{"id":2976,"date":"2022-05-31T20:02:50","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T20:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/?p=2976"},"modified":"2022-10-28T20:56:57","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T20:56:57","slug":"donner-harmonic-square-pedal-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/donner-harmonic-square-pedal-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Donner Harmonic Square Pitch Shifter Pedal Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

A note before we get started: the folks at Donner sent me this Donner Harmonic Square Octave\/Pitch Shifter Pedal<\/a> to review. So while I got it for free, the following review is my honest opinion<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I’ve always wanted an octave or pitch shift pedal. A few years back, I got my hands on a BOSS OC-2<\/a> but sold it on when I realized I could double my cash overnight. I was a broke musician! Darn!<\/p>\n

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So I’m starting from a place of knowing a little bit about octave pedals. I have dreamt about owning a Digitech Whammy<\/a>, however impractical such a pedal would be on my pedalboard<\/a>!<\/p>\n

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Anyway, the Donner Harmonic Square is an excellent mini pedal that offers a range of superb tones, including hollow-sounding choruses to octave down and octave up.<\/p>\n

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Save 15% by using the code ASHLEY <\/strong>on checkout!<\/p>\n

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Description<\/h2>\n

Donner is a fairly new entrance to the market yet offers some exciting guitar effect pedals and musical instruments in general.<\/p>\n

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As a Chinese manufacturer, they focus on producing budget-friendly items over wildly thrilling new designs.<\/p>\n

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I’ve known about Donner for years, but they recently popped up again thanks to Tomo Fujita, who I follow on Facebook.<\/p>\n

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As a humble guitarist, I’m nowhere near Tomo’s god-like ability. But I don’t let that fact affect me!<\/p>\n

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\"Donner

photo by Donner<\/p><\/div>\n

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Build Quality: 9\/10<\/h2>\n

Donner has spent time designing a rock-solid pedal. The Donner Harmonic Square Octave Guitar Pedal’s case is made from powder-coated aluminum.<\/p>\n

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The jack sockets are screwed in, meaning they’ll last longer. The main dial and toggle switch feel rugged enough to withstand some abuse.<\/p>\n

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While the two smaller control knobs aren’t bolted in place, they are low enough to be safe from harm.<\/p>\n

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The footswitch is easy to use, the 9 volt DC input is well placed, and the LED is bright. As there’s no battery slot due to its size, the pedal is painless to deal with.<\/p>\n

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Overall, Donner has built their mini range to last and take years of abuse. Not that you should abuse them! Just that they are well-built pedals.<\/p>\n

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Controls: 9\/10<\/h2>\n

At first glance, you might mistake how this pitch shifter pedal works. So it’s worth having a look at the controls.<\/p>\n

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The top row of controls consists of a wet knob, 3 position toggle switch, and a dry knob. The larger knob in the middle is the pitch change knob. Let’s have a look at each.<\/p>\n

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First up, the wet knob, which controls how much affected signal you can hear. Skipping the toggle switch for a second, next we have the dry knob. This controls how much-unaffected signal you hear.<\/p>\n

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The toggle switch allows you to change the pitch between shift up (labeled: sharp), shift down (labeled: flat) and a slight detune (labeled: detune).<\/p>\n

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The large control knob allows you to select from different individuals depending on the mode. In sharp mode, you can go from +2 semi-tones to +2 octaves. While in flat mode, you can drop from -2 semi-tones to +2 octaves.<\/p>\n

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In both sharp and flat modes, you can -\/+ 2 semi-tones, -\/+ 3 semi-tones, -\/+ 4 semi-tones, -\/+ 5 semi-tones, -\/+ 7 semi-tones, -\/+ 1 octave, and -\/+ 2 octaves.<\/p>\n

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Detune mode works a little differently. Moving from the far left, you have the following options -30 cents, -20 cents, -10 cents, 0, +10 cents, +20 cents, and +30 cents.<\/p>\n

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\"Donner

photo by Donner<\/p><\/div>\n

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Sounds: 9\/10<\/h2>\n

Before writing this review of the Donner Harmonic Square Octave\/Pitch Shifter Pedal, I spent quite a bit of time playing with it.<\/p>\n

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Octave and pitch shift pedals can be riddled with pitch tracking issues, where the pedal takes a few milliseconds to catch up with what you’re playing. Thankfully, the Donner doesn’t have these issues, especially in a noticeable way.<\/p>\n

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I did notice when set for down 2 octaves, it doesn’t pick up the first five frets of the low E string. This is hardly surprising, given how low those notes are but something you should be aware of if you’re a bass player.<\/p>\n

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My two favorite settings after extensive testing aren’t that different from each other.<\/p>\n

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I love the octave-down sound, especially when in the mid-range of the guitar. The settings that work for me are keeping the wet knob on full, the dry knob at 12 o’clock, the pitch knob at the 1 Oct mark, and the toggle on the Flat mode.<\/p>\n

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These settings sound killer and produce a really pronounced octave down, which is ideal for doubling up a wimpy sounding clean guitar or with fuzz to add something different.<\/p>\n

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My other favorite sound involves flicking the toggle switch up to detune. Doing so creates a hollow-sounding chorus tone, much like the tones produced by the BOSS Dimension C. I’m not a massive chorus fan, but this sounds lovely.<\/p>\n

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For me, the octave-up doesn’t hold any appeal, and while the Harmonic Square is great at these sounds, it’s not a mode I’ll use that often.<\/p>\n

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I’m quite tempted to get another one, so I can run my two favorite settings side by side and so don’t need to flick the toggle switch!<\/p>\n

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Overall: Donner Harmonic Square Octave\/Pitch Shifter Pedal<\/h2>\n

Rating: 9\/10<\/h3>\n

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I’m glad years after owning a BOSS OC-2 that the Donner Harmonic Square Octave\/Pitch Shifter Pedal came into my life! It’s far more versatile and affordable than the BOSS.<\/p>\n

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If you prefer to power your pedals using batteries, you’ll need to find some way to hook a battery up as it doesn’t have space for one, being a mini pedal and all.<\/p>\n

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After some experimentation, I’ve found a few sounds I love and ones I’ll continue to use. My only issue now is my pedalboard is already jam-packed, so it’ll be a case of what gets removed to allow me to get this Donner pedal on.<\/p>\n

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So, if you’re looking for a pitch shifter that takes up minimal space and offers some fantastic tones, you’ll want to buy the Donner Harmonic Square Octave\/Pitch Shifter Pedal!<\/p>\n

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Remember to use the code ASHLEY<\/strong> on checkout to save 15%!<\/p>\n

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Purchase<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Donner Harmonic Square Octave\/Pitch Shifter Pedal is an excellent, small yet affordable device that’s highly flexible and very musical.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[392],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guitar-gear-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ashleyjsaunders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}