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The first bass you had!

#84
my first bass is some epiphone thing i got in 92 or something from my dad as a pat on the back for getting straight A's for a whole year straight.

now i still have the bass w/ everything modded excpet the body...

new warmoth J neck w/ tele headstock
falin JP pups
badass 2
jretro preamp
schaller tuners

its actually quite a player now... almost $1,000 in mods later :) but i really couldnt bare having the lil bastard sit in the corner all useless
 
#88
my first was a warwick corvette std. 4 passive and i loved it, but didn't realize it till i traded it in for a spector legend cuz i got bored with it. i am a moron. and i now spend everyday saving to get another warwick. 20/20 hindsight.
 
#90
first bass was a p-bass knock off

get this... brand name: Dinosaur

it was one of those starter packs that came with a bass, strap, amp, stand, cable, tuner, picks, and a case $200

it was a pretty good deal, but the bass is a POS. it was good for learning though
 
#93
My first bass guitar was Burns Sonic Bass made in the early 60s which I still own:

Burns_Sonic_In_Case.gif


Those of you you who care about such things will be wincing at the state of this instrument. In my defence let me say that 90% of it was done before I bought it and everything since has been done in order to keep the bass in playable condition.

I bought it in 1981 having seen it hanging on the wall in my local music store. At £55 (which included the original Burns hard case and a Fender strap) this was pretty much the only bass I could afford. A POS Grant P or J copy would have set me back at least £20 more, plus I rather liked the look and the fact that it was different to all the other basses in the shop (something I have come to realise is very important to me).

For a long time I thought it might be a home-made instrument. The only branding was on the pick-ups, and since without the finish certain aspects of the construction were revealed that didn't strike me as belonging on a commercially produced bass. It wasn't until Tony Day's "The Burns Story" book came out that I could identify it as a real Burns instrument.

There's no truss-rod and the neck is like a baseball bat split down the middle, but it sounds absolutely massive for a 30" scale-length bass. This is because when both pups are selected the wiring puts them in series rather than parallel. I don't know if this is the original wiring pattern or not but with that sound who cares? Since I bought it I've had to replace the electrics (but kept the wiring system as it was) and the machine heads (which kept slipping) and the current bridge is either third or fourth. I also had to laminate a new layer onto the scratch plate as a previous owner had drilled lots of extra holes in it...

However this bass was my main instrument for over 10 years until I bought my Overwater Original 2 (I went from 4 string 30" scale to 5 string 36" scale!) and is on all the recordings I made during the 80s. Even today it still gets used when I need to do some Peter Hook style lead bass and 2-note chord stuff. Not bad for an instrument that's around 45 years old.
 
#96
I had an Encore P Bass in 1992. Played it for a few years. It was that off white/champagne colour (it may have even been arctic white that had faded with a yellow tone!). The previous owner had added a J pup between the existing pickups and the neck. It sounded really quite bad and weighed simply too much. It never played correctly. Its a wonder that I actually kept playing bass!
 
#98
My very first bass was an Encore P bass copy i got when i was 14 - still got it :)

Did some mods - installed a series/parallel switch (akin to the S-1 idea but i did it 18 years ago!) sprayed it up and used it for 5 years before buying a hohner Proffessional ST Lynx which is my current bass.

Thinking of getting an American P Bass as i miss the simplicity of my encore but not the crap finish. Definatley got my moneys worth and gigged quite hard :D
 
#99
Sir Psycho said:
So what was your first bass you had? Brand? Model? How was it, did you like it, and how soon you switched to another (better?) one?
Click to expand...

Oh, I got the best story... :)

Purchased a 1972 Precision in February, 1973, white with a tort pickguard. Didn't buy a second EB till last April, when I got a Geddy to fill in for the P while it was in the shop for new frets, work on the nut and bridge (original BA bridge I installed in the summer of '73), and lots of other stuff.

I love the Geddy (and my new Franklin Fretless P) but nothing can touch the old Precision. When you need real bottom, the kind of bottom that sounds like it could crush cars, the old P is the choice.

Doc
 

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