So I built two retrogrades, one for myself and one for a friend. As far as I can tell they are identical with the exception of the 1n34a diodes. One has a very nice pronounced octave and the other does not. Could this be caused by using different 1n34a's?
And voltages are almost identical on both.
Every Octavia I've ever built has a bit different level of octave mix. I attributed it to a combination of the inconsistent forward voltages of the diodes and transformer windings/core.
I stared at the circuit last night after work and realized my problem! I didn't use a switch so I needed to run a jumper to get the octave instead of just the fuzz. DOH! Sounds great now ;D You are right though, there definitely is a difference in the octave between the two.