The octobass prototype was built by a certain Mr. Dubois in 1834, before the luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (1798–1875) improved upon it in 1849. Two years later, Vuillaume exhibited not one, but three exemplars of the instrument at the London World Fair. Of these, only one remains and is preserved today at the Cité de la musique in Paris, where visitors can marvel at its appearance and sound. An audio headset enables visitors to hear the octobass, though actually, the sample is taken from an OSM recording made internally.

French luthier Jean-Jacques Pagès built his first octobass following Vuillaume’s model. But what moved him to replicate the colossal instrument? One day, visiting the Cité de la musique with his class to view this 19th-century instrument, as the students stood in awe at its towering presence he declared, having just finished building a piccolo: “It is no more complicated than a piccolo, it only requires more wood!” After a year of labour, the first octobass of the 21st century was completed.