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The first bass you had!

#221
Well, I had a 1966 Kingston bass. I have no idea what model and I would love to find one to buy again. I played it for about 1-1/2 years. I bought a Peavey T-20FL fretless for my next bass. I hated the Kingston. The action was high, the bass was small, it sounded crappy, no sustain and it hurt to play, but it got me hooked. Now I am able to fix all of the stuff I did not like about that bass and I would like the opertunity to buy it back. Just goes to show that some of the best things we find in our lives sucked until we did not have them any more.
 
#222
My first bass was a Lindell. It had a neck like an baseball bat and action a mile high. I used Labella flat wounds, (it was 1965 or so). I used my mothers record player for an amp. I look at the entry level basses of today and shake my head. "You kids have it so easy today, why in my time........)


My brother sold that bass while I was in school, but he did not sell the case which I still have. I painted the case with all the slogans of the time (again, 60"s), but I still have the case in my room.
 
#223
My first bass was a MIM P-bass, which I bought new in 1994. I eventually put some Basslines 1/4lbs in. The best part? I still have it!

IM000025-1.jpg
 
#224
A Fender P-Bass copy. Cost a couple of hundred punts (Irish currency before the euro changeover). I got it from money I got following a court case! Some douchebag beat me up for no reason and got nailed by the cops for it; he had to pay me compensation. In a weird way you could say I owe my bassplaying to that idiot ...lol
 
#226
Like some of you other cats, my first was a Squier Affinity P-Bass bought new in February of 1998. Spent around $250 for the bass, a nice gigbag, strap, and cord. Looking back, I wish I had known more because for $250 I could've bought a pretty decent used bass that would've been more of a keeper. At some point over the course of that first year or so, I drilled out the hole in the bridge that accepts the E string so that it would accept a low B and played the bass BEAD for a while because I wanted to be able to play stuff like Korn and Limp Bizkit (I know, I know... I was 16, sue me)

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Check this out! At first I had no bass amp so I played it through... eeeeeek... a 1958 Fender Champ that I had lying around! (At that point, I didn't know old Fender meant good. I was a dumb kid and to me old=crappy). Someone once offered to buy the Champ from me for $50. Good thing I didn't sell it. I sold it a couple years back though on eBay.

Anyway, I had the Squier for a year and 2 months before buying a used early 90s MIJ Fender MB-5. That was a killer bass. Wish I still had it. I had intentions of always holding on to my Squier, but after getting an Ibanez Soundgear 6-string in December of 1999, I realized I'd probably never play the MB-5 again, let alone the Squier, so out it went. Got maybe $50 for it in trade toward a nicer amp... should've kept it just to be able to say I still had my first bass, but oh well, it was a dud anyway. I do have the first strap that came with it though. I changed out one part of it in favor of an old seat belt I cut out of a junker out back. I'm 6'5" and needed a little more length on my strap. Turns out, now people sell seat belt straps... I guess I should've thought of that. doh

Looking back, I don't know if I've ever really LOVED a bass like I loved that first one... it's the one that got me hooked. I learned so much on it and had an absolute blast with it. Every bass after that has just been an inanimate object, but that Squier was like a part of me. I owe so much of who I am to that bass because if I hadn't bought it, I'd have to assume that literally EVERYTHING about my life would be different. The people I know, the places I've been, the music I've gotten into. Everything. And I wouldn't even know what TalkBass.com is. Life is better this way I think...

Jake
 
#227
My first bass was a Montgomery Ward thing---a real piece of hooey, but at the time I was 12 years old and I thought it was pretty hot.
At 15, my folks helped me buy new '73 Rick 4001, black, which I kept until the mid-80's and foolishly let go--traded for some Ibanez piece of crap that I thought looked like Sting's Spector:). Plus I was doing all manner of obnoxious slapping then and the Rick just didn't work right for that.
Man, I wish I'd kept that bass . . . . . .
 
#229
When I first started playing I was "borrowing" a couple of basses from people. I don't exactly remember the order, but a no-name Hofner copy, a no-name Jazz copy and a "Diablo" Ripper sort of copy.

The first two were on loan from a guy from my church. He also gave me my first amp. A tape deck- hit play and record and your sound come out the speaker. The guy who lent me the Diablo didn't play- he didn't want the bass- when I got my OWN bass, he made me give it to someone else. Sort of like a philanthropist, I guess.

My first bass was my 1971 EB-0. Still have that one.

Me & My bass about a year after I got it- in 1986-ish:

normal_davey86-1.jpg


Here it is, as of the other nite:

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#230
pilgrim-that is one gorgeous p bass! my very first bass,purchased at at pawn shop on beale street around 1970, was a solid-body hofner that sort of looked like a strat body,and the body was covered in brown vinyl! it was a short scale,2 pickup,and not a bad sounding little bass. my next bass was a rickenbacker 4000. sadly,they are both long gone.
 
#231
I was a drummer prior to learning bass, but my first bass was a 2001 Dean Edge Fretless 4 (Trans. black, stock dean active soapbar pickups, black hardware, Grover tuners and yada yada) Just like the one in the picture except the headstock was the older v version not the the current rounded models.
 
#233
My first one which I still play fairly often is a 2000 MIM Jazz...my god, the neck on it is amazing! The only bass in the world to me with the neck "warm" already when you pick it up...even better its completely stock and kicks major arse with volume/tone...AND, no problems electrically (gulp! Shouldn't have said that coz you know what'll bloody happen now...)

Upgraded 2 years later to MIJ Jazz, a 60's reissue which sounded really thin and twangy...so I just kept using the MIM as my main, however the MIJ is great for slapping and would probably sound brill with flats on her.

sanitymw said:
Legend Jazz Bass. Fender copy! £120. Got a new one 2 months later.
Click to expand...

GOD!! My old bassist like 10 years ago used one of them...black with white pickguard yeah? I've looked around on ebay for one of them for a cheap throw-in-the-back-of-the-car backup recently but had no luck...they were all over the place in shops round here at the time

One old bass I was GIVEN by my next door neighbour - an Avon SG bass copy...anyone know anything about these? I read somewhere it was from 1972-73? Its had the frets all yanked out (not by me), has had some kind of dead (not working) guitar humbucker installed at the bridge and it needs the tone pot seeing to...maybe once this is sorted THIS will be my throw-in-the-back emergency backup? (it'd deffo be cheaper...)
 
#234
My first bass was an Epiphone Power Bass, purchased in 1988:

DSCN3018.gif


This isn't mine, but it's very similar. Mine had a chrome hardware, and I replaced the passive pickups with EMGs about a year after I got it. I had it for a while, I think I gave it to my brother in the mid 90's, by which time I had a couple of gig worthy basses. He gave it back to me about a year ago, in decent shape, playable but I don't think I would gig with it unless I had to.
 
#236
I was a (mostly rhythm) guitarist who got his first bass, a no-name Hofner copy, in the early 1970s. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't quite know what to do with the darn thing, sold it and went back to guitar playing. Bassus interruptus.
Then, in the early 1990s, I picked up an Electra Phoenix Bass at a pawn shop and played it in a church production of Godspell. That was the start of a love affair with the bass and a chronic case of GAS, both of which persist to this day.:cool:
 
#240
1975 Fender Mustang Red with white racing stripes - paid $150 new at Manny's NYC - didn't have enough bread to buy a precision for $175

Sold that little thing and bought a new 1978 Rick 4001 white at Alex NYC - that baby's been with me ever since...
 

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