'ola, OHB!
@Jackson-OHB, you are now member #1730 in the Fender Rumble Club. Congratulations and welcome. Put that number in your TalkBass Signature for safe keeping. Then make yourself at home here and on
your Rumble Club Wiki page, the repository of all Rumbling wisdom and knowledge.
Welcome to TalkBass, too. Here's a list of several other TB clubs and special interest groups you may find intriguing from time to time:
TalkBass Clubs & Special Interest Groups INDEX
How about telling us a bit about yourself, Jackie, such as your bass experience in general and your Rumble journey in particular? You'll fit right in here since we have all kinds. But we all love to ... ... ...
Rumble On!
.
Hi Rumblers. A bit about myself ... My first instrument was the piano accordion (6 years old) then my fascination with The Beatles tuned my ear into Paul's bass lines so I started learning bass at 14 years old (many moons ago). Over the years I taught myself piano, guitar and can play any stringed instrument once I know how they're tuned. I briefly taught bass until I got too busy doing gigs and studio work.
in my 20's I learned audio production and owned a small recording studio. In the 80's I evolved the studio to include the first MIDI devices which set my path to MIDI song production to this current day.
Gig wise, 'Moonshine' was my first teenage band. I had an unbranded cherry red SG bass played through a Savage 85 watt bass amp. Savage was an Australian brand made in the mid 70's. They were considered a bit of a joke among pro players but what did I care at 14 years old? I had an amp and I was gigging?
I saved and bought my first professional rig at 17, with a little help from family. That was a black Rickenbacker 4001S played through a Carlsbro 300w amp and 2 W-Bins. Insane upgrade but the band was now called 'Bullitz' (yeh ... with a 'z' ) and we played heavy rock.
At 18, I joined a function/events band with some very old people (they were 28 to 30 years old ) and I intended doing just one or two gigs because I was too shy to tell them they were too old and, they had a gig that weekend and needed a bass player. This was in 1978.
I did the gig which was nice. We got fed and provided drinks - never had that happen before, and the oldie's were really nice. But I wanted to play ROCK!
Then I got paid $150 cash and 10 years later I was still playing with them. This band evolved into Tina and The Tornadoes, which was a very popular 50's rock'n'roll band during the 80's here in my home town of Melbourne. They were great times and I'm still friends with the band.
Other basses along the way included a 74 Jazz, Rickenbacker mono (can't remember the model), an L-Series Precision Bass I bought for a few hundred that I had no idea was capable of putting a hefty deposit on a home years later (sold for it $600 for the Rickenbacker mono). In '76 I bought one of the original MusicMan Stingray basses which thankfully I never sold. This bass became my main gig and touring bass for a long time.
Amp wise I updated the Savage to an Acoustic 126 combo, then got serious and purchased a brand new Fender bassman and a Gauss loaded cab which did much of my workload throughout the next 20 years.
I took a break from playing bass for several years and played lead guitar in my own band and several other bands part time and as a side-man. Now I'm going full circle and committed to forming a combo where I play bass for 2024. This rig is my Fender Jazz Bass (60's Vintera), Cort MKIV Fretless and the Stingray through my brand spanking new (drum roll please ....) Fender Rumble 800 (standard).
I'm not really keen on effects pedals on bass, I'm old school, so I'll let the fingers to the walk and talk.
So, that's it in a nutshell. I hope this finds its way to the Rumble Club. I still don't know how to start a thread on the RC
