Have you seen Trace Elliot's new programmable pre-amp? God, it's amazing. Expensive, too. Trace Elliot? Those really loud, good quality bass rigs, the ultra-violet lights that you see behind so many well-off touring bassists. Yes, them.

Trace Elliot's rack systems go for 'separates': they have a pre-amp with all the controls on it, including a 11-band graphic EQ; a simple but bloody powerful amp; and a cab or two. The standard pre-amp that they use in all their stuff is the GP11, but this new MP11 is a programmable version.

Programmable? The MP11 saves your graphic EQ settings: you can change to different sounds instantly. "No more having to go up and down like a whore's drawers on my GP11 in the backline," as that Mark King told us.

It's got ten graphic presets that Trace Elliot like and that you can't change — one's an everything-at-zero setting, good for comparison. They're obviously based on sound knowledge of bass players' favoured noises: a couple of good 'wings' graphic shapes — the highest and lowest frequencies boosted, and the mids cut, good for ordinary fingerstuff; a severe top boost and mid hump shape that's great for slapping; another with a mild bottom boost and ultra-high boost which we liked for harmonic work.

You can also put in 10 settings of your own. It's dead easy: select 'user' rather than 'preset' mode, choose the memory number, make up the setting on the graphic, and press enter. Saved. Doddle.

You can buy a big footswitch for it. This has the memory numbers (0-9), a switch each to select preset or user memories (slightly different from the amp's method, but no probs), and a volume up/down.

We had great fun: changing from one sound to a completely different one instantly is an obvious boon. Good old technology. Some minor moans. The amp's up/down switches for the graphic and levels were a bit insensitive at times, and when you're fiddling with these you can sometimes get warmed by the heat of the UV bulbs in the strip directly below. And there's the cost. The MP11 with footswitch is £1075 (gulp); the complete rig we tested, power amp, cab and all, came to close on two grand. You could easily spend more. The normal pre-amp, the GP11, is £300 — so you're paying a hefty £500-plus for the pleasure of programmability. This seems an awful lot extra.

But this seems like part of the best bass system around. And what TE do today, other more budget makers will be doing tomorrow. So even if you're not thinking of spending this sort of money on your bass gear, it's as well to keep an eye on the developments. If you have got the money, this is the stuff.

TRACE ELLIOT MP11 PROGRAMMABLE PRE-AMP £845