Evolution of the parton densities at NLO in α S usingW 2 = Q 2 (1 − z)/z instead of the usual Q 2 for the scale of the running coupling α S is investigated. While this renormalisation scale change was originally proposed as the relevant one for x → 1, we explore the consequences for all x with this choice. While it leads to no improvement to the description of DIS data, the nature of the gluon at low x, low Q 2 is different, avoiding the need for a 'valence-like' gluon.