Syd Barrett

"Recorded on 17 April by Syd on his Telecaster, with blasts of Octavia and Buzz-Tone fuzz pedal." Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe

A lot of people say that the Selmer Buzz Tone was the pedal Syd Barrett used on "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" by Pink Floyd as well

Used on "No Man's Land", as stated in Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe by Julian Palacios. On the official Rocket Series Octavia product page, Octavia inventor Roger Mayer reports that Barret received one of five late 1968 wedge enclosure Octavias.

Rocket Series Octavia Product Page

[15.] At the end of 1968 I decided to build a limited run of 5 or so Octavias and 5 Distortion Pedals all housed in the wedge enclosure.

[16.] EMP and Tychobrahe derived clones.

All the clones I know come from this later series of pedals.

This latest series Octavia configuration used a driver section comprising of complimentary NPN PNP low noise silicon transistors driving a commercially obtained iron audio driver transformer. The biasing used for these units were also varied to provide evos that were designed for up to 24V operation for recording studio work to a version that would use an internal 9 Volt battery.

This series of pedals used the type of knobs you can observe on the EMP example.

[17.] These units were completed in early 1969 and went to guitar players like. Syd Barrett - Pink Floyd Steve Marriot - Small Faces, Peter Frampton - Small Faces. Keith Relf - Yardbirds and Jimi of course.

Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe, pg. 345

‘No Man’s Land’ is post-punk’s first birthing pang, recorded on 17 April by Syd on his Telecaster, with blasts of Octavia and Buzz-Tone fuzz pedal. The song featured Jerry Shirley on cataclysmic, stuttering drums and John ‘Willie’ Wilson’s pumping bass. Wilson played drums in the Newcomers with Gilmour between 1962 and ’63, and went on to play in Joker’s Wild and Bullitt. Jerry Shirley, seventeen years old, knew Syd from time spent in Cambridge as drummer in the Valkyrie. Lee Jackson of Booker T & the MG’s and the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Mitch Mitchell heavily influenced his drum style.

Syd asked Wilson to do the session, and Shirley asked to attend as well. (Willie and Jerry Shirley also knew each other from Cambridge and shared a flat round the corner from Syd.) Wilson played drums on ‘No Man’s Land’ and ‘Here I Go’. After the takes with Syd were laid down, Shirley overdubbed the bass part on ‘No Man’s Land’. Because Syd changed the chords in the verse on every take, Shirley couldn’t nail his part live. There is no bass guitar on ‘Here I Go’, which features just Syd and Willie.

Barrett, with Hendrix, was one of five guitarists to get the first Octavia pedal from Roger Mayer’s workshop early in 1969. Syd was intrigued by the Octavia’s tone-bending qualities. Its frequency-doubling circuitry synthesised a second note an octave higher than the note played on guitar. The sound becomes tangibly different if a fuzz unit is sequenced in front of the Octavia: an upper octave double is created. Syd selected the Telecaster’s neck pickup, and used the tone control to roll off treble, damping any bright harmonics.

Unusually, the trio took over Studio Two, where the Beatles recorded. The larger room allowed the impromptu group to let loose and hit their instruments a bit harder. Volume drove Barrett on. Three blisteringly loud takes were completed. Working at a rapid clip, Barrett added his vocal and Shirley redid his bass line. Again, the repeating lyrical motif of holding another’s hand as symbolic of infidelity was employed.

The overdriven fuzz and Octavia coursing through ‘No Man’s Land’ was reminiscent of Stooge Ron Asheton’s fuzz epics.

The pedal is seen in this photo at the Games for May rehearsal.