What was your first bass guitar?

[Rezdog]

Greetings From The North,

I had a news paper route and Grinnell Brothers main store in Detroit was closing. I'd been taking lessons there on my Harmony and I thought I was ready to get a 'real' bass. My instructor pulled out some overlooked gems from a storage room on the 4th floor. A Jazz, a P, a TBird, a Les Paul Recording Bass.....all from the mid & late 60's....all at a deep discount . I picked the Paul. Why? Cause I was in the 10th grade and knew everything. Sometimes I still give my head a shake.

Rezdog

 

[jaysbass2002]

Peavey T-40. No idea what I had at the time. If only I never sold it.

 

[avvie]

I had a 3/4 scale Kent Precision knockoff that actually sounded pretty good on tape...dunno how I got it. Needed a real bass to gig with though and bought a shiney brand new '85 Yamaha BB300. That was the model I played all the way up until about 2012., when it got heavy. Went through LOTS of mods over the years; it's now an active HH 5 string.

 

[Bushrod Johnson]

IN 1966 I'd been playing less than a year with a POS but then bought an Epiphone Newport. I thought it was the most awesome bass I'd ever heard.

 

[Graham Douglas]

So I'm in Europe (UK) in the 60s and the choice is pretty small. Hofners were expensive unless you were lucky to find secondhand. There were junk instruments like Rossetti Lucky 7s which had a neck like a tree trunk! I found a Fenton Weill some of which were awful others very playable. I was lucky with mine it was a good bass. Long gone of course but looked like:

 

[DWBass]

I consider all my early basses 'real' basses. Univox 'Lectra Violin bass then a Univox Baddazz. They worked and did the job. Made me money.

 

[JGbassman]

A 74 Rick. I still have the body and neck but the hardware and electronics have been gone for years. My mother thought my carefully saved parts were junk and threw them away when I was in the military. Sigh.

Someday I'll rebuild it

 

[japhy4529]

My first real bass was a Peavey Foundation. It was pretty rough but I kept it for years for sentimental reasons until it was stolen.

My first nice bass was a black '93 Gibson Les Paul bass.

 

[Snibborwocky]

mine was a 1990 Fender Precision Lyte.

 

[jjmuckluckjr]

'71-'72 Ultra Vox. Short-scale, hollowbobdy with dual humbuckers. It could feedback with the best of them.

 

[singlemalt]

Bought this at a party in 1980. Struck a deal for $300 for the all original '76 Kramer 450B and case, and a Kustom rolled and tucked bass amp in black. Head and 2-15 cab. $75 cash to walk with the bass that night, $75 the next three paydays to collect the amp.

I didn't actually play bass, or anything else, at the time. But it only had three strings, so how hard could it be? And every band needs one. Bring on the girls!

It saw lots of "improvements" over the next thirty years. Ended up fretless.

I finally sold it in the great gear purge of 2015.

 

[BobKos]

78 Musicmaster bought in 80 or thereabouts. Still own it. Modded the hell out of it, but it still plays great!

 

[knockerjoe]

The Modulus Graphite BaSSStar was my first "real" bass. Looked like this:

 

[Bob_Ross]

I spent the first few years of my bass playing life borrowing instruments, so I actually had it pretty good: Started on a borrowed ~1972 Fender Mustang, then a borrowed ~1971 Fender Precision Bass. Bought my first POS bass, then borrowed a ~1968 Gibson EB-0, then went back to the same borrowed ~1971 Fender Precision Bass. I'd been playing bass for 4 years before I got around to buying my first "real bass"
...which was a ~1977 Gibson L9-S Ripper.

 

[Steven Ayres]

Mine was a mudbucker Gibson EB-3 in '75, which I liked a lot for a while. I was very proud of the high-polish job I did on the body after removing the remains of the lacquer -- the mahogany flame came up really beautiful. I got sick of trying to make it sound decent through '70s amps, though. It might be a different story today. I moved to Guild and long scale in '77. I don't recall just what became of the Gibson, but it didn't go with me to California in '79.

 

[eigentone]

I'm younger than the average responder here. Mine was a 90s MIJ P Bass. I held onto it for nearly 2 decades, but it's been replaced.

 

[pbass2]

Mine was a Jetglo 4001, bought new when I was 15 in the mid-70's.
Sadly, I let it go in the 80's for all the wrong reasons....

 

[dc-upright]

I worked all summer on a paper route and bought a 66 P bass, Dad payed half and I payed half. I was 14 I think.

 

[TBPlayerOC]

I started playing bass on an Antares PJ. My first real bass was a 74 Les Paul Triumph that I bought for $250 in the early 80's. I sold it in the mid 90's and found one 20 years later that I own today. Now if only I had kept my Rickenbacker 4000...

 

[Whiplash71]

I got lucky, as the old man was a bass player. I told him I wanted to learn, so he got me this old, cheap bass that hurt to play and told me if I showed him I was serious, he would hook me up. I was 14 years old and I gave it hell.

About 6 months into it I was in my first band and he gave me his old Gibson EB-3. Yes, I still have it.