oakforest5961

I love reggae music, but really for the music itself. I'm quite happy for it to leave jah and ratafari out because I just can't connect to that. Hence my preference for instrumental reggae, and also for reggae or heavily reggae influenced music from around the world which tends to have different natured lyrics (even if I can't understand them). Here's one from Turkey with Turkish and English lyrics; gets going at about 0:40. Reggae enough for this thread?

Here's something a bit unusual. Well, I think it is because I have found it difficult to find... contemporary instrumental reggae. I say "contemporary" because I know there was stuff back in the day, but the recordings seem a bit muffled, and I don't find them very satisfying because of that. Also, the more modern stuff that I have found 'do it' more for me. I started a Spotify list for myself and went looking (ok, listening) for material to add to it. Being instrumental was not enough to get on it, I also had to like it of course. After lots of searching, I only have nine tracks on it! Am I too choosy, or is it that there just isn't much to choose from? Here is a link to my list https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6tPKi3RjabfMRbG9urIThG?si=yucIcrxlRhuJeogVn3SAEA. If you don't want to check it out direcly, here is the listing of my playlist: Sr. K. by Antidoping Mandela (Dub Version) by Antidoping [be patient, what comes after the 52 second introduction is well worth the wait] Bird on a Fence (Professor Skank remix) by One Drop Forward Lovers Dub by Nigel Williams High Horse Riddim by Dejavu Lifestyle Music Limited Dub in the Bushes by Reblesteppa Reward Rythym by M. Johnson Joyful Dub by Avatar Shackles & Chains Instrumental by Ziggi Recado Recommendations most welcome. Steve

My favourite Rotosound endorsee is Billy Sheehan. His very individual approach to bass playing sets him apart. But more than that, he has 'his sound'. His tricontinental collaboration of player, bass guitar and strings are what underlie that sound. He is very discerning in his choice of equipment; every link in the chain has to be right. For him to play Rotosound strings on recordings and live around the world, you know that they are reliable strings. Further, you can tell straightaway that his choice of gauges for the BS66 set was made with research and care to be spot on. A player of Billy's calibre and artistic vision has to have the right tools to achieve that vision; there's no doubt that he has done that with the help of Rotosound bass strings.

I'd like to give a shout for a couple of great YouTube bassists from non-English speaking countries. The first is Edson Baretto, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsaBBwwJfnpfraPual1qtBw. He presents the basslines of popular songs. His approach is to present, without any spoken words, each section/riff/groove in a song separately. (Thus the entire piece is not played in one one go.) The music is presented in notation and tab as he plays each section. Also, if you can understand spoken French, then Bruno Tauzin presents excellent videos, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZD0Ba4PzNeYlRzAoha-5iw. He does bassline covers, his own groove tutorials, the odd gear review and solo pieces of his own. (Oh, and another thumbs up for Constantine Isslamow from me; I've been a subscriber of his for many years.)

There are some high quality backing tracks for bass at https://quistorama.com/bass-jam-tracks. The tracks are on YouTube where you will also find the chord progressions - click on the INFO link of each track at quistorama to find the YouTube link. In fact, two of the ten tracks on the 'Groove Time' album are free to download (you just have to sign up to Quist's email list). The files are in .wav format. I think that the 'Groove Time' album is excellent value at $9.99. I bought it.

I haven't seen this mentioned, so thought that I would share it for those who might be interested but didn't known about it. Stuart Clayton is doing a "Bass Lick of the Week" series for a year on his YouTube channel. He's about half way through the series now. The licks are usually 4 bars long which he plays twice through, with music in notation and tab showing, at the start of the video. He then takes you gently through the lick one bar at a time in a nice, clear manner with no jokes or rambling. The licks are in different styles, some played with fingers, some with a plectrum; if you are not keen on one, just try the next. I would say that they are generally intermediate to advanced level. If you are into grooves/licks then you'll probably appreciate this series. Here's a link to the first of the series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MBspU7_Ot4. I have no affiliation to Stuart or Bassline Publishing. I just think that this series is first rate and that Stuart is a class player and teacher. Credit where credit's due.

Fairly early in Bruce Thomas's book "Rough Notes" he talks of the group Clouds. Looking them up on YouTube I found a drummer-bass player collaboration that I had never heard of before; see the section from about 2:20. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4qoZEBbAIE[/media] After a bit more ferreting around on YouTube, I discovered that the piece, "Big Noise from Winnetka", is quite old and that the drummer played the strings of an upright in the original. Still interesting to see it done with an electric though. No doubt there are a few other examples, but in my many years of playing it's the first time I've seen it done, so thought I'd share it.

Not exactly security marking, but a good alternative (and free): I have a photo, serial number, and scanned image of receipt, of all of my bass gear on [url="https://www.immobilise.com"]www.immobilise.com[/url].

I recently bought some Elixir strings, but the thought struck me that as I pull the string through the somewhat sharp-edged hole in the metal bridge, it's going to strip off a string-length's worth of nanoweb coating... So I rolled up a small piece of paper and put some sellotape round it to give it a little strength and stability, then put this in the bridge hole first whilst stringing up. It was a little fiddly, but it worked. I was wondering if anybody has any other such methods of stringing up Elixirs without damaging the coating.

This is a difficult one since either one already has the kit, or what one wants is too expensive for a present. Consumables like strings are the obvious choice, but here are a few other ideas. At the higher end of the scale: Phil Jones Bass H-850 headphones - I'm happy with mine. A sort of gadget, and not more than an ornament to finger players: a pick punch - like a hole punch but for a plectrum. Mine has not had much use, and I can't see it getting much use. Bass player autobiographies - these can be interesting whether or not you liked the band: "The Living Years" by Mike Rutherford - very good "Unknown Pleasures - Inside Joy Division" by Peter Hook - very good "My Bass and Other Animals" by Guy Pratt - not for me "In the Pleasure Groove" by John Taylor - ok "Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! My Adventures in the Alice Cooper Group" by Dennis Dunaway - I'm reading this just now, and is good so far Actually, the best rock musician autobiography I have read was not by a bass player: "Face the Music" by Paul Stanley. Hope this helps.

I could never get the built-in mute to work, it always muted the different strings to different amounts. This, and all the other deficiencies of the bridge led me to replace it with the Hipshot one, which was a good move. (The saddles have screws which allow them to be moved a little sideways so that you can change your string spacing; once these screws are tightened the saddles shouldn't move - mine didn't, so no saddle wobble for me.) Alternatively, you could buy a 4004 model which has a sensible bridge as standard - palm muting a doddle. It doesn't have the full McCartney look, so may not be acceptable from that point of view.

The original set of tabs by John Roskruge is on the Way Back Machine, as Daz says, but you will also find them here: [url="http://ks3095025.kimsufi.com/stranglers/index.html"]http://ks3095025.kim...lers/index.html[/url]

Bonjour Barbasque! Weight (without battery): 1.160 kg Dimensions: 20.3 / 14.5 / 6.8 cm I don't know of any other reviews, nor of any sound clips. One has to wonder at Ashdown's lack of publishing the specifications of this pedal.

Title: [b]The Lost Art of Country Bass[/b] Subtitle: An Inside Look at Country Bass for Electric and Upright Players Author: [b]Keith Rosier[/b] (with an acute accent on the e in his surname) Publisher: Hal-Leonard Series: Bass Builders ISBN: 978-0-7935-6992-2 Year: 1997 Format: paperback Number of pages that matter: 51 CD included: Yes Format of the written music: notation and tab Level: Beginner and Intermediate Cost: in March 2014 it was selling on amazon.co.uk for £12.45. Does any piece of the written music require you to turn a page over: Yes, one piece. I own a copy of the book and have worked through it. The Introduction says, "The Lost Art of Country Bass allows bass players to develop a feel for country bass playing. Bass lines are presented in the style of the famous bassists who helped develop this art form." Well, he is correct in that you will develop a feel, though no more than that, and maybe he is famous in the country bass world (I don't know) but two or three of the style pieces appear to be by Rosier himself. The general pattern of the first useful two thirds of this book is sections titled "The Style of <artist's name>", where there are a few paragraphs about the artist followed by one or more bass lines in the style of songs by the said artist. I say "artist" rather than "bassist" because some of the artists are not bassists at all. To be specific, these sections, with the number of bass lines in each, are:[list] [*]The Style of Allen Williams (3) [*]The Style of Lefty Frizzell (3) [*]The Style of Ray Price (4) [*]The Style of Cedric Rainwater (1) [*]The Style of Bob Moore (5) [*]The Style of Glenn Worf (2) [*]The Style of Heather Myles (2) [*]The Style of Rick Shea (1) [*]The Style of Leland Sklar (1) [/list] The other useful third of this book focuses on music style rather than bassist style. A (very) few words are said about each style, followed by a bass line in that style. The styles are:[list] [*]Ballad [*]Waltz [*]Walking Waltz [*]Rockin' Country [*]Ten-Step [*]Latin Bass [*]Country Rock [*]Walk-Up and Walk-Down [/list] Every bass line in the book is, with band, on the included CD. An Essential Listening list is given. Rosier has some clear opinions: "Playing scales, reading music, and playing grooves with a metronome are the key ingredients of a bassist's daily practice schedule. [...] If you find yourself just 'noodling' around on your bass and not interested in playing your best, I recommend you put your bass away until you feel inspired to play some serious bass." (I have to ask why this paragraph was given a whole page to itself; I only omitted two sentences from it here!) There are also some plugs, which rather jarred with me, and are now somewhat dated in their feel: <artist's name>'s albums are available from <name and address of a record shop>! There are 10 pages about gear. Why is this material using up valuable space in such a rarity as a book about country bass? One is working through the book: 'The Style of So And So', 'The Style of Such And Such', and then suddenly 'Know Your Bass' with info on how to set up your bass! Such material belongs in another book, and there are plenty such books already. Thus, unfortunately, this book has unnecessary 'padding', which is why I reckon that only 51 of the 80 pages matter. I think it's there because Rosier has his own opinion to express and he's taking the chance to do so; it's based on his own experience, so one could say it has value, but I feel that the book would have benefitted by replacing all of the padding with analysis of the bass lines: Rosier is very wordy about gear and practicing, and very terse (sometimes saying nothing at all) about the details of the bass line structure and note choice. The included CD:[list] [*]33 tracks to play along to [*]the longest track is 3 minutes 8 seconds; the shortest is 30 seconds [*]the music is real instruments played by real musicians [*]the bass is more on the left channel, so can be 'turned down' [*]the tracks DO NOT have any count in, which is annoying [/list] I'll probably go to Country hell for this, but it was nice to play along to country tunes where there were no vocals. Of course, you can read other reviews of this book on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com. There is a thread on talkbass.com with a lot of praise for this book ([url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f179/country-bass-walk-438411"]http://www.talkbass....ass-walk-438411[/url]). I don't think that this book teaches you country bass; it is just a bunch of examples of the style, the rest is up to you. If you are good enough to learn by example alone, then great, but I think this book is a missed opportunity. Nevertheless, if you are in any way interested in bass for American country music then you won't be wasting your time getting hold of this book.

I only play with a plectrum. After trying loads of different thicknesses and materials I ended up preferring 1.8mm flexible leather. This thread is making it fairly clear - there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to plectrums.

[quote name='Mr Fretbuzz' timestamp='1389811941' post='2338209'] What software do you use? I've tried to write out my own notes above tab and it looks ridiculous. I'm looking for an app or something cheap I can use. I went looking to see if there was a stencil of notes/rests I could use, just like a school chemistry stencil, but couldn't find one. Maybe I ought to invent one and make a fortune [/quote] I use NoteWorthy Composer (www.noteworthysoftware.com). I started using it many moons ago, and with so many files in its format, continue with it. It does the job, and it is not expensive. It doesn't do tab. You can download an evaluation copy. If I was to start completely afresh today, it would certainly be a contender, but I think that there are other similarly priced music notation packages that are worth a look. To choose between them you would really need to be clear on what you want them to do. Strangely, perhaps, I would be more inclined to pay £50 for a package than go with a free one.

I do several things in the privacy of my own bedroom:[list] [*]play along to backing tracks, mainly ones from Scott Divine's web site so far; this is partly for learning scales/arpeggios/fretboard and partly for pleasure. There is much room for advancement here, and is my current focus. I can quite happily noodle about on the C Mixolydian scale to his C Mix. backing track on a loop for half an hour! [*]enter transcriptions of bass lines into music notation software so that I can learn the line and play along to the original recording. The transcriptions are from bought books or off the internet; putting them into software means that I can print them out on several sheets of A4 so no page turning, and I can get the computer to play the line which helps when I can't get the rhythm/timing right. [*]I write bass lines for traditional tunes and play along to them (computer plays the melody 'on the piano' using said notation software). On rare occasions Mrs oakforest5961 picks up her tenor recorder and she plays the melody. [/list] I don't have either the time or the talent to ever get above intermediate level. Playing bass is simply my hobby; I love it - I could retire tomorrow and not be bored. I've never been in a band. Don't think I ever wanted to be. I certainly don't have time, and would rather spend Friday and Saturday nights in with my partner anyway. This doesn't stop me getting my fix of bass though.

[quote name='spinynorman' timestamp='1389222554' post='2331706'] [i]"The first commercial unit of the Precision Bass was produced in October 1951. It had a “slab” (non-contoured) ash body with two “horns” .... a string-through-body bridge with a cover (with a mute), and two pressed fiber bridge saddles."[/i] [url="http://www.fender.com/news/the-precision-bass-in-the-1950s/"]http://www.fender.co...s-in-the-1950s/[/url] [/quote] I was only about 50 years out in my 'knowledge' then... Thanks for the history lesson spinynorman!

I always thought that through body stringing was quite new to bass manufacture, but perhaps I'm wrong. Does anybody know when strings through body was introduced to the bass?

"Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division" by Peter Hook, Joy Division's bassist, is excellent. Even better is the spoken version, which you can get from e.g. www.audible.co.uk, read by Peter Hook himself.

There is already a review of the H-850s here on Basschat: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/209580-phile-jones-bass-h850-headphones"]http://basschat.co.u...h850-headphones[/url] (Mine are scheduled to arrive on Dec. 25th.)

Title: [b]Bass Styles[/b] Subtitle: The Ultimate Guide to Playing Bass in Any Genre Author: [b]Stuart Clayton[/b] Publisher: smt (www.musicsales.com) ISBN: 1-84609-500-X Year: 2006 Format: paperback Number of pages that matter: 119 CD included: Yes Format of the written music: notation and tab Level: Intermediate and above Cost: in October 2013 it was selling on amazon.co.uk for £13.63. Does any piece of the written music require you to turn a page over: yes, two smaller pieces and all of the end of chapter pieces. The latter cannot fit on two facing pages, so it is fair enough for them to require page turning. I own a copy of the book and have worked through a lot of it. The book's subtitle is somewhat grand and over the top, since the book covers the following six styles: Blues, Rock, Disco, Funk, Reggae and Jazz. True, that covers a lot, but still... I suspect that the subtitle is just publisher hype. According to the Introduction, "Bass Styles is aimed at the bassist who is already able to play to a reasonable standard and has become confident enough on the instrument to want to develop a wider vocabulary." The book actually starts with the chapter 'Bass Playing Tips'. This chapter has no audio exercises. The chapter has subsections like Understanding Pitch, Understanding Tablature, The Major Scale and Fingerstyle Playing. I felt that this chapter was out of place in the book: there are plenty of books on these basics; a book on "Bass Styles" could surely assume this knowledge and start from there. That then reduces the number of Bass Styles pages that matter by 18 to 101. Each chapter has subsections called A Brief History of <bass style>, Defining Characteristics of <bass style>, 20 <bass style> Songs You MUST Hear, and Well Known <bass style> Bass Players. I found the 'Defining Characteristics' subsections too short given the title of the book. This, of all things, was what I wanted to really know about, but a much deeper drilling down, analysis, deconstruction and construction would be needed. Each chapter has a number of short example bass lines, with commentary, from that chapter's style, and finishes with a longer piece. The number of example pieces per chapter is:[list] [*]Blues: 18 [*]Rock: 15 [*]Disco: 15 [*]Funk: 15 [*]Reggae: 14 [*]Jazz: 14 [/list] What I really like about the book is that you can work through each chapter and then ask yourself, 'is this a style I really want to play?' Or be honest with yourself and ask, 'is this a style that I have the ability to play?' If it isn't then you can save yourself pursuing that style any further and concentrate on the style(s) for which the answer is 'Yes'. In other words, it can help focus your learning efforts and help you to understand your own preferences if you don't already know them. Alternatively, the book can also be seen as one for someone who wants to be a bit of an all-rounder; if you are good enough, you could work through the sections and figure out what makes bass lines of that style and then be ready to apply yourself fairly widely. I'm not sure that I would say that the book actually teaches you how to play in a certain style; it does give some pointers and examples, but the rest is very much up to you. If you want or need more hand holding, then you will need to look further afield. To give you an idea of where each chapter ends up you can watch the very capable Pornpot Pongsiwasathit on YouTube as he plays the end of chapter playalongs. (Sorry, it appears that only two links to 'media files' are allowed per post; for the rest you can still copy and paste the web addresses into your browser.) Blues: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcL6x3SPpiw[/media] Rock: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQANkzhb828[/media] Disco: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPYxv-gkqyM Funk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzlyIae8tR0 Reggae: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9awORIAHVg&NR=1 Jazz: he hasn't done one for this (yet?) The included CD:[list] [*]95 tracks to play along to [*]the chapter example/exercise tracks are short - the longest is 1 minute 12 seconds; the end of chapter playalongs are all between 2 and 3 minutes long. [*]the music is real instruments played by real musicians [*]the bass is on the right channel, so can be 'turned off' [*]each track has a high hat count off [/list] So a definite thumbs up for the CD. I found playing along to most of the exercises was great fun, and I enjoy dipping back into them as and when the mood takes me. This book is a brave attempt at its goal, and might achieve that goal for more able players then me; I need more help than I found here, and some of my comments are coloured by my skill level. A book will never replace a one-to-one with a good teacher, but credit where credit's due, this book is excellent value for money. Although this book is published by smt, Stuart has set up Bassline Publishing ([url="http://www.basslinepublishing.com"]http://www.basslinepublishing.com[/url]) where you can find some of his other works. Stuart is an active member of basschat.co.uk, and if you are reading this Stuart I would like to say thank you for writing this book; I hope you feel that my review is fair and accurate. Of course, my opinion is just my opinion.

The perfect 10 is far from perfect. I owned one and didn't like it. It was 6 years ago, so can't remember all the issues. I do remember that the CD input wouldn't take the output from my computer without being noisy. I quickly sold it; the person who bought it said it gave him the sound he wanted. Each to one's own. I use a Marshall MB60 at home and think it very good value for money. (Its CD input isn't noisy...) Unfortunately, now that Marshall have bought Eden, they have discontinued their MB range. There might just be one or two still to sell off in some shops though.

Title: [b]Reggae Bass[/b] Subtitle: The Complete Guide to Reggae and Jamaican Bass Styles Author: [b]Ed Friedland[/b] Publisher: Hal Leonard Series: Bass Builders ISBN: 978-0-7935-7994-5 Year: 1998 Format: paperback Number of pages (not counting the valueless lead-in ones): 28 CD included: Yes Format of the written music: notation and tab Level: there's nothing too taxing, and with the help of the CD a beginner could use this book Cost: in July 2013 it was selling on amazon.co.uk for £8.99. Does any piece of the written music require you to turn a page over: yes, 1 piece. [u]Executive Summary[/u]: More a fun play-along than instructional. I own a copy of the book and have worked through it from start to finish. The book's subtitle is rubbish. The book is a bit more of a history guide, giving short example basslines from all the eras of reggae in the order, early ska (2 examples), rock steady (16 examples), reggae (12 examples), roots reggae (8 examples), modern ska (2 examples), and dancehall (6 examples). But since the basslines only start on page 11 and finish on page 29, it's very much a race through time rather than a "Complete Guide". The examples range in size from 1 bar to 40 bars. The basslines are all introduced as "in the style of" / "similar to" <well known song name>. The bassline is then pretty much the line used in a well known recording of the <well known song name>. You can use these references as a spring-board into listening to more material by the original artists of the styles you like best. There isn't a great deal of instruction. I felt that I would have benefitted more if there had been more pointing out of the detailed characteristics of the basslines, or bar by bar analysis, or even a 'notice the use of chord progression I-IV in this song'. To know at the end of each section that if you 'play like this' you will sound like you are playing reggae bass or ska bass, or whatever, you need to do most of the analysis/understanding work yourself. This may be the best way to a deeper understanding, but it doesn't help those who need more help generally, and I always worry that I might have missed something. To be fair to the book, it does not claim to be anything other than a "Guide"; but to be fair to the reader, the book should not claim to be "The Complete Guide". I suspect that most people's expectations of the book would not be achieved. The included CD:[list] [*]46 tracks to play along to [*]the tracks are short - the longest is 1 minute 25 seconds [*]the music is real instruments played by real musicians [*]the bass is on the left channel, so can be 'turned off' [*]each track has a drum stick count in [/list] The last three bullet points here are really important characteristics of play-along CDs, so it's good to see them. I felt that the CD was good quality, regardless of the shortness of the tracks. I thoroughly enjoyed playing along and have dipped back in several times to my favourites. If you want to see the man himself play along to some of the tracks on the CD, Ed has a sales pitch video for his book: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-dAZrBlGOY[/media]. (It's not a hard-sell video, so worth a look.) It may not be quite what you'd hope or expect, but if you are just getting into playing reggae bass then I believe that you will not be wasting your time and that you will definitely get your money's worth buying this book.

A few days after my original post I noticed that, (a) quite a few people had looked at it, but not replied, which I took to mean that there is interest but a lack of owners, and (b) I spotted that Guitar Guitar, an authorised Ashdown dealer, had just got some in. I thought, sod it, there's only one real way to find out about this pedal... It arrived a few days ago on time and well packaged. Cost £125 + £5 p&p. Since I've only had it a few days, this review is facts (Ashdown don't publish the user manual on their web site) plus some first-impression experience/opinion. It is "Designed in the UK, Made in China". It is sturdily built and quite large and heavy. It comes with a 9V battery and the battery compartment does not need any tools to get into. It can also be run by a power supply (which is not supplied). It is switched on by plugging into the Input jack, if you are on battery, or by turning on the external power supply; you can tell it is on because the VU meter is illuminated. Plugging in an external power supply disconnects the internal battery. The equalisation is two-fold: the obvious 12 bands, switched on/off by the right foot switch, and being on is indicated by an led at that side; and then there is a fixed shape that is switched on/off by the left foot switch and being on is indicated by an led at that side. These two equalisations can be used separately or together. The fixed shape is described as, "+8db @ 50Hz & 4kHz, -8db @ 400Hz, filter slope 6db per octave." There are four knobs. 1. the Input signal knob. This is there to allow for different sorts of basses being plugged in; you adjust the knob until the needle on the 'trade mark' Ashdown meter is at least 0 whilst you play. This is a little more refined than simply active/passive - you can match more precisely the bass in use to the device. (At least, I reckon that that this is the theory behind it. However, see my experience below.) 2. the Shape knob. This adjusts the amount of the pre-shaped signal passing to the output (when the pre-shaped EQ is on, of course). 3. the Graphic Level knob. This adjusts the amount of the graphic EQ'd signal passing to the output (when the graphic EQ is on, of course). 4. the D.I. Level knob. This adjusts the level of the signal that is sent to the D.I. XLR on the rear of the device. The signal is post EQ. "The output signal from this XLR socket is set to a level and impedance suitable for connecting directly into the Microphone input of a mixing desk for either Direct Injection into the PA system or for recording. This must ONLY be used into a Balanced Microphone input, it is not intended for any other type of connection." There is no ground lift switch for the D.I. output. My experience now. A bad start. The battery that came with it, and the battery was cellophane wrapped, was not strong enough to power the device properly - the lights came on, but the EQ'ing didn't happen - leaving me thinking that it was broken! I put in a new Duracell; that sorted it. I also tried a 9V power supply that I had kicking around. The VU meter lit up wonderfully. But a loud low frequency hum out of my amp was also the result; it was unusable. The manual says that one should use a "9v stabilised power adapter". The word "stabilised" is important here. There was one result for "stabilised power supply" on amazon.co.uk, but plenty for "regulated power supply". I'm not an electronics engineer so I asked Ashdown about this and the implication of the response was that "stabilised" and "regulated" mean the same thing. I played safe and bought the power supply actually stated as stabilised from Amazon (£10) - this indeed sorted out the hum. Both my basses (one passive and one with a Redeemer) could not get the VU needle anywhere near 0 with the volume fully open and the input signal knob full up! This was, and remains, disconcerting. I don't see the point of this meter if I cannot adjust the input signal as instructed. I asked Ashdown about this and the response was that, "The signal level from your bass must be expecially low [...] It means you will not be driving your amp fully." Hmmm... I hadn't noticed that, but as a home bassist I guess that I wouldn't notice. Does my 2010 MIA Fender Precision really have an especially low signal output? I don't hear a great deal of difference when using the top two sliders. I also found the 30Hz slider to be pretty ineffectual. Maybe a 5-stringer would notice a difference. (The manual does say that the 30Hz slider is there for you to cut such frequencies "to a level that allows the speaker system to work at its maximum efficiency".) The sliders are quite close together and the part that you touch to alter them is fairly small. They don't have much travel (2.5cm) so one has to be somewhat disciplined in their setting. Once I had found a good setting I was loath to alter any of them because I didn't think I could get things back to how they were! I took photos as a way to record settings I liked. Here's one that I hope displays clearly enough: [attachment=136782:Ashdown 12 band graphic EQ-DI pedal.jpg] I really like the pre-shaped setting. Yes, the one that doesn't use the 12 band graphic equaliser! After some faffing around with it, I ended up finding a setting that made the combination of my bass, my amp, and my room, sound awesome. The setting used both equalisations together (with no added EQ'ing on my amp). Suddenly it all seemed worth it. I tried to reproduce the sound plugging straight into my amp and using its 5 band graphic equaliser, but could not achieve the same fullness of sound. I have not used the D.I. output so cannot comment on it. I don't play live so cannot comment on its use in that situation. Playing around with this has made me see the benefit of having a few pre-shaped equalisations, or being able to store a few of your own for later instant retrieval, because you could fiddle for days with the permutations and combinations here - 12 bands, a pre-shape, your bass's tone controls and your amp's tone controls. (I always started with my amp's tones at neutral, and tried to alter them the least, ideally not at all.) With 12 bands you can't easily switch from one shape to another. If you are going to alter the settings a lot then you will want a table by your side with this on it so that you are not forever bending down to tweak the sliders! I wanted more control over the sound of my bass than the usual 3 band equalisation on amps. After having fiddled with this pedal for ages I began to question if there is a God of EQ'ing or if simple is best and to just get on and play bass. Those who sing the praises of flat EQ would probably agree. But they won't have even started to read this thread! However, my experience is that equalisation is an essential ingredient of getting the sound you want; just get good at it so that you aren't forever messing around with it. If it broke or got stolen would I buy another to replace it? Well, this is not the first piece of Ashdown kit that I have had niggles with, so I think that I might look at alternative options first. In the meantime I will enjoy the full rich sound that I've got. I hope this helps and that you feel that you got my 140 pounds worth!