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Ooh, I might actually last a bit longer this year given I’m now unemployed.

I only heard of her last week too, though via a random DJ’s post on Facebook where he posted a few snippets of tracks from that year.

OK Everyone, I'm going to call it! The winners are: @barkin @prowla @paul_5 @NJE @jimmyb625 @Jono Bolton @Downunderwonder @Maude @TimR The first out awards go to @SumOne and @Quatschmacher, both out on 5th Jan. There are too many interesting purchases to award a winner for that so I won't. Special sneaky award to @Mrbigstuff, who changed his name half way through in order to confuse me. It worked! Over to here now:

I’m absolutely in, 2026 is a year of learning to play rather than learning to spend more 😀

I'm a bit torn about that. I've been quite interested in an Anagram and I have to admit that having a Doom 2 on board is enticing. It just feels a bit odd to put boutique pedals on it. I wonder where the line is (if there is a line). It's obviously okay for Darkglass to put a dent in their physical pedal sales by including their own pedals. There are also a lot of copies of big muffs, mu-trons and other pedals made by large-scale manufacturers. I don't think the case for inclusion is as clear cut as the Darkglass pedals but these pedals have been copied a lot already so the cat is out the bag (Musitronics recently made a joking post about wanting the name of Klon's lawyers challenging Behringer so there is a degree of frustration). There isn't much recourse in law to protect the circuit designs and I've definitely had a lot of third-party versions of original pedals (I've got a Meatball and had a FTe version too) so I'm already torn. Adding a boutique-builder's pedal feels a bit different. I wouldn't want John Snyder at EAE, Dave Jordan at Non-Human Audio or Taylor Livingstone at Iron Ether to decide that there's no point trying to sell units or develop a new pedal if it'll be the next FaT Model, Low Snoris or Deluxe Zerograph (or some catchier version of the name) on the Anagram. As @Kev alluded to, there's some extra history between Darkglass and Spencer. My understanding was that there was an unamicable split and, left with a lot of enclosures which Spencer had purchased for the purposes of assembling Darkglass pedals (and which were not of the type used in the existing 3 Leaf pedals which had bespoke enclosures), he decided to build them out and sell them under the Pike Amplification brand. There seemed a lot of bad blood on forums about that and I can't admit to knowing any more than the above (again gleaned from forums) but the Vulcan is still my favourite overdrive, and I've owned the Vintage Microtubes, Microtubes X, B7K Ultra, ADAM and still have the Alpha Omicron from the Darkglass line, and to my ears the Vulcan seemed to sound quite different to each of the Darkglass line up, with just the history and shape of the enclosure suggesting a tie between the two. Anyway, apologies for derailing the Anagram thread with these musings! Happy New Year to all (and enjoy the Anagram to anyone that has one!)!

Very nice, the Bass really sings out. A nice lyrical piece as well.

Handy hint. After each person's name put a colon (stop sniggering @Geek99) @neepheid: @Richard R: and so on. Then be consistent with the dates they go out as well eg @Richard R: T2-29Feb Grand Piano, T1-18 June Overwater 5 string Fretless This will make it a damn sight easier to sort out the results at the end of next year as you can import the list into Excel and use formulae to extract the names and the failure dates. I thought I had been consistent, but seem to have a mix of spaces and tabs (plus people like me have spaces in their names). So trying to produce an ordered list is taking me ages and I'm due to go out in about 10 minutes. I may give up

They were excellent pickups, looking forward to having some basses for reviews and demos very soon. I can also recommend the Aguilar 4P-60 which I have installed in a Fender Mex Standard P which I use on Queen tribute shows, voiced quite differently to the Monty's pickups but just a different flavour - different pickups work well in different basses, there is no 'one size fits all' solution with pickups.

@Mike Brooks was joined by Matt Gleason of Monty's at the South East Bass Bash last month and we had a demo of Monty's bass pickups. The P Retrowind was a stand out and one of the nicest P pickups many of us have heard. They are just gorgeous, UK made and although they're not cheap, as soon as we heard it you knew it was special. https://www.montysguitars.com/collections/bass-pickups/products/retro-wind-p-bass-pickup I know @cetera @NancyJohnson and too many others to mention were there but I came away decided that the next P pickup I was going to buy would be one of those. And that is coming from someone who is a dyed-in-the-wool Toltec pickups fanboy. Toltec would be an excellent alternative. Either ay you're getting a UK handcrafted product with excellent support from a small friendly business run and owned by their GenX founders.

From what I have seen, whenever the question has been raised with PJB in the past, even they have said for practical gigging use you'd probably need two of them running in parallel, they're just not geared up for that kind of thing. I am looking to buy one, but its exclusively to plonk on a desk at home and use it with the BT audio input to play along to some tracks without headphones for a change, and even just as a bluetooth speaker. If I was looking to gig with something, I'm sure the £450 would be much, much better spent elsewhere, though I don't have any recommendations I'm afraid!

It indeed does. 😉 Here's a tune I recorded with it a few years ago in one take: https://tonybertrand.bandcamp.com/track/i-wish-i-was-swiss

As an extremely 'amateur' classical string player I cant help thinking CB has missed a trick. He's an insane bassist but its just bass. Im sure if he'd pursed a stringed instrument he could be coining it like Hauser for example. (Hausers a solo cellist but is a bit of a pinup for the instrument). Anyway each to their own I guess. But there's no denying CB's an exceptional musician.

@thebrig sounds like you’re sorted … @Dood I remembered from when I sent you the tort plate for your deacon clone P

Special effects budget has been slashed this year, sorry

It has already shimmered into existence like some kind of not-very-good mirage

GAS is already testing me with some of the glorious basses available in the UK but I’m trying to stick with the strategy of “if it’s not a dream bass, forget it”. Let’s see how I get on in avoiding a first NBD since 2023 😬

He’s not done well as PM…couldn’t you have developed him a bit more?

I have had many great dealings with rich tone music in Sheffield, the downside is it's hard to leave the store with money in your pocket as they have so much good gear!

Wasn't aware of Lyn Collins until hearing her last week on the radio, so great to hear her again so soon after 👍

I was just about to post something similar... That Bass you have looks very interesting. Not one for the masses, but certainly one I would consider a 'players' instrument. I should imagine that it plays and sounds great! 👍

So I’ve just had a 2018 American original P bass delivered and it’s outstanding... big fat neck, plays beautiful.. BUT - the pickups… the 58 split with the two raised poles under the A string. It doesn’t work for me… I play stainless steel strings and the A string is ridiculously loud in comparison to the others. (I have set it up to accommodate it but I’m not happy). Here’s the thing …. The a string has a much more clanky, clear and aggressive tone the other strings which kind of sound sterile and dull in comparison. I’m looking for a pick up recommendation that will give all four strings the same clank and grind my A string currently has. I still want the classic P bass tone. I don’t want heavy metal type pickups as they lack dynamics. I have another bass with geezer butler EMG in it.. it’s too compressed and smooth- maybe that will help understand the tone I don’t want. thanks guys

I'm in. I'm really hoping I have time to make a headless travel bass with an additional Roland Hex pickup system this year. The design has been in my head for ages, so with a bit of luck I'll go out when I buy the headless bits 😁