• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Ever thrown a bass away?

#42
back the first time I started to play bass, back while in the USAF at FE Warren AFB in Cheyenne, WY, picked up a used bass at a pawn shop for about $25 or so. Someone had probably been stationed in Japan or Korea and picked it up for cheap. P Bass copy of some sort. They'd sanded it down, painted it bright yellow with black tiger stripes on it. Didn't play great, but wasn't total trash, either; worth $25 anyway... When I was transfered to Germany, went into storage and never came out. Three years ago I decided I wanted to start playing it again. Dug it out of the attic where it had been stashed when we moved to NJ. Salt air, humidity, etc. had not been kind. Wood warped, just about everything metal inside and out rusted and/or corroded, etc. Far beyond repair, and nothing left on it in good enough shape to be salvaged. So into the trash it went. Needless to say, my curent basses are being treated a heck of a lot better - and while I'm still barely a mediocre player at the moment, I'm already playing a lot better than I did 30 years ago.
 
#43
iriegnome said:
One late afternoon about 2 years ago, my dad was cleaning out his basement and came across 3 guitar bodies and 1 bass body that my brother and I had forgotten long ago. Without asking he took them to his band saw cut them into little pieces to burn in his fire pit.
Click to expand...


OT, but that reminds me of what happened when I went away to college. I came back to visit the folks during the first holiday of my first freshman semester (Columbus Day? Maybe Thanksgiving?) having only been out of the house a couple months, and my Dad had already cut down all my hockey sticks and lacrosse sticks to make tomato stakes for his garden!
 
#44
Hoover said:
OT, but that reminds me of what happened when I went away to college. I came back to visit the folks during the first holiday of my first freshman semester (Columbus Day? Maybe Thanksgiving?) having only been out of the house a couple months, and my Dad had already cut down all my hockey sticks and lacrosse sticks to make tomato stakes for his garden!
Click to expand...

When I came back from school the first time (Thanksgiving) I found that my father had turned my room into his art studio.
 
#45
MichaelVee said:
I've always wanted to ask this on Talkbass.. Have you ever just thrown a bass away?

Obvious reasons include complete mangling and breakage, whether from stage, or shipping, abuse. Another possible reason might be complete and utter disgust with a cheap instrument.

America has become such a disposable society.. I'm wondering how many bass tossers we actually do have out there.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking of tossing my 1st bass a 1986(?) Washburn force 4. I beat the crap out of it in my teens. the pickguard I made in metal shop, and its spray painted...the pickups i remember replacing with dimarzios....then when I got married it wound up with the strings still tuned in my parents attic for many many years. Now lets just say it has very high action that cant be adjusted for. I always loved that bass but I dont feel bad. Im pretty sure manufacturing has come a long way since 1986. My Yamaha RBX-170 is easily built just as well as that Washburn. Although maybe the washburn was made from better materials the electronics seem better on the cheap Yamaha. Plus Im not sure the force 4 is worth fixing up. I think the force 40 was the good one. :)
 
#47
It's trash night tonight and I'm going to put my Yamaha RBX170 at the curb. It's been sitting in my closet for over a year. The neck is warping and I can't seem to fix it. I took it apart the other day and the J pickup fell apart in my hands, the insides covered in rust and corrosion. Maybe that's why it sounded so bad? :hmm:

Not worth it to keep it around, even as sentimental value (it's my first bass).
 
#48
Falkner said:
It's trash night tonight and I'm going to put my Yamaha RBX170 at the curb. It's been sitting in my closet for over a year. The neck is warping and I can't seem to fix it. I took it apart the other day and the J pickup fell apart in my hands, the insides covered in rust and corrosion. Maybe that's why it sounded so bad? :hmm:

Not worth it to keep it around, even as sentimental value (it's my first bass).
Click to expand...

Would you happen to know how many years has the RBX-170 been in production?
 
#51
Yup! Way back when, I acquired a fairly new, cheap, short scale that every thing you can imagine was wrong with it. I got so angry one night, I walked down the street to a convenient store and threw it in their dumpster. The next morning, I ran back to retrieve it, but the trash had already been dumped.........oh well!
 
#52
I broke my first bass, a yamah rbx 260. i was trying to get the plastic nob off because it was loos and turning in circles. I proceeded to grip it and lightly pull and everything attached to the plastic nob came out. So i threw it and the headstock broke. Ive never thrown it away and plan to practice defretting on the busted neck and actually plan on replacing the neck and pickups just because im sentamental over having it playable again. yes thats right im going to put about 200 or more bucks into a bass that can be bought for 120 or less. crazy...maybe....sentimental.....yes.:p
 
#53
Come to think of it, I do believe I have. I got this weird looking short scale headless thing early on, it actually had a decal on it that said "Amazing". It was amazing, all right. :rolleyes:

I salvaged the Schaller bridge & Gotoh tuners. I also pulled the Radio Shack piezo element and tried that as an upright pickup...

... then threw that in the garbage, which is where I think I recall the "Amazing" neck & body wound up.
 
#54
I can't call it a bass because it never fully became one, but I just recently cut up a bunch of wood that used to be my failed attempt at building a bass. I got screwed over when I bought it in that the guy at the shop cut it too short. I tried everything to make the wood work, but it was simply wasted effort. At least I got all the wood on sale for less than $50!

I'm going to set fire to the lumber to absolve me of my lutherical sins.

It'll be the most expensive fire I've ever lit (alder and maple), but it'll smell so good.
 
#56
Back in 1980 I had been out of the USCG for less than a year, going to college. I was going to trade in my Fender Bullet for an Ibanez. The music store owner was a friend of mine and said if I donated the bass to a silent auction for the local food bank, he would give me the same credit on the Ibanez. I donated it and walked away with a used Musician, less a $200 discount.
 
#57
MichaelVee said:
I've always wanted to ask this on Talkbass.. Have you ever just thrown a bass away?

Obvious reasons include complete mangling and breakage, whether from stage, or shipping, abuse. Another possible reason might be complete and utter disgust with a cheap instrument.

America has become such a disposable society.. I'm wondering how many bass tossers we actually do have out there.
Click to expand...

Nope. I am the biggest packrat ever for one thing, and I have managed to get cash for every peice of crap I didn't keep thats bass related no matter how worthless it may have been. Not much mind you, but if CL can teach us anything its that someone out there will buy absolutely anything
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back