All Activity

Sounds a bit proggy to me...

It's that time of year again, the slate is wiped clean and it's time to pledge to abstain from the capitalist consumption of bass gear (or any music gear at all, if you're going hardcore). I would like to thank @Richard R for his sterling work during 2025, and for these well crafted rules which I will be copying wholesale The RULES Tier 1 Challenge During the calendar year of 2026 (01/01/26 00:00 - 31/12/26 23:59:59): - No bass gear purchases/trades whatsoever, be that amps, pedals, basses, accessories. Tier 2 challenge (should you play other instruments, engage in music production etc) - As above, but extended to your other musical gear Allowances in both tiers: - Consumables such as Strings (sticks, skins, reeds, batteries etc) Buying a set of new strings that happen to be attached to a bass is out. - Maintenance/setups that only involve work on existing aspects of your bass (ie no purchasing a preamp to add to it) - Breakages. If something breaks through no unusual intervention of your own, and is unable to be repaired, you may replace it. - Already committed purchases. If you have purchased something in 2024, you are able to take delivery of it within 2025. If you have put down a deposit on something before committing to this, which then requires a final payment within 2025, that single payment permitted. - Genuinely unsolicited presents, which you had no involvement in choosing. (So going out with your partner to play a bunch of bases, choosing one, and then them buying it for you would be a fail. But we would all applaud and cheer you and your partner and want to know what you got and why!) - Educational purchases, ie tutorial books, lessons, anything that furthers your playing is permitted. Buying a proper usb sound card so your on-line lessons work better would probably be OK. Buying one because you might have on-line lessons but haven’t boked any is definitely out. (A bit like the cops overlooking you speeding to take your wife to hospital to give birth, but they wouldn’t overlook you speeding to a date where you might get her pregnant!) Amendments: Without setting precedent for future years: 1.Normal cables are allowed this year, even if they aren't replacing breakages. (Wireless or any non-conventtional systems aren't) 2.Purchases made with music-store specific loyalty points are allowed. We could get tighter with the definition, but let's just allow if for now. (But I couldn't use the Amazon points I am racking up on work travel and hotels to buy a set of machine heads) 3.Asking for gift vouchers for a present then spending them on gear is still a fail when you spend them. Straps, plectrums and sundries are still OK. Grey areas: - PA equipment has been a Tier 2 fail, but if it’s for a band you don’t play in but do sound for then we can probably argue it’s OK. - There used to be a convention that things not in the signal path didn’t count. So straps, stands and the like were allowed. I'm cool with that - what do others think? - Parts for bitsas I think are out. MOST IMPORTANTLY This is a bit of fun. The idea is just to make us think "Do I really need it?" before buying something, and to maybe focus on playing more than purchasing. Nobody will get punished for buying another Fender, or even a Ric, it's your time and money to do what you wish with. So see how long you last, enjoy seeing how far you and others get, and let's try to keep the economy flatlined for as long as possible. The runners and riders will appear here: @neepheid

Ovacandidaphobia?

Nothing for 2 years. Next year might be different.

AliExpress's new year sale starts at 11pm, so that's an hour to get a Chinese mystery bass before the 2026 thread starts.

I have now! For £21, which feels like a bargain (until I add the cost of the rail trip to Neath....)

That's music to my ears, I love classic rock and blues. 🙂 It could be up to six months before we actually get our move, but I will definitely drop you a PM when it finally happens., thanks for your help.

Cowboys and Angels, Jesus to a Child - George Michael. Whether you love or hate the guy, the man had talent

White Egg Terror might have some mileage as a band name...

I failed on December 30th

I have a pair of the CTM112's, which seem a very close cousin of the RM cabs, if not identical. I use mine with a 30w valve Little Bastard, so not had chance to really run them at a high wattage. Always used electric bass too, no acoustic sorry. I really like them. They're very lightweight which was a big plus for me. Small form means they fit into a car boot easily and don't take up a ton of space when not being used. I don't use tweeters so I can't comment on the quality of those. My experience is limited with only using the 30w but I'd quite like to get a smaller, higher-wattage head and put them through their paces. Running the Little Bastard as full bore, the cabs didn't seem to be struggling at all. Hope this is some help

While searching for possible sources for Sqoes, I discovered an article about the factory: https://guitarbomb.com/philippines-china-inside-sqoe-guitar-factory/

I made another year sans nouveau basses (I don’t know why I’ve gone all French). I hope to not repeat the performance for 2026.

You know you want a Dean 10-string...

Take a picture, load the file into Irfanview, crop it and maybe scale it down, save as a .jpg. Drag/choose file. If you copy an image direct into BC, it will convert it into a file called image.png - PNG isn't as compressed a format as JPG, and also it won't be optimised for image size. The other advantage of doing this is that if you use a unique name for the file, you can reuse it in BC without taking up any more space by choosing "Use existing attachment" from the Other Media dropdown.

Stuck a recording on a mini disc (remember them) and used that one year when I used to DJ. Tried playing it from a recording on a CD one year before and the CD was scratched! It stuck a wee bit! In fact I think there are still folk out there holding their glasses up waiting for the chimes...

Just received a Alpha omega clone by DSfx, excellent build quality inside n out. The other black pedals ... DOD carcosa,green russian (blend n diode selection) , Darkglass vintage and a Keeley delay clone. Should be a new Boss xs-1 on there that my wife bought me for Xmas, after one day it wasn't working right (now on back order 😒).

That may be a prejudice, but surely not an irrational one.

Oh that's a given but ideally for snagging rather than expecting to have problems. It would be nice to have a plan going into that.

Haha. That would be cool, I’d do that if I was playing in my rock/metal band, but this one is more pop/soul.