When Carl Martin decided to create a baby-brother for his world famous Combinator, the details of simplifying an already simple effect controller made his head hurt.  So Carl enlisted the help of Thomas Guldmann, and the Octa-switch was born.  The concept is simple….take your eight favourite effects pedals, plug them into the eight individual loops (all true-bypass gold relays) on the Octa-switch, and then designate what effects you want connected to each of 8 banks via the worlds simplest and smallest DIP switches located over top of each of the eight bank switches.  Thomas chose DIP switches because they are just eight individual on-off switches in a tiny tiny package.  So if your effects are plugged into Loops 1-8, you simply turn the DIP switch ‘on’ for each of the effects you want in Bank 1, and then Bank 2 etc up to Bank 8.  You can use one or all of the effects in each bank, and once you have designated a bank, do us both a favour and cover the DIP with a bit of tape to ensure nothing happens to the DIP switch when you are not looking……like an errant hand, or a flood of beer.  The Octa-switch is mono-in and mono/stereo out, with a choice of a buffered signal or not.  The unit is powered by dual 9v batteries, or a regulated power supply like the Carl Martin Big John Power Supply, and is housed in an all metal case with heart-stopping (ok, well almost) graphics.  So, the same basic options found in the digitally controlled units the famous guys are using, at a fraction of the cost!  Carl’s head stopped hurting…..