Still own your first bass?

[JIO]

nope - but if anyone has one of these to sell, I'd be interested. I bought mine new in '66 and gave it to a friend a couple years later.

View attachment 475445 View attachment 475444 View attachment 475443

 

[Shardik]

I played bass in my teens, but that was on borrowed instruments. Then I played guitar for about 25 years as a sporadic activity before picking up the bass again for fun for a Christmas party band project at work almost 4 years ago. So that I still have my first bass is not so surprising. It is the one on the left in the picture. A Cort Artisan C4 Limited edition (2004). I played it a lot to begin with, but then my preferences changed, and now I play mostly the PJ-pickuped basses, and all of them with flats. But the first has its own character, and it still has rounds, and still humbuckers. I can play a lot of music on my other basses, but this first bass still has its merits. It is still the bass with the most exclusive and most wonderful neck. It's a all wenge neck with a smooth feel like nothing else. I feel bad about the little use it gets, but I am not ready to let it go. On another note, I still have my first electric guitar, too. It's been around the block on loans, but came back to me. It's still playable, but the frets are almost filed completely flat and it needs a service by a pro. THERE you have sentimental value. I guess I can get rid of a bass within a year (I have had one bass that I sold and don't have any more), but after a while they feel like family. On the other hand, if it has left the building, I do not feel the need to get it back.

 

[NeonVomit]

I still own and regularly use my very first bass:

Slammer by Hamer, got it for 100 pounds in 1997. I got it because it was the cheapest one at the store and looked like Steve Harris' bass (who is the reason I started playing bass in the first place). It was boring, so I decided to start decorating it as you can see. I got some tipp-ex and started writing stuff on it as well - it's all faded off now but I wrote out 'Every breath leaves me one less to my last' on alternate frets because I was going through a Dream Theater phase. The only real negative about it was the poor pickup which had a weak sound and low output and which would feedback like crazy, so I later on installed a Steve Harris SD Quarterpounder pickup which cost more than the bass. Obviously this is something a clever person would do. Once a big chunk of the nut just broke off for no apparent reason, so I stuck it back in with superglue and never had a problem with it again.

It doesn't sit in the closet - it's an active gigging bass that I use for my two punk bands.

The sound is punchy and clear and the neck is quite comfy to play. I have no idea if these are even produced anymore - my friend got a similar one around the same time and the neck warped really badly, and I heard other horror stories with quality control, but mine has been a tank. It's suffered immense abuse over the years, fallen out of the backs of cars, down the stairs, out of windows, and any dents and scratches would just get covered with more stickers. The only kinda crappy thing about it now are the pots, but I'll swap those out soon.

I could never get rid of it. It's part of me, and everything I play now I initially started learning how to do on my first bass. If the neck ever starts to go, I'll buy a used Fender neck and put it on so people will think it's a Fender. Also, nobody would buy it, because I mean come on... look at it. Would you buy that thing?

 

[RickBlair]

I have the 65 Mosrite Ventures bass that my parents bought for me in 1965 (there are some advantages to being an only child ). They knew I wanted a Mosrite but I don't know how they found it at a store 60 miles away in the very-pre-Internet days. I still have it although I don't use it much live. It's really noisy under florescent lights - have to check the bubba wiring I did before I knew what a circuit was. I use the recently acquired sunburst Mosrite frequently these days.

Rick B.

 

[Haji]

There's a pawn shop down the street from me that has a black Hamer Slammer like that one. I think the tag on it is in the $150 range...I'm not certain; it's been a couple weeks since I've been in there. For some reason the pawn shop six or seven miles down the road from Ft. Campbell gets a rather large amount of musical gear, while the one that's directly across the street from the base rarely has anything interesting. Funny how that works.

 

[NeonVomit]

Well, if you want a cheap project bass to experiment on, modify, practice your soldering skills or whatever, you could do much, much worse. The wood is not bad and the hardware is decent. They can take abuse, I will tell you that for sure The tone is... workable, and if you put in a decent pickup (or even want to rout out another hole for another one) you can have a pretty funky little instrument.

Plus the punk crowd love seeing instruments like that. Each sticker, dent, scratch and bump tells a story. It's been with me throughout my music-playing life, and it's cool to look at the different things on it and remember what I was doing when I added it.

 

[Roberto Nunez]

My first bass was a Samick, it was a P bass copy.
On 2010 I bought a Ibanez SR 705, I hadn´t decided what to do with the Samick but my dad told me he wanted to learn to play bass (he plays acoustic guitar) so i gave it to him.
Here are some photos of both the Samick and the Ibanez.

 

[adk teleman]

Yes, the bass in my pic is my 1992 Fender P in CAR. Only mods are a Bada$$ bridge and S Fender Silver lace sensor pup. Killer bass!

 

[georgiagoodie]

Yup.
'74 Jazz
'Bought it in '76 for $125.
'STILL my number 1...
Link Removed

 

[ofajen]

Just tweaked the wiring on my first bass: a 1976 Ripper. I changed the parallel out-of-phase setting I never used to a bridge-only setting that I like.

It's still not quite stock but now I like all four settings. It's my first bass, bought used in 1983. Here it is again.

Frets are well worn, but my local tech suggested that I wait a little longer before I have him re-fret. There is a bit of fret noise but it's still playable.

Still pretty much a main player and quite a tone monster. My other fretted bass is an SX P-bass strung with flats that I also play a fair amount

Otto

 

[CGremlin]

I still have my first bass, an embarrassing black w/maple neck short-scale Harmony P-bass copy that I bought from Sears at age 14 with my lawn-mowing money after my folks freaked at the cost of a real Precision. It's disassembled and in storage at the moment, but occasionally I think about resurrecting it from the dead and fitting it with decent hardware that will cost far more than the bass itself. However, it paid for itself and the two subsequent Peavey Foundations via gigs with the local theater orchestra, so I can't rag on it too much.

 

[Ren Key]

Nope! My first ever bass was an Epiphone Viola Bass. I just couldn't mesh with it no matter how hard I tried. Owned it for about 3 weeks before I decided to return it and get another bass. And then a couple weeks after that I proceeded to return that bass as well. About 7 or 8 basses (and many angry guitar-salesmen) later, I finally settled on a used '80s E-Series MIJ Fender Precision bass that I found at a local mom-and-pop guitar shop. Haven't turned back since! The thing weighs as light as a feather, sounds smooth as hell, and feels like a dream to play. Definitely my baby.

 

[PortlandBass77]

Yeaaaaaap. Ibanez Ergodyne.

 

[GoldMan27]

First bass I own vs first bass I played are two different things:

First bass I played was my dad's old Ventura (still uncertain about what kind of copy it is, it's in the show your basses thread if you want to check it out), and he even bought that thing used. So in total, I'd have to guess our family has had the bass for give or take near 45-50 years. Can still be played today, and my dad often pulls it out for his YouTube videos.

First bass I actually own is the one I got at Christmas, a used Fender Kingman.

 

[Imaginary Pony]

First bass I actually own is the one I got at Christmas, a used Fender Kingman.

Hello and Welcome.

 

[RichardT2112]

My first bass was some really cheap Cort my dad bought me for Christmas. Short scale with a p pickup, neckdive like you wouldn't believe and less then stellar tone. Less then a year later I traded it, a West stratocaster knockoff and Gorilla amp for a '74 Fender Mustang bass. Mom was LIVID when she found out about that but I loved that Mustang bass. Kept it for a number of years til I lucked out and found a 78 Rick for about $450 at a local pawnshop.

 

[Manichga]

First bass was a Torch P bass copy. It was red so I really liked it. was sold about 18 months later in 1988. Not sorry I got rid of that one.