Hipshot D-Tuner H20600C

Recently I played a gig where I needed that low D, just for one song section. So I ordered myself the D-Tuner to go on my old Warwick, set it up in no time and after a little tweak, got it bang in tune. Worked perfectly!
I also play in a band where half of the songs are in drop D, no more faffing about tuning after each song! It's great. Well built, accurate, reliable and easy to fit and use.

The Hipshot D-Tuner is admittedly expensive, but is a precision piece of engineering.

I need to play notes below low-E for a number of different genres, but could never get the hang of a five-string bass. This device suits my purposes perfectly. It comes with clear, concise instructions and is easy to fit.

In use, it is simply a case of flipping the lever to drop the fourth string to D. Its operation is accurate and stable.

I found it so useful that I bought another for my fretless bass. This has the added advantage of facilitating parallel octaves across the second and fourth strings.

Recommended.

A must have for people that have to play D-tuned (pun intended) on a regular basis. To first setup both tunings can be a bit long, but once set, it won't move.

Note that the way it works you actually chose a tone difference for both tunings, not an absolute note, meaning that you can set it to range anywhere from a half step down to two full steps or maybe more. EG. you can set it to drop from say E to D#, D, C# or even C if your string gauge allows it.

I've been using it for more than a year now on my main bass and I'm more than happy with this product. Besides its practicality it alleviates the strain on the E string that a non stop tuning from E to D brings.

The only downside that comes to mind is that the diameter of the pot where the string is coiled onto is a bit big, so the main tuning key itself is quite sensitive, sometimes a bit too much for my taste. But thanks to a great build quality the tuning doesn't move all that much anyway.