SIMON: Hi. Simon here for Laney. We're here at the NAMM Show 2007, and I'd like to talk you through some of our new gear that we've got demonstrating here at the NAMM Show.

Behind me, you will see here the new Nexus range, which is basically a -- It comes as two models really. The Nexus Tube, which is a 400-watt all-tube bass monster amplifier that runs eight KT88's in the output section with an assignable FET or tube preamp section. It's really, you know, it's high-end gear. It sounds stunning. It's based really straight in rock, you know, finger-style bass players.

The unit next to it is the Nexus FET amplifier. It has basically the same preamp but going into a 650-watt MOSFET output stage. Tubes are great for bass if you're playing fingerstyle, but if you start to slap and pop, then sometimes the slew rates that you can find on the tubes aren't best suited for that style of high notes followed by low notes, so I think, you know, if you're a slapper and a finger-style player then maybe you want a bit more clarity, then the FET amplifier is just absolutely up your street.

In combination with the Nexus heads, we have a range of Nexus cabinets. The Nexus Tube is sat on top of an 810 cabinet which is a 1600-watt cabinet which can be split into two 410 cabinet configurations, giving you 800 watts per speaker. We also run a standalone 410 speaker and a standalone 115.

I think one of the things with bass guitar is that bass unfortunately equals weight. What we try and do is try and reduce the amount of weight that bass players have to carry around by using the new generation of Celestion neodymium speakers. They basically have fantastic magnet qualities in them and you can reduce the output of the -- sorry -- reduce the weight of the magnet side of things without reducing the output so significantly reducing the amount of weight that you have to move around.

From a control point of view, you happen to have the actual input in the amplifier which you can pad down to take account of active and passive basses. You then have a selectable FET channel input or a selectable tube channel input. You can run them both together or you can actually just isolate one or either. When not selected, the amp port actually mutes itself. Then what you'll do is select your input path and dial in the amount of gain that you want from the signal point of view. Similarly with the tube, there is a tube gain and a tube level, which means if you set it with a very high tube gain, you can actually get true distortion.

Both models feature the same preamp, and even though this is a FET output section, it still has two tubes in the input section, so the tube gain and the tube level can give you, you know, pure tube distortion to give you like really wild fuzz bass. You then have a standard active bass and treble. You then have an assignable low, mid, high mid, both of which are parametric. Dial in the frequency that you want to cut or boost and then just decide how much you want to cut or boost it by. There is an onboard compressor, there is an onboard six-band graphic, all of which can be footswitched in and out. Anything that can be switched on the front panel can be switched by the footswitch. There is a sub control, which is like a pre-shaped low end EQ. There is a presence control, which affects the higher frequencies of the bass units, and then there is a deep control, which is a similar effect of presence but on the low end side of things.