Construction: 8.5/10: Fairly rugged and durable.
Ease of use: 9/10: Very straighforward controls.
Tone: 9.5/10: Great to have, live or in the studio. My guitarist just had to borrow it!

I first heard mention of an Ashly bass preamp as part of Darryl Jones' touring rig with the Rolling Stones, and then a few months later I also caught the name Ashly as part of a Nashville session bassist's full-time studio rack. After winning one on eBay, I got to see firsthand what makes the Ashly BP41 bass preamp so worthy of such rigorous and prestigious professional use.

The unit is fairly straightforward, with dual inputs, 3-band EQ, semi-parametric EQ, an effects loop, a crossover, a DI section and a "stage amp" output. For added flexibility, both of these outputs can be switched between line level and instrument level output, and the DI has the usual pre/post EQ and ground lift options. The effects loop can be switched in and out, and the "stage amp" section can be muted. A signal LED at the initial input stage and a clip light at the "stage amp" stage are helpful for dialing in the optimum amount of gain.

That's all fairly standard; nothing earth-shatteringly innovative. What really caught my attention with the Ashly was the tone. It's the best that solid state circuitry has to offer: clean, tight and musical. This is one of those units that you can't get to sound truly bad. Every setting sounds good; some settings are just more useful than others. If you've ever wrestled with a crappy preamp, trying in vain to find the one good setting that doesn't exist, you'll appreciate the difference.

Right after the input, there's a "presence" button, similar in function to the "enhance" knobs found on amps by Eden and SWR. It kicks in extra bottom end and a nice attack in the treble range, for a sound that really stands out. Once you've auditioned it, you may not want to ever do without, but it's nice to be able to defeat it, for those occasions when you want to lose the highs.

Next in line are the "bass", "mid", and "treble" knobs, which all do exactly what you expect them to, and do it well. Good EQ voicing in action! After wrestling with the passive tone controls on my Alembic tube preamp (which sound great, but can be somewhat moody and unpredictable), it's a nice change to work with controls that are so intuitive and useful.

Finally, there's the semi-parametric EQ. The bandwidth control has only two settings: wide for tone shaping and narrow for notch filtering. Set on "wide", the parametric EQ is great for adding a nice low-mid bump that gives a bass signal a warm presence, without muddying up the overall mix. On "narrow", the filter is nearly inaudible: perfect for killing feedback without wreaking havoc on the overall EQ curve. An infinitely adjustable "Q" would have been cool, but hey: I'd rather have one band of semi-parametric EQ that sounds good than multiple bands of fully parametric EQ that don't. (No names mentioned.)

The Ashly is an invaluable tool for recording, especially in settings where you need to get a bass sound QUICKLY (i.e. 99.9% of freelance studio calls). When tweaking settings, my guesses are very often correct, and that makes for very fast and effective last-minute adjustments. On my funk band's latest CD project, the Ashly saw constant use, and it helped my bass tracks sit very nicely in the mix. The guitar player even took a liking to it, and soon favored it over his guitar amp's line out for direct recording.

Onstage, the Ashly was nice, but I quickly found myself missing my Alembic F-1X preamp. The Ashly can't quite match the organic warmth of the Alembic tube circuit at stage volume. Each unit works great, but they seem to occupy a slightly different niche. While the Ashly didn't last very long in my stage rack, it is still my hands-down favorite for recording.