My first bass was a Cort bass that I bought used from a very small guitar store in El Cajon, Ca.. I think it was maybe $100.00 and was the biggest piece of junk there was but I learned to play on it and it served me well. I guess I really can't complain to much about it either because it was cheap and for the money, it wasn't horrible. I bought it sometime in the late 80's. I'm thinking sometime between 1988 or 1989. I had it for a few years and then in late 1991 or early 1992 I bought a used Jackson Charvel from the same store. I thought I had totally upgraded because the Charvel had the extra pickup in it. I don't remember how I got rid of the Cort though? I think I traded it in on either an amp or the Charvel bass but I don't remember. I then added to my cheap arsenal a Gibson Epiphone bass. That one was kind of special to me because it was my first brand new bass that I had and even though it only had the single PJ style pickup like my Cort did, it sounded better than my Charvel did. A year later, I traded the Charvel in on my first Ibanez bass. It was a 93' SR 400 Soundgear that I absolutely fell in love with. I then traded my Epiphone and SR 400 bass in on the 1st of my SR 500 Soundgear basses that I still currently own. Looking back, I really miss that Epiphone and SR 400 though. I wish now that I had never traded them in but had kept them instead and just taken the extra month to pay off my SR 500. A year later I bought my second SR 500 and had it custom painted to match my old SR 400. I also bought at the same time and SR 800 that I loved the looks of but unfortunately, it just did not have a good tone to it. I only had it for a few years and then sold it to one of my youth kids at my church. After that I bought a Washburn but had the same issues. Loved the looks of the bass but hated the tone when I put it up against my 2 SR 500 Soundgears. I sold it to a guy at our church as well and he played it on the worship team for a few years. I then purchased a Guild acoustic bass and really liked it. Unfortunately, some years later, I was on workmans comp and my check ended up being over a month late. I pawned the Acoustic bass to buy groceries but because workmans comp took a few months to catch up on my checks, the pawn expired and I lost that bass. I recently just bought another Ibanez Soundgear bass and this one is very special to me. It is a 2007 20th5 20th Anniversary Soundgear bass. I love this thing and bought it because I have used the Soungear basses for so long. I am also ordering this week an Ibanez acoustic bass to replace my Guild. It is the Ibanez EWB20WNENT. After that, I plan on buying some more Soundgear basses this year. Definitely an SR 500 and an SR 505 but I also like the 600 and 700 series too but those may have to wait until after I have upgraded my amps.
I'd fix the poor old beast up. Loved the headstock on it. Sold it to the pawn shop to help pay for my "step up" bass about a year later, an Ibanez TR50 P-bass.
