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Did anyone sell their first ever bass?

My first bass was a Global jazz style bass. Baseball bat neck and plywood body....trashed body and took neck to the wood shop and made an explorer body for it.
Looked cool played ok (better than the original body) lasted 2yrs and a friend bought it. Hw thought it looked cool.....last time I had seen it....
 
i've been playing for less than a year, and own only one bass.

it's a 30" Gretsch Junior Jet...single pickup for that lovely vintage tone, threw a Gotoh 201 bridge on it and some decent strings.

here's another TBer's version, bigger bridge and upgraded/double pups but the same deal.

i'll never sell this bass, i already decided. i will be buying a precision (why will you not put a bloody p bass in your modern player range, fender?) but i'll always have this.

Thats great bass to start with! I've got a G2224, and just bought a 2202 on eBay last night.

I've been playing bass seriously since 1979, and those Jr. Jets are some of the best entry level basses ever made! Easily better than the 61 Gibson EB0 I mentioned in my post earlier.

If you are lucky enough to get one made by a group of workers that care about their craft, the craftsmanship you can get is pretty amazing! I put the quality of the neck on my G2224 right up there with my American made Fenders and my Rickenbacker.

Definitely DON'T Sell it! The sentimental value is reason enough!
 
My first bass was a P-ish thing. It was a real stinker. The frets were popping out, the screws holding the pickup in were popping out the finish on the back, the neck needed adjusting weekly, the tuners were made of some cheap pot metal and one of them broke as I was tuning the bass... It had a whole slew of problems.

What do I do? I de-fretted it to learn to play fretless, I used it to learn a whole bunch about maintenance and set-ups, I removed the paint from the back of the neck, fixed it up as well as I could, and sold it for about twice what I paid in the first place!

Do I miss it? Not really. It was the perfect starter for me, but that's all it was... a starter.
 
I had a 80s Peavy bass with a matte brown body and black (?) pickguard, single bar pickup that was my first bass - it was very solid but SO heavy! Broke so many pickguards on that thing just starting out from stepping on the cable while it was plugged in! Traded that in for a pointy 80s Ibanez with a bound fingerboard that ended up developing a twist in the neck. Still, the Ibanez was the one I played my first live gig with and recorded my first record, so no matter the faults it'll always be remembered. Gave that to a kid at church just starting out.

From there I've had a phone-book of basses and other gear, a few I sold in what's now recognized as a fit of immense dunderheaded stupidity (Modulus VJ with lacewood top - sniff....<bangs head on desk>), others were just not a good fit in the long run (Peavey Cirrus 5 bubinga).

Through all this there's only been one constant, and one that I will never, ever sell. A USA Tacoma Thunderchief CB10. An unexpected gift from my wife, and a lovely instrument as well.
 
My first bass was a 1968 Sunburst Fender Jazz Bass I bought from a local guy for $150. It was 1973 and I was 17 and just started playing (yeah I'm an old guy). I played it for a couple of years and thought I wanted a new Precision bass that cost a whopping $200.
I sold the Jazz bass for $175 and bought the Precision bass but I still sucked...It wasn't the bass...ha...still have sellers remorse....
 
My first bass was a Rickenbacker 4001 that I eventually sold. At the time I was on a P-bass kick and just didn't see any reason to keep it. The funny thing was I did a band recording around that time and there was a particular song that I figured the Rickenbacker would sound good on. My plan was to get a new set of strings on it and redo the intonation but I never got around to it. Listening back from all those years ago, it was still the best bass tone I got for that album.
 
My VERY first bass, No I didn't sell it, I destroyed it, lol.

Dr. Funkenstien here turned a 1970 Fender Musicmaster short scale into a fretless monster according to an article in Bass Player magazine interview of Jaco Pastorius

It worked ok for a while then it became firewood :)
 
First bass I owned was a 1992 or 1993 Ibanez SR400 in a dark walnut finish.

It was stolen and I have never seen another one even on Ebay ever!

Really want to find another one, looked like the current SR600WF with 4 knobs.
 
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This was 1977, I think. That's my 1st bass, a medium scale Guild. I never knew the model, but clearly it's an EB-3 wannabe. It had wooden bridge saddles, vol/tone for each pickup, plus a phase switch. It was tough to play, I could never really get the action right. I sold it to get a 1978 Fender Precision which I liked MUCH better. No regrets even back then.

FWIW: the little combo amp is my first bass amp, an Ampeg B-100 1x10. I used it for home rehearsal for many years, and the band used it for vocals when a PA wasn't available. The big bass rig is an Acoustic 150 head with Acoustic 301 1x18 cabinet. It did the job, but I was in heaven when I got my SVT rig.

I think the big cab under the Peavey combo is a Peavey 2x15. Long story. :p
 
Yep. I'm pretty sure most of us did it. no regrets on mine. It was AWFUL. However, there are SEVERAL since then I would love to have back.

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This was 1977, I think. That's my 1st bass, a medium scale Guild. I never knew the model, but clearly it's an EB-3 wannabe. It had wooden bridge saddles, vol/tone for each pickup, plus a phase switch. It was tough to play, I could never really get the action right. I sold it to get a 1978 Fender Precision which I liked MUCH better. No regrets even back then.



FWIW: the little combo amp is my first bass amp, an Ampeg B-100 1x10. I used it for home rehearsal for many years, and the band used it for vocals when a PA wasn't available. The big bass rig is an Acoustic 150 head with Acoustic 301 1x18 cabinet. It did the job, but I was in heaven when I got my SVT rig.



I think the big cab under the Peavey combo is a Peavey 2x15. Long story. :p

...and it all fit in the VW...with the top down, of course!
 
Thats great bass to start with! I've got a G2224, and just bought a 2202 on eBay last night.

I've been playing bass seriously since 1979, and those Jr. Jets are some of the best entry level basses ever made! Easily better than the 61 Gibson EB0 I mentioned in my post earlier.

If you are lucky enough to get one made by a group of workers that care about their craft, the craftsmanship you can get is pretty amazing! I put the quality of the neck on my G2224 right up there with my American made Fenders and my Rickenbacker.

Definitely DON'T Sell it! The sentimental value is reason enough!

hehe, i have TB to thank for bending my ear on this bass, actually.

they found a gap in the market with it i think. it's an honest, old-fashioned student model and i can get on board with that at this point in my progression. £200 delivered from germany (thanks thomann!) and that was with a danelectro tuner and a decent lead. no complaints at all.

cheers for the info regarding this instrument, i was thinking it was a joy to play even if i've never played half the basses i'd love to have a go on.

i just wish it wasn't a shorty. i'm short (5'6) and i have small hands but it does seem a bit cramped - almost like it's just too small to actually be pumping out the kind of tones that it does create.

Philip.
 
Oh, heck yes!! I sold that thing as soon as I could. Actually, I think I traded it for a Fuzzface and a set of Rotosound RS-66 back when the fuzz was common and the Rotos were expensive and very hard to come by. The bass was a Kalamazoo POS with an impossibly bowed neck, the big Gibson EB series pickup, and a bridge that was useless for any kind of intonation.

I sold the second bass too, a Microfret something or other. Actually a pretty cool bass, but I had the opportunity to get a Precision and a Bassman head. It went away.

The third bass ('74-ish Precion that epitomized everything that was commonly wrong with '70s Fenders), the fourth (pre EB StingRay I got new in '78 and shoulda kept), fifth (a very late '70s P that was pretty good, but went away when I bought my brand spankin' new Vintage Series '62 Lake Placid Blue Precision in April 1983, five days after it arrived from the factory.

I still have the VS '62, and it took me until about '99 to find another "I won't sell this one" when I played my Lakland Deluxe 494.

John
 
My first bass was a Vantage of some kind, back in the 1970s. I don't remember the exact model, but it weighted about a ton and had what seemed like all the weight at the end of the neck. If you didn't hold it up, it would dive like Greg Louganis. It was good enough to learn on for a couple years, and then I gave it to my brother. I don't know what he did with it. Basses like it sometimes pop up on eBay, and I'm amused to see them, because they are always touted as fine Matsumoku instruments. It was well made, but it was a PITA to play. The ads never mention that.
 

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