Home › Forums › Review Your EHX Gear › Micro POG
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February 21, 2009 at 10:41 pm #77785SiriustarMember
I’m the kind of guy that likes to be able to play a piece and make it sound good and full by myself. That’s partly why I bought the SMMH (looping), and it’s why I wanted a POG. Unfortunately, I could not afford the POG at the time, I had limited pedalboard space, and the POG’s casing seemed a little flimsy to me. Lo and behold, weeks later, the Micro POG came out. I sold some stuff and scooped it right up. Now I’ve had it for over a year, so there’s no worry that I’m on a honeymoon with it.
At first, I thought that the octave up sounded a little cheesy, or fake. As I continued to play with it, I realized that, in the correct contexts, the octave up sounds great. When imitating a bass, it sounds pretty convincing if you roll back your tone knob. There’s no low pass filter on the Micro POG, which I was a little disappointed about, but it doesn’t seem to be missing too much. THe 12-string sound is somewhat convincing in a live setting, with a drummer and a bass player. Not as much solo. The organ sound is fantastic. I like to add some modulation a la XO Worm or Stereo Electric Mistress. Not the best Leslie sound, but it’s cool, nonetheless. A trippy setting that I like is the dry an min, and the two octaves maxed out. You can noodle around and create some Mars Volta-esque stuff, if you’re into that.
Something I like to do is run the dry signal into all of my other pedals, and then my guitar amp, and then run the wet signal into my bass amp, and use the EQ on that to compensate for the lack of low pass filter on the Micro POG. I like to run it through the right channel of the SMMH, too, so it can get delay before it gets to the amp.
Hope this review comes in handy!
February 21, 2009 at 11:03 pm #93786SiriustarMemberAnd for just over $200, at that!
February 22, 2009 at 6:54 pm #93810John JMemberI think my favorite setting on the Micro POG is with the dry and sub about even, and upper octave set to about half of the dry and sub. Run this into a Big Muff and you have the most gnarly lead tone ever. The other thing I liked was how it sounded with a Flanger Hoax up front, it tracked the FH perfectly no matter what the settings on either pedal were. It also looks super cool (yeah it matters), and is obviously way way easier to incorporate into a pedalboard than it’s bigger brothers.
Cons (in order of how much they annoyed me): No low pass filter, no detune, only three voices. For these reasons, I traded it in for a used POG and then traded the used POG in towards a used HOG.
Now for a comparison of the three, to help anyone trying to make an informed decision: I find the HOG has similarly voiced octaves to the Micro Pog and the tracking is pretty well just as fast, so if you only use the dry, +1 and -1 sliders with the filter turned all the way up you basically have a Micro POG. The POG was different to my ears, the upper octaves had a slightly more ‘natural’ sound (despite noticeably slower tracking) and the detuned voices were a godsend for finding that perfect organ tone. I’ve had the best results replicating this organic thickness by running a subtly flanging Polychorus after the HOG, but it was nice having an entire organ in one medium-sized box. All three boxes are capable of producing a decent bass sound, the POG tracks a little slower but sounds a little fatter. The HOG’s resonance control offers the most control tonally, but the Micro POG requires no tweaking to find a great sound. Just turn up the knob and play.
Neither the POG or the HOG react as flawlessly to the pedals in front of them as the Micro POG does. Also, the Micro POG was way less noisy than the POG and slightly quieter than the HOG when you’re running it into a fuzzbox. I would call the POG noisy, even though I didn’t notice until I was running a Big Muff after it. If you use too many intervals on the HOG, it will come out of the fuzzbox sounding like a big huge mess so I usually stick to ‘Micro POG settings’ for fat solos. The resonance control on the HOG allows you to get that half-cocked wah sound right off the bat, a major plus, although the HOG takes up considerably more pedalboard space than a Micro POG and a wah pedal would so the value is questionable…
All three pedals are rock solid when tracking chords in the +1 and -1 octaves, even more complex chords sound great. Obviously the more voices you introduce, the messier the chord will get. This is most noticeable with the fifth and third sliders on the HOG; because you are getting fifths and thirds above fourths and thirds above thirds, you’re bound to encounter some dissonance. It’s not really an issue of tracking so much as harmonic mathematics, but 7th chords in particular are a horrendous mess when you have too many sliders turned up. However, it’s okay because if you’re using the harmonic settings on the HOG, you can play a single note and have a full chord come out the other side. For that reason, the HOG wins for creating organ tones with a bass. Also, rather than playing full chords you can just play a simple interval and the HOG will fill in the rest of the notes. For example, you can play the just the root and the 7th and get a much cleaner 7th chord. Or, you can just turn the harmonic sliders down and play whatever you want through the octave sliders. The +3 and +4 octaves seemed extremely goofy to me at the beginning, but they add richness in a way similar to the POG’s detune settings and for that they’re indispensable.
Now I obviously neglected to mention any of the expression modes on the HOG. Because the HOG has features that go well above and beyond what the other two are capable of, there’s not really much point mentioning them in a comparison. The pitch bends are fun even though I think Whammy effects are dangerously cheesy. The glissando modes are absolutely incredible, and the filter sweep is really really great for getting that ‘Bassically / Nativity in Black’ bass sound without ever plugging in a bass guitar. I don’t understand the logic behind putting in a wah AND a filter sweep, but I’m sure some people get use out of both modes. The preset footswitch is a great idea, but the HOG is really the only box of the three with enough sounds to justify presets. I would like to see a POG with a second footswitch for toggling between two settings so you can go from organ to guitar+bass with the click of a switch, but the benefits of this are pretty small – especially when you consider that the HOG already exists.
That’s really all that I can think of, sorry for the length of the post there’s alot to cover! I hope it helps.
February 23, 2009 at 7:53 pm #93862liveatsixMemberDoes the Micro POG need to be first in the chain to preserve the tracking? Or do any of you have it anywhere else in your chain? Just wondering if it sounds better first or behind compression or dirt.
February 23, 2009 at 10:56 pm #93878SiriustarMemberI prefer to put it after my fuzz/distortion/overdrives. I think it gives it a more organizc feeling when you’re using it for solos.
February 23, 2009 at 11:00 pm #93880electro-melxModeratorQuote:I prefer to put it after my fuzz/distortion/overdrives. I think it gives it a more organizc feeling when you’re using it for solos.yeah, it will track perfectly anywhere…I used to put mine after dirt too.
February 25, 2009 at 1:19 am #93921BlueSteelParticipantnice review :thumb:
October 8, 2009 at 7:51 pm #102095AshjaahsMuffParticipantawesome been looking for something on here for ages
must have missed it
i currently dont own a pog
and its a pedal that i thought id never need
but recently ive been looking at going for an all EHX board and its been there, bugging me to have a listen at some youtube vids, so i did and now ive got MAJOR GAS for it
OMG
i really wanna get but i dont know what use i will have for it
did you guys think the same before getting it ?
or
did you get it knowing you will have a lot of use with it ?thanks
October 8, 2009 at 11:37 pm #102104SiriustarMemberYeah… I’ve sold the Micro POG since I wrote this review, and I replaced it with the POG2. The POG2 is really amazing, and if you can afford it, I’d recommend it any day over the Micro POG.
October 9, 2009 at 12:21 am #102109Trae3abMemberYes.
I agree… The versatility alone is worth the price comparatively to the Micro Pog.
I get mine in this week and have a show in two weeks and have to incorporate it into about half a set.
I am really excited about late night conceptualizing.
Trae
October 29, 2009 at 1:05 pm #102844AshjaahsMuffParticipantim getting the micro pog first
ive ordered it on tuesday, 2-3 weeks
i was debating between this and the pog2 but as im new to all the octave pedals etc, i thought id go for something simple like the micro pog, and if i like it sell it get the pog2
looking forward to it coming
ive also got the white finger compressor and big muff with tone wicker
July 8, 2010 at 6:14 pm #110066bassistlawParticipantLove it! I am using the Micro Pog with my bass rig. I like the unaffected direct out so I can plug into the Micro Pog first and send a clean signal to my Ampeg SVT. The effected signal goes to a volume pedal then a tube distortion pedal then a second volume pedal into an EHX 22 Caliber amp with a 16 ohm bass 2X10 cab. With this setup I can control how “hard” I hit the tube distortion and mix the effects volume with the SVT. For some songs I set the Pog mix for one octave up only and lay on the distortion blending the tone with the bass rig using the second volume pedal – Instant guitarist doubling the bass! Black Dog & The Ocean anyone? Set the Micro Pog one octave down, bypass the tube distortion and ride the volume pedal to fatten up higher notes with a bit of overdrive from the 22 Caliber amp.
July 16, 2010 at 1:00 am #110265deepblueMemberI cant say enough good things about the Micro Pod.
I use mine in the loop along with a Rotosphere a delay and a Holy Grail.
You want to talk psychedelic!…I can get a B3 sound with Hendrix overtones.By far the coolest pedal I own.
January 2, 2011 at 6:33 am #113456efe_gallagherMemberI got mine on Friday 31st after like two months of G.A.S.ing for it!
I was thinking about the POG 2 as well (I actually tried the POG 2 against a Multiplexer to see if I preferred Analog upon Digital… but I didn’t), but I thought there were many features I wouldn’t really be using on bass; I’ve also got a bunch of other pedals I knew I would cascade the Micro POG into and, with a Stereo Electric Mistress, I don’t think I’ll need the De-tune Sliders.
I’ve always liked EHX approach to effects: A few knowbsies are enough. So in an almost EHX-only pedalboard, I know how to find the sound I have in my head. This one + the Bass Big Muff and a touch of the SEM is so fucking addictive! I’ve finally got to sound like the synth I wanted to :metal: (I know there’s the Bass MicroSynth, but I don’t like it’s Octave sounds)
If only there weren’t two guitarists in my band I’d be using that +1 Octave a lot more; I have it at 9:30~10:00 for a bit of “Brightness”. -
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