, so I could reserve one, they'd send it to me, etc. It wouldn't make it in time for rehearsal though...hmm.

Suddenly the guy says, "well, you saw our online demo right? I could sell you that unit. It's been used only a couple of times and is in mint condition. We'll sell it with the full warranty, yada yada."

I did it; the pedal came the next day via overnight delivery. Man, am I glad I made that call.

In a couple of hours, I knew my way around this amazing device, and with some experimentation, got it up and running to do exactly what I wanted. It's got a dry sound level, -2, -1, +1, +2 octave volume settings, four Q settings, and three filters; Low Pass, Attack, and Detune. The Attack filter was of great interest to me; you can keep your dry signal strong, but set the attack filter to fade in to your sound, giving, at high settings, "ghost on drugs" swells, and at low settings, a very Holdsworth-like "I can't hear his pick" attack sound; it's also perfect for that Andy Summers-ish delayed attack thing. It's true bypass and such, so signal degradation isn't a serious consideration.

Anyway, my settings for the organ sound are a light -2 octave, pronounced -1 and +1 octave, and a semi-pronounced +2 octave, with no Q, a slight attack setting for a quick initial swell without losing the ability to "hit" a chord, no low pass, and no detune. I also run it in front of (on the M13) a lightly set Opto Trem for that organ tremolo effect, and a pretty "hall" reverb sound (though not exaggerated at all, just enough to fill it up a little). You can save eight presets on the POG2, and toggle them with a footswitch, so I saved everything and called it a night.

Note that I'm not mentioning what amp I use, because these days, I'm playing here, there, everywhere; I can't count on the amp for reverb or distortion. My personal amps are Marshalls (I'm looking at the new Vintage line in fact), but when you play in studios or a club, you have to use the backline, so one day it could be a Marshall, one day a Fender, one day a Bogner, one day a Mesa Boogie, or one day some piece of junk somebody kicked a lot. Bottom line, if all you need is a clean channel, and you otherwise walk in with your sound, you can stay consistent pretty much anywhere.

Anyway, I was pleased with the result of my M13/POG2 combo, so I brought it to practice and kicked on the preset I mentioned previously. The band mumbled a little about a keyboard player again, but when I started riffing a little to check my level, they were like...

"WTF IS THAT?!?!?"

I told them what I worked up for the rehearsal, and they immediately wanted to play the formerly maybe/maybe not "Since I Been' Lovin' You". I'd worked out a lot of the important keyboard fills and such, and they were completely blown away; all hesitation was gone. The singer went on and on about how he could finally "hear" the song, and so forth. It also opens up other possibilities; "Your Time is Gonna Come" for instance.

Aside from that though, I've set up some other octave/swell settings that are far more subtle than an organ (or are just really pure octave effects), and am pretty confident when I say that there is nothing else I've found that comes close to the quality of this pedal. It's really pretty much just amazing.

Maybe some day you'll hear me use it. If you play and have any interest at all in octave effects, GET THIS PEDAL.

As always, thanks for visiting.