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Sound:
This is a wonderful little piece of gear. I have one of the original incarnations and I have used mine every day since I bought it. The sound can vary from bass to bass, you will have to experiment to find the best setting, my biggest gripe is that it is a bit underpowered.
Feature:
The only fly in the ointment is that it does not come with an ac adaptor; if you plan on buying one of these things, make sure that you open up your wallet a bit wider and get the adaptor for it. One reviewer stated that this thing goes through batteries like his kid brother goes through potato chips, that is an apt analogy.
The most useful features are the tuner and the bass track supression. I never use the onboard effects and, frankly, this gadget has more features than I know what to do with!
Ease of Use:
I have to agree that the user interface could be made a bit more user friendly.
Quality:
Very well made, I dropped mine a couple of times and it's working like a champ.
Value:
This is probably the most useful piece of gear that I have purchased in over thirty years of playing the bass.
Manufacturer Support:
Never needed any support.
The Wow Factor:
It looks like a solid, reliable piece of gear, because it is!
Overall:
I have not seen anyone else come up with a product that even comes close for the money you spend!
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Sound:
As to the sound: pretty good really. Once you figure out to get the mix right between your incoming bass signal and the recorded CD it sounds pretty good. It took me a long time to get both levels adjusted right because of the poor instructions in the owners manual on how to easily achieve this. It was so hard to figure this out the first time I used the bass trainer that after a few hours of total frustration, I was ready to throw the thing in the trash can! If it had come with easy to follow instructions in the owner's manual then it would of been a breeze, but it didn't. You have to have a lot of patience to use this thing the first time around...
Feature:
As to features: You must buy a AC adapter from day one- because it will eat up batteries faster than your kid brother can go through a bag of potato chips! It should come with an AC adapter, and the batteries should be the option to use, not the other way around. It also has all thess special effects which you don't need to practice along to a CD-it only makes the using of it much more confusing and complicated. Tascam should of kept it much more basic- as it's a practicing tool, and not a performing amp. Sometimes less is better...
Quality:
As to quality: it seems to be made well. No problems here. I use it almost on a daily basis and it always works well. Even dropped it once on a hardwood floor and it still works. I own other Tascam recording equipment and years later all of it is still working great!
Value:
As to value: It would be nice if it would cost about $50.00 less than it does-given what it does. It should come with an AC adapter because without it it's pretty much useless unless you personally own a battery company that can supply you with an endless supply of batteries that it quickly gobbles up. But then again there's not much else out there at the present time to compare it to.
Manufacturer Support:
As to support: there is none as far as I'm concerned- at least for basic questions that you may have about their products, such as how to operate them. Tascam provides you with no toll free number to ask them questions about operating the BT1- so you are at the mercy of the totally lame instructional manual that comes with it. Seems to me that as big as Tascam is that they should at least have a phone number for you to call when needing some help or advice. The guys at the local music store couldn't even help me out with some of my questions about the bass trainer, as even they couldn't figure out Tascam's owner's manual. As to service support I have no experience- so I can't say anything about that.
The Wow Factor:
Without a doubt it's a great teaching tool to own. Having the feature of being able to slow the speed down of a song without changing the pitch of it to learn licks is great! It's also nice to be able to practice along with CD with headphones on without distributing anyone else in the house. I sit on the couch, plug my bass in, put headphones on, and practice away. It's helped me a lot with my playing I think. It'slike having a very portable practice amp.
Overall:
Overall: I'm happy with my purchase and use it almost on a daily basis- but as I have said over and over again the owner's instructional manual that comes with it is just terrible!
5 of 5 people
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Sound:
For a practice tool, the sound is excellent. The CD tempo change feature (while keeping pitch constant) of course results in some audo artifacts when set to extremes, but it is still useable. The bass effects are very good and specifically tailored to the bass. I would seriously consider using this as a recording "front end" when tracking a bass part.
Feature:
Outstanding flexibility. Virtually all settings are adjustable, and the quantity of options is surprising for a unit costing this little.
Quality:
Build quality is very good. All jacks, switches, buttons and sockets are solid with a good feel.
Value:
Really good value. You're getting a very bass-specific, high quality tool that would have easily cost twice the street price.
Manufacturer Support:
I would have liked to have gotten a copy of the user's manual from the Tascam web site prior to purchase. However, it's not posted. Other than that, I've not needed to contact Tascam for any support.
Overall:
I am very satisfied. I know of no other product that does what this does in one convenient box. NOTE that this device eats batteries (4 AA's) for lunch. Make certain to get the AC adapter. Tascam charges $20, but you can probably get a suitable 9VDC unit for far less at Radio Shack.
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Sound:
Sound is ok
Feature:
It has the features I bought it for, but I cant comment because it works so poorly
Ease of Use:
Extremely hard to program (and I'm a programmer by trade). The scrap of paper that serves as documentation is a joke. Takes forever to respond to certain keystrokes. I almost through it against the wall more than once.
Quality:
The cover is held on with 2 tiny (1 mm) plastic tits, one of which broke off in the first week.
Value:
don't buy it
Manufacturer Support:
I didn't try yet
The Wow Factor:
If it worked as advertised it'd be great
Overall:
Besides being cheaply made, there are some electonic problems that keep it from performing as well as my old Sony on the same cd.
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