No brass, no flutes, no drums, no effects — just bass, bass, and more bass. Derek Johnson feels the earth move as he puts Peavey's Spectrum Bass module through its paces.

Dedicated bass sound sources are definitely a good idea, if a little rare in real life — Roland's chic and funky TB303 Bassline bass-plus-sequencer combination continues to be amazingly popular, and for those who still own a 360 Systems Pro MIDI Bass sample-based bass expander, there is no replacement. Until now, that is. Peavey's Spectrum Bass DPM synth module provides bass, the whole bass, and nothing but the bass. If that sounds restrictive, then worry not: the sounds provided range from traditional plucked electric, through slap and pop, to fizzy FM-style and deep, gutsy synth bass sounds, with everything in between — including harmonics.

The raison d'etre for Peavey's move into this market is simple: they have recently developed a sophisticated MIDI controller in the form of a bass guitar — the MIDIbase. The Spectrum Bass was designed as a dedicated source of synthesized sound for use with the MIDIbase. To regard it as that only, however, would be to do the unit an injustice, as well as restricting potential sales. The Spectrum Bass is especially intriguing to those of us who appreciate specialisation; a unit designed to do one thing only has a very good chance of doing it well.

THE CASE FOR BASS

Look at the Spectrum, and words like "inscrutable" spring to mind. A plainer 1U black box you could not imagine — there isn't even a liquid crystal display to break up the terrain. Internally, however, the Spectrum Bass has almost everything you'd expect from a sound module: 1 MB of 16-bit sampled waveforms from the DPM3 stable of synths, multi-timbrality and a comprehensive MIDI spec. It is only 8-voice polyphonic, but that shouldn't present many problems — how many basses are capable of 8-note chords? — and multi-timbrality is limited to four parts. Peavey's MIDIbase has just four strings, but four parts is plenty for layering and panning bass sounds. If you want more than four bass parts going at once, see a doctor.

Controls on that elegantly sparse front panel consist of volume, preset, MIDI channel and transpose knobs, and fine tune and MIDI mode select buttons; the mode select buttons also access the Spectrum's legato modes, which allow you to play a run of notes without retriggering each one. Connections consist of MIDI sockets and left and right output jacks.

DOWN TO THE SOUND

Sound-wise, there are 200 presets on board the Spectrum Bass and, due to the lack of a display, these presets are nameless — they're not even named in the manual! This lack of a list of names could be pretty awkward with 200 presets on offer, and it seems pretty silly not to provide names in the manual, especially since they do actually exist — enquiries at Peavey UK produced the required list of monikers from their promotional literature. This list should actually be supplied with all future machines — if you buy one and the list is absent, don't hesitate to give Peavey a call, and they'll set you right.

Presets are arranged in two banks, and you can access the full range only via MIDI Bank Select and Program Change commands; the first 14 sounds only are available on the Preset select knob. The presets take in a wide variety of classic bass sounds, whether of the traditional plucked (Jazz, Precision, etc.) or of the classic synth variety. Peavey have a pretty wide definition of 'synth', with DX-like FM basses, full Jupiter 8 sounds, funky and resonant sounds, sub-bass for dance, and so on. It's hard to think of a genus of bass sound that a musician could want that isn't available here — there are even upright and acoustic bass presets. The voice architecture itself is fairly traditional: DCO, resonant DCF, DCA followed by a pan pot, with LFO modulating the DCO, and comprehensive envelopes on the DCF and DCA.

There are no memories as such, just one edit buffer, where you can alter one sound as much as you like, although with no dedicated front panel editing controls; this is a job for SysEx enthusiasts only (the manual does give all relevant information). Over MIDI, continuous controllers can be used to alter the sound in real time while playing or sequencing. Sophisticated sequencing software, such as Cubase and Notator, often has a suitable page that allows you to do this from your computer. Peavey themselves even make a slick MIDI controller called the PC1600 which has 16 faders and 16 buttons that can be programmed to generate any MIDI data, and generic software editors could be configured to do the job. As I said, all the information is in the manual, but utilising it will take a little work.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The bottom line (bottom end?) is that the Spectrum Bass is a very welcome product. MIDI control is well thought out, as you'd expect from Peavey who have become quite old hands at this synth business. Multi-timbrality is a bit of a bonus, allowing you to make some very wicked or subtle moves with the bass side of your mixes. Given the wide variety of presets, it's impossible to give a real impression of the quality of this unit. Let's just say that the analogue type sounds have a lot of depth and punch, and that the 'real' bass sounds are convincing and equally punchy — but note that there are subtle sounds to be had as well. It could equally suit the rave and techno crowd in search of rumbling, floorshaking bass, or those synthesising a real, four piece band in their computer.

My only problems with the Spectrum are to do with the preset nature of the beast — even 200 quality presets are still presets. This does ensure ease of use, of course, but the facility to save just a few user-defined sounds would have been useful. Some sounds are perhaps a little samey, and there is no easy way to keep track of which ones you like best, bar a copy of Peavey's list and pen and paper, since there isn't even a numerical display on the unit. Also, there are no on-board effects. This would no doubt have added to the cost, but a simple chorus and reverb would have been sufficient.

Summing up the Spectrum is tricky, since it has no competition. For the money, I could easily see the Spectrum Bass taking over the majority of bass line duties in a lot of MIDI studios. Perhaps you're thinking: "But I could buy a second hand synth for £279. Why should I buy a Spectrum?" Good point, good question — but going back to my earlier point, the Spectrum has been designed to do one thing, and it does it exceptionally well. Besides, £279 won't buy you a lot of second hand synth — a General MIDI module won't have anywhere near the breadth of bass sounds found on Peavey's unit, and a second hand analogue synth (mono or poly) at this price won't have the digital side of sound covered, may need an additional MIDI interface, could have tuning problems, and will take up more room.

A lot of the best synth bass sounds tend to be layered, so just think of the polyphony that you'd free up by adding a Spectrum to your MIDI rig. Peavey's Spectrum Bass sounds great and could enhance your set-up collection in many other ways.

Further information

Peavey Spectrum Bass £279 inc VAT.

Peavey Electronics (UK) Ltd, (Contact Details).