Behringer ULTRA OCTAVER UO300 3-Mode Octave Instrument Effects Pedal, Black and Silver

This pedal is great. It's cheap and does what it says it'll do. I've tried it on guitar, bass, and keyboard. I've tried it with daisy chain power and isolated power. I've tried it into an amp, through a lengthy pedal chain, straight into a mixer, and everywhere in between. Let me give you the run down:To be 100% clear, it is a LIMITER, not a compressor; the distinction being that it does not bring up quieter notes, only compresses louder notes. Most compressors are also "sustainers" too, meaning they bring up quieter notes (and also the 'noise floor' of the instrument or other electronics). The magic in this pedal is in the ratio and thresh (i.e. threshold) knobs. It determines at what threshold the pedal will start reducing the volume of notes/chords. It does this. Really well. With the ratio turned all the way up and the threshold all the way down, it makes all instrument dynamics a constant level (because the threshold is so low). With both of those knobs at noon, it gives a good soft-knee type compression you might want on say, guitar. And these are easily tweaked to take the pop out of bass slaps, take the attack off of keys a bit, or just even out tone. But it will not, I repeat, will not give you more sustain.The "enhance" knob is basically a tone knob. Adds in treble - won't roll it back though. Turned all the way down your signal is unaffected. Turned up, you're boosting treble - around what frequencies I'm not sure, but it didn't have much effect on guitar, so I'm guessing it's in the bass guitar treble range. It's important to note that anytime you start boosting treble, or really boosting at all for that matter, that you might get some noise. You're raising the signal level, and you're raising everything, including the noise floor of everything going into the pedal. I found that if you start pushing this knob past noon, you do get some hiss.Same goes for the "level" knob. Noon is unity (+0 db, not affecting the signal). You can roll it back to nothing (no sound), or boost it to where you get some noise and hiss, and depending on what you have...alot of it.So... RE: everyone who says this pedal is noisy...well, it can be if you are using it in a noisy way. Otherwise, it works perfect for me. I just wanted to limit some of the louder dynamics and even out my playing. This does that, and does it for cheap.I'm not sure anyone would like that this thing is plastic. And it's not a 'pretty pedal' - no art work and not a big brand name. But I got over it, for the price. You will too.If you're looking at this pedal, you're probably also looking at some of it's more expensive cousins at Boss, EHX, TCE, etc. This pedal is 1/3rd or 1/4th the price. So make your decision, but this pedal is excellent. Does what you need.

My experience with the Behringer brand has been generally a positive one, and this monster is no exception. Behringer would not be a brand I would choose for any type of instrument/power amp and probably not for a mixing console either. But some of their rack processing products are an exceptional value, most have a nice clean signal path and I have had good reliability as well. I think their rep as a junk brand is not a good assessment. Just when it comes to power amps, mixers and instrument amps, they are "heavy duty appliances" and you should pay more for something better and more reliable there.This little starved plate Vintage Tube Monster is an amazing gain stage in a box- for 50 bucks!! Out of the box stock feeding my clean tube amp it was very aggressive/Marshally and over the top fun! Sounds and feels organic, warm and tub-ey. All of the other reviewers are spot on with the info that this is a great unit to roll tubes in, each tube swap really changes the tonal character of this beast. Some of the NOS military tubes of the 12AX family tamed it down to very American-vintage sounding, I ended up with a crusty old RCA 12 AU7A in it that made it sing and snarl in a nice dynamic way. Weirdly enough, the output was way higher with this old used tube I have had laying around for 20 years even though it is a AU7? Hmm?I thought that this unit is good enough to be considered as an amp expander on a great single channel tube amp, which is what I am using it for.Only cons:GIANT!!! but it works so great who cares, make room for it as it's worth it of you love quality gain flavors to choose from.Again we forgive this for $50.00, but the engineered design is a bit lacking with 5 giant knobs that will easily get kicked and turned every other time you stomp. I will probably lock them in place with a small bead of silicone caulk once I feel tonal Nirvana is dialed in.I can't comment on the noise gate functionality, if you need that there are better ways to address those issues at the source.Not a perfect product but 5 full stars for sound + value!