This marvellous bit of the 1970s gave the guitarist / bassist the opportunity to be Rick Wakeman for a while. This is where it all really started - the first set of bass synth pedals that the professionals really took seriously. Is it as loud as the professionals claimed it to be? Absolutely. It makes the Hall shake - we have had complaints about it from people living in different buildings. In the environments it was designed for, you feel it, then hear it. Yet it DI's straight into the Focusrite, or through the Fishman Soundbox mini and that big arena feeling is right there in the headphones without any tinkering. The Octave button allows you to double the pedal count, and a quick well rehearsed manoeuvre will actually unleash 4 octaves for your feet. Even plugged into a simple transistor amp, this will produce the arena shaking bass - it delivers a real feeling of power even at low decibel counts.
 
These don't regularly come up for sale - often they have lost their control panel surround which is exposes the guts to too much of the outside world of a gig. This example is far from mint, but has not lost any pedals, knobs, or vital components. As with most surviving examples, it has a wonky power cable grommet, but this is still holding firm and doesn't affect its functionality. The LED for the Variable switch has given up, and we have decided not to violate the main PCB to replace this. Other than that, the unit functions as it should. If I were to really nit-pick, just the Oscillator B Frequency slider sometimes needs a little gentle persuasion to fire up its pitch, but it ultimately never fails to do so.
 
It's big, it's basic, it's heavy and it's expensive. But worth it for the vanishingly rare opportunity to make and be seen making, these sounds for real.
 
The previous owner hauled it around in an adapted golf bag, but admits it hasn't been used in anger since the late 1980s. It's 13kg by itself - a typical case will probably nearly double that. This one does not come with a flight case, so ideally, we will carry it down the stairs and place it into your car, but if shipping is required, we had better talk about the options which would include a £375 Swan-Flight Taurus case in yellow. Get our contact details from our matsumoku.rocks website and we can discuss.