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What was your first amp (old guys only) Pt 2
- Thread starter Chef
- Start date
My first amp was a Gibson GA-20 that I got at a garage sale for $10. It was a great shape and worked perfectly. I played guitar back then (mid 70's, I guess). I loaned the amp to my son's friend and never saw it again. Joe D., if you're reading this, I want it back.
That photo could be of a current group out there, it's funny how everything comes around again, even coil cords.
Happy birthday Steve, keep on rockin brother !!!!!Ampeg V4-B Got it when I was 13 for my birthday. I'll be 58 tomorrow.
It's sitting in the living room closet. Still under warranty
Al Kraft
Supporting Member
- May 2, 2016
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Like many others back in the 70's my first bass amp was a Peavey TNT 100. It was good enough that it kept me coming back to Peavey for other bass amps/combos and PA gear for quite a while.
BassHappy
Supporting Member
Maybe someone knows what mine was. I have no idea. In 1964 my father helped me buy a Kay Old Kraftsman bass
It was packaged with a two channel bass amp with I think two 15" speakers for a cool $175. - all in for both. We ordered it out of this 1964 Spiegal catalog.
I always thought maybe it was a Silvertone/Danelectro. It seemed to be very similar to this Silvertone model 1474:
But the control panel at the top didn't go all the way across the amplifier. It started on the left side and only went about 2/3's of the way across.
I beat the crap out of it loading it in and out of the car, and my Dad eventually re-covered it with silver sparkle naugahyde he got at an automotive center. We also re-covered an external speaker box we had laying around to match. It's the weird looking stack that resembles a Kustom between the key board and guitar player on the right. It was originally dark grey but no logo in sight.
The hoot is that the amp looked so good we sold it to a guitar player for $200 and made the money back plus. I went out and bought a used Fender Bassman and never looked back.
It was packaged with a two channel bass amp with I think two 15" speakers for a cool $175. - all in for both. We ordered it out of this 1964 Spiegal catalog.
I always thought maybe it was a Silvertone/Danelectro. It seemed to be very similar to this Silvertone model 1474:
But the control panel at the top didn't go all the way across the amplifier. It started on the left side and only went about 2/3's of the way across.
I beat the crap out of it loading it in and out of the car, and my Dad eventually re-covered it with silver sparkle naugahyde he got at an automotive center. We also re-covered an external speaker box we had laying around to match. It's the weird looking stack that resembles a Kustom between the key board and guitar player on the right. It was originally dark grey but no logo in sight.
The hoot is that the amp looked so good we sold it to a guitar player for $200 and made the money back plus. I went out and bought a used Fender Bassman and never looked back.
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I'm an old guy so I don't remember if I posted here before but my first amp (that I bought, use to blow up friend's Fender bandmaster speakers before that) was also a Univox tube amp with one 15" speaker, kind of a B-15 copy. I've never seen one since and don't even really remember what it looked like. I sold it to a friend and did bump into him some years ago but he couldn't remember what he did with it so I guess it has kind of faded into the mists of history.
I bought it somewhere around 1967, next amp was a Dual Showman, and then a Marshall Major with two Sunn 2000S cabs loaded with JBL D-140's, that amp shook everything in sight, then on to an Ampeg SVT somewhere around 1976 and I've been lugging and playing them ever since.
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I'm an old guy too. My first amp I hauled home on the elevated train from downtown. It came from Chicago's State St. pawn shop row, now long gone, which was a great place for used gear in its day. I remember my Dad had to go with me - they wouldn't sell to a 12 yr old! Anyway, it was a blue-tolexed open-back Jensen-equipped 15-watt (1 power tube) something or other - Kay maybe... I don't recall any badges, but lots of gear was built in Chicago back then - and it cost very little. It came with my Kingston P-bass as a package. I think the whole thing was $90 total (1964). It didn't sound very good by today's standards, but it got me started!
A long time ago....I was 14-ish'....my uncle had a Ampeg Gemini guitar amp with a 15 in it setting around unused by his band.
He stuffed some insulation in it and screwed a piece of plywood across the back.
That was my first "almost" real bass amp....gigged with it for several years....at that time it sounded good to me!
He stuffed some insulation in it and screwed a piece of plywood across the back.
That was my first "almost" real bass amp....gigged with it for several years....at that time it sounded good to me!
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Same here for Standel.
Got it as a snot nosed kid and surely thought I had "arrived", never mind I was playing a God awful Radio Shack, straight off the wall bass that set me back a whopping $47.00 new.
Guitarist and keyboardist had a mini Fender combo and a Silvertone respectively.
Those had two inputs so those amps doubled as our PA.
A Standel was my 3rd amp, and my first "stack" - 100 watts and a 15 with a 15" extension speaker box. Eventually I sold it to a guitarist who still uses it! Very high quality stuff, as long as it didn't break. The tube tech guys I knew back then didn't know what to make of them.
First amp was a blackface Bassman with a 2-12 cab in '71.
Traded it for a solid state Ace Tone. Let me repeat that... Ace Tone.
Jaeeeezus!
Traded it for a solid state Ace Tone. Let me repeat that... Ace Tone.
Jaeeeezus!
My first band when I was 14 had two Silvertone Twin Twelves, we used to plug two guitars, my bass and three microphones into them, but they never blew up and actually didn't sound too bad if the volume was kept down.
I used to drool over the guitars, basses and amplifiers in the Radio Shack, Lafayette and sears catalogues.
My first amp was my cheap stereo using my Kay hollow body. I then stepped up to a solid state Univox 1 15 combo that sounded like a fart even after I got my 72 Jazz bass. Went from that to a Vox Westminster head into an 18" folded horn I made in wood shop. It was a step up, but not much. I can't say I miss them, well maybe the Jazz.
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1967 Fender Bassman, bought in '67. Still have it. That's my early 80's Bassman 100 combo amp underneath it.
