What was your first bass guitar?

[GIBrat51]

What was your first bass? When did you purchase/receive it and do you still have it?

For me it was a white Peavy Foundation given to me as a Christmas gift from my parents in 1984 or thereabouts. Kept it for about four years before trading it in.

The first bass I bought was in 1988, after I'd learned to play on a friend's left handed, blue '68 Rick 4001 - in 1968. Between the two, I played other people's basses off and on; my job and life circumstances didn't leave much room for bass guitars - or music in general. Well, making it, anyway... So, in 1988 I was 37; reaching the end of my military career; and, when a fellow lefty GI wanted to sell one of his basses to fund the purchase/restoration of a very rare '58 lefty P-Bass he'd found in a London pawn shop (we were stationed in the UK at the time), I bought it. It's a very nice lefty '78 P-Bass, with the Jazz Bass - dimensioned "A" option neck. Do I still have it? Does a cat have an ass? Of Course I still have it. I don't play it all that often any more - at 11 pounds, it wears on my 71yo body a lot more than it did when I was 30-something, but I'll be damned if I'll ever let it go. It doesn't get the playing time that, say, my Dano's or my Hofner Club Bass do, now; but, it will never be a closet queen,..

 

[ed morgan]

ed's basses

• ed morgan
• Mar 22, 2015

My Yamaha SA 70

. My first is a 70's Yamaha SA70; still have it.

 

[Mastermold]

70's Gibson Grabber. Sold it back in the 80's and got a used Rickenbacker 4001. Sill have that Ric.

 

[Parzival]

First was a Peavey Patriot I got new in about 1987. Sold a long, long time ago. I couldn’t play well back then so I have no good recollection of it was decent, but I had GAS and wanted something different. It looked just like the one in the pic

 

[Malak the Mad]

What was your first bass? When did you purchase/receive it and do you still have it?

1. A 2007-ish Fender Aerodyne Crafted In Japan Export Edition.
2. I bought it in September of 2011, one day before my 40th birthday, courtesy of Pawn Mart, back when they were an online chain of pawn shops across various Southern U.S. states.
3. You betcha! And except for the addition of a Hipshot Drop-D tuner, it's my only stock instrument!

These are the pics Pawn Mart sent me. 'Twas a bit dusty and it had the kind of finish chipping most Aerodyne owners come to expect, but the price was too good to refuse...$376.01 shipped! Como se dice...GIMME!!

Later, after a setup, some new strings and a little TLC...

 

[kineticdg]

My first was this Vantage, bought it new while in high school in the early '80's. It disappeared when I graduated college, reappeared twenty years later (social media did at least one good thing).

 

[ryco]

A used UniVox Beatle Bass copy purchased '68 - 6th grade
Worked a summer picking veggies on a truck farm to earn the dough.
Parents bought a Traynor Bass-Mate YBA-2B to go with it.

Terrible bass. Electronics kept going out. Took it to the local music repair shop, which was really an accordion shop. The tech tried a bunch of times to fix it to no avail. Tech finally gave me a card and said "Go see this guy - he can fix it." Card read Paul Tutmarc Jr. Turned out he lived about half a mile from my house, so I took my bass there, knocked on his door, and he said "Let's see what we can do." Had it fixed in about 45 minutes. Never gave me trouble again.

Had it as a second bass through high school. Gave it to a fellow female classmate senior year '74.

 

[lidl e]

Kramer aluminum neck with the split headstock.

Got it in 1990

 

[CletusMarley]

I had a couple jazz basses in the early 90s but didn't do much with them. When I got serious about playing bass a few years ago I got this.

 

[TeeSee]

Moderators, I tried searching for a thread like this but can't find one with the search results which means I'm probably exceptionally stupid, as I can't believe this question has not been asked before. If it has please shunt me into the relevant thread and sorry for wasting everyone's time.

For everyone else, I'd like to ask this question. What was your first ever bass, you know, what was that piece of wood, plastic and metal that set you on your way to become what you are today be it professional, semi, amateur or just hobbyiest.

My very first bass was made by an italian company called Shaftesbury. It was a 3/4 scale bass modelled on the Fender Telebass. It's original colour was butterscotch. I has this bass for 10 years and it got me into gigging in 1978 when I was 16. It really wasn't that good but it was cheap and it did the trick.

 

[TeeSee]

.. and so I pressed the wrong button and published this before I had finished. Oh dear I'm such a klutz, and I can't find anyway to delete it.
Anyway, this butterscotch Tele I saw one on Ebay and they're asking £600+ This is the exact guitar I had for about £25 in 1976.
Well, as a kid I just wanted to do something different so I went in my dad's garage and painted it black with spray paint and zebra stripes with regular white gloss paint I'd found at home. It sounded crap, but it looked good. Anyway, I'm struggling to get these pics on in the right order, but I think you get what I mean. What was your first Bass?

 

[Beej]

My first bass was a Mann EB-3 copy. Not a terrible bass - I thought it was at the time, due to how it sounded, but I learned that was generally the sound of an EB-3. I traded it for a guitar amp and then later bought a used Fender Jazz and then the GAS started.

 

[dougjwray]

My first one was a Gibson EBO, with a cherry finish. My parents gave it to me for my 13th birthday. I had asked for a bass, any bass, and the guy at the music store guided them to the EBO.
Shortly after, I got the brand new album "Live Cream", and was very happily surprised to see my hero, Jack Bruce, playing almost the same bass (a cherry red EB3) in the photo on the cover! (In those days, unless you saw musicians perform, you were very lucky to obtain any information about what gear they used).

 

[MYLOWFREQ]

Marina P bass copy.

 

[jimmydean]

I had a Kent PB style bass and a Kent 1x15 combo amp .

 

[el jeffe bass]

Fender American standard Jazz Bass. I had been playing guitar about 25 years and knew the value of a quality instrument. Not long after starting bass my musical world opened up considerably.

 

[Kubicki Fan]

Ric: It was beautiful. It was also light in the tone department and weighed a ton. It had flats on it and with my cheap amp I could not cut though the mix. Also, I knew absolutely f-all about setup, strings, EQ.
The Ric never had a chance. I wish I still had that bass though..

 

[pbass2]

Montgomery Wards bass--was probably along the lines of a Teisco. I don't remember much but I remember enough to recall it was crappy.
Second was a '74 (I think-maybe a '75) Jetglo 4001 new off the rack. Played only that bass for many years...

 

[CryingBass]

Teisco.

 

[Swerve]

Squier Affinity P. Bought for $200 at a music store in Houma, Louisiana in 2000.

Sold it a year and a half later and got a Fender JP-90, which is the bass I had when I joined this forum. Wish I still had both of those!