Ashdown Dr. Green Doctors Note

The Ashdown Doctors Note is a bass envelope filter pedal from Ashdown's Dr. Green range of bass effects. An envelope filter listens to how hard you play and sweeps a filter in response, producing the vowel-like "wah" movement familiar from funk and fusion bass lines. Delicious Audio described the Doctors Note as "full of huge traditional sonic envelope goodness", which places it firmly in the classic envelope filter camp rather than the more experimental synth-filter territory some modern pedals occupy. Ashdown says its simple rotary controls let you "dial in and set your oscillating frequencies with ease".¹

Controls

The pedal keeps things straightforward. According to Delicious Audio, "Simple rotary controls enable you to dial in and set your oscillating frequencies with ease", meaning the knobs set where the filter sweeps and how it responds to your playing.¹

What that means on a board:

• No menu diving or preset system: turn a knob, the filter changes, and you hear the result immediately.¹
• The knobs set the oscillating frequencies, so the sweep sits where your playing style needs it.¹
• The design aims at traditional envelope tones rather than synth-style filter effects.¹

The Dr. Green range

The Doctors Note is one of the hand-made pedals in Ashdown's Dr. Green range of bass effects, sitting alongside the rest of that line as its envelope filter offering.¹

The range had a tinkerer's streak built in. Premier Guitar's press release noted the pedals included "old-school chip holders for the tweakers out there", so the circuits could be modified by opening them up.² The OctaDose octave pedal from the same range was described as tracking "down to a low-B with the utmost precision", a detail that matters to five-string bass players considering the family.¹

Ashdown context

Ashdown's pedal line runs from the Dr. Green range through signature designs such as the Lomenzo Mega Drive, the Triple Shot and the Stuart Zender FUNK FACE, a bass twin dynamic filter aimed at the same funk territory the Doctors Note covers. For players who need tuning on the same board, Ashdown also makes the Dr Green TuneUp, a high-visibility tuner pedal for guitar and bass in a robust steel housing with heavy duty switching, covering the chromatic note range from A through G#.³

For more envelope and filter options beyond Ashdown, see the Filter Pedals type page, and for the wider line, Bass Pedals.

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