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Attachment to your instrument!

Keeping your first guitar/Bass?

  • Yes, for nostalgia and sentimental value

    Votes: 64 62.1%

  • No, I have no attachment to inanimate objects

    Votes: 39 37.9%
  • Total voters
    103
  • Poll closed .
#21
I still have my first bass as well, a jewel blue Ibanez SR400 with P/J pickups which I don't believe they do any more. I can't remember the last time I actually played a 4-string for a gig and it wouldn't be worth much, but like others have said, I mainly hang on to it for sentimental reasons... that and it's my only P/J bass. ;)

5sg.
 
#22
I still have my first bass, an 83 Washburn Force 4 but in my youth I cut it up, replacing a P style pup with EMG soapbars. I have been looking for an unmolested version of my bass for a long time but Washburn apparently made this exact style for only about 2 years. Am I sentimental, yes wholeheartedly.
 
#23
I tend to develop attachments to such things. I'm hopelessly attached to my Martin D16 (HPL back and sides). It's not the best instrument by far, but since it's HPL, it's damn near indestructible. It goes with me wherever I go. Many great musical moments have been had with that guitar - moments that wouldn't have happened otherwise because I won't take expensive instruments out on the street, bars, clubs, etc... just on a whim.

My first bass, however, is long gone. It was a crappy low-end Ibanez... the neck ended up warping somehow and it became unplayable. Ended up going at a garage sale for $15.
 
#26
sold my first bass to a good friend 10yrs ago. i got to play it earlier this year and it really played and sounded great. i sort of miss it, but my current arsenal more than compensates its absense.

i'm actually contemplating selling one of my basses to acquire a boutique level bass! :)
 
#28
A lot of my original stuff died, got stolen, or sucked. I've had to make tough decisions and sold gear that was epic and sentimental to me (a pristine Bass 400 with KT-88's).

I see myself holding on to my Cirrus though. I've never considered selling it in the 5+ years I've had it.
 
#29
Well I certainly wish I had an attachment to some of my early gear. I'd have some very valuable instruments laying around. Long gone but not completely forgotten.

I really don't have an emotional attachment beyond the enjoyment of owning and playing a good instrument. Everything I ever owned got more than it's fair share of play and none of it couldn't be replaced with another that's equal to it or better today.

I've said this before. In all honesty my current CV Jazz Bass is every bit as nice a player as my 66 was and certainly the equivalent of a few others as well. It may not be worth what the 66 would be but I feel more comfortable these days taking a $300 very replaceable instrument around with me. The only way a vintage instrument would work around me is either it becomes a closet classic or it gets sold. That's the only time it realizes it's vintage value.

I like to play mine too much so I look at them that way not as an investment.
 
#31
I do have a habit of growing fond of certain inanimate objects. My basses and my cameras in particular. These are things that allow me an artistic outlet, and some of them are family gifts or heirlooms, so I get stupid about them. Also, as an engineer, I have a weakness for well-built devices. So I'm all kinds of dork.

I got rid of my first bass, though. It was a Kent short scale P-copy. Had a nice silver burst finish but the tuners and neck were not nice and the pup sucked. I was like 15 or 16 and it had to go so I could get my Westone Spectrum. I do wish I still had it, though, it would make a good mod project.
 
#32
I can see how those who got a something from their wife/father/whomever find some sentimental value there, but that’s really feelings for the person, not necessarily the instrument.

I like my instruments while I’m enjoying them, but when I no longer enjoy them, I don’t feel much of a bond.

I like to keep things ‘cause I’m kind of a hoarder, but that’s another thing, and the stuff I did sell because I simply didn’t and wouldn’t use them, I don’t really miss.
 
#33
I'll always have my first guitar (I don't have a bass yet) for two reasons. I learned to play on this guitar and it was my only guitar for seven years. The money I would take are equal to a used MIM Fender so I prefer to have another guitar than make a few cash.
 
#34
My first bass and amp were stolen barely a year after I got 'em. The bass I don't really miss that much anymore, although it would've probably had some sentimental value

Losing the amp OTOH was a major kick in the nuts. It was a barely-used blackface Fender Bassman 50 that I bought with an entire summer's worth of farm labor
 
#35
I'm unashamedly attached to my first proper bass, it's the Ric 4001 that is still my main player. I first became aware of Rics when I saw a picture of Paul McCartney playing one in Melody Maker (weekly music paper in the UK), I thought it was such a cool shape. I respected McCartney but a little later the same type of bass was responsible for the sounds I was hearing on Genesis and Yes albums I made up my mind I had to have one. So from the age of about 14-15 I started saving pennies and any money I could from paper rounds and as I went through school and college I was still saving what little money I had. Finally, with a little top up of my savings from my Mum and Dad for my 21st birthday, I had enough money. I still couldn't afford a new one so I went to Denmark Street in London and found a Fireglo 4001 in Top Gear. I took it home but found it had some truss rod issues, so I took it back a week later and they traded it for the Jetglo Ric I have now - the Jetglo one was in better condition and had been about £10 out of my price range (a week's wages as a pot washing student) but they let me have it as a gesture of goodwill (bless you Sid Barrett).

Later, when I'd got married, had young kids and was fishing for change in the back of the sofa for enough to buy some bread, this bass helped me to play in a band and earn enough to put food on the table. Having this bass and being able to play in a band saved us from total poverty again when a business venture folded in the recession of the time. I lost count of the number of times that I was on the verge of selling it just to pay bills - one time money was changing hands when my wife stepped in (literally took the bass back out of the buyers hands) and said "Don't do it - we'll get by somehow".

So to me the sentimental value of this bass is built on the sense of attainment of getting it in the first place after slogging away at menial student jobs for years and having been with me through some very hard times is a symbol of triumph over adversity. It really has been part of the fabric of my life and I intend that it remains that way until that fabric becomes my shroud.
 
#37
I develop attachments to just about anything I use daily. I kinda wish I still had my first bass, but it went to someone who enjoyed it a lot more than me. My first "real" bass though, a schecter skillet elite 4, back when it had a diamond on the 12th fret only, and solid colored body, not the newer body where you see the neck thru the body. Now that, I wish I still had, bought it new 5 years ago, sold because of a hefty speeding ticket.
 
#38
My 1st two 4-string basses wouldn't be worth the time it is taking me to write this post (well, the paint job on the Hondo was pretty cool....), but my 1st 5-string bass has been living in the laundry room for years and I still can't bear the thought of parting w/ it. The last time I even tried to play a gig w/ it was a summer night in '97 or '98 when I didn't want to take my Tobias Sig. to a hot & humid show on the OH river. It's a (now-yellowed) white mid-'80's Ibanez Roadstar-II that sounds and plays like crap, and I gave waaaaay to much to a local music store for it on a monthly payment plan, w/ my Dad as cosigner on the loan, back when I was making like $3.35/hour.

I grew up playing trumpet and my favorite band was Chicago, and it just so happened that my boss at my restaurant job in high school grew up in Chicago and knew (or maybe something that rhymes w/ it) some of the original guys in the mid/late '60's before they moved out to Cali. During their '92 tour w/ Moody Blues she put in a call and arranged prime concert seats & backstage passes. Her husband and I got to park right by the buses, with said Ibanez Roadstar-II (plus a new Sharpie) packed in the Aerostar van, and after the show I got the bass signed on the back: "To My Good Pal Adam, Jason Scheff/Chicago '92". The clear coat that I sprayed over the sig is now more yellowed than the orig. finish. I can't even ponder getting rid of that bass (not that I'd get much for it, anyway).
 
#39
I'm very attached to my first bass...not used it much recently, but if I needed a backup I'd take it no questions asked if it's a decent venue and hasn't got a bad reputation - if the reputation was bad I'd take a squier and not my best gear.

I'd never sell my first bass or guitar - like bassistfordalord said, it got me through college and uni and I've done god-knows how many gigs with it anyway, and again...it feels like "home" in a way no other bass can
 
#40
nope, sold my first guitar even tho i loved it, never looked back once i got a musicman ;)

will sell my first bass soon but i wont regret as the thing is more problematic then a girlfriend...(but obviously not my current one ;))
 

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