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Where did you start? When and on What?

#61
The first time I played was before a live audience. Imagine, Junior High School, Talent Show, 1967, Danelectro Bass and a Harmony Amp.............Priceless!!!

Oh, and we played Louie Louie, and I still wake up cold thinking about it........
 
#64
I started playing in 94 when I was 14. My mom bought me a bass for my birthday(I had to chip in some cash too) It was a bass someone had put together and sold to the local music shop, my first amp was a Peavey Minx 110 combo and I had one pedal, it was a dod delay. Ohhh yea :rollno:
 
#66
this is really cool reading about our roots in the low end! my start came when i was
14. everyone played guit*r including me. in and out of coffeehouse and house party gigs.
no one in our circle of friends played bass. an older guy i played in a band with was hanging it up. i was encouraged to "switch" to the bass as there was a serious shortage
of players in the area. got mom to get me the amp and bass from my friend hanging it up, a univox beatle bass and traynor yba 1 and 215 cab, i finally got some power. i sold
the bass, sometimes i wish i still had it. still have the traynor 30 years later. life in the
low end is good.
 
#67
Bass started I dunno maybe 11 years ago as the result of a conversation between me and fellow TBr Slim Louis ... we were doing a lot of blues jams at the time me on guitar and Slim on bass, so he said why don't you go buy a bass and help me out when no other bass players show up to jam. So that's how I got into it.

:) ... My 1st bass was a G&L 2000 through a Trace Elliot 4x10 combo (man was that thing heavy)
 
#68
I started in 2003 at 32. A friend gave me an acoustic guitar and showed me some chords. I enjoyed it, but felt more in tune with the bass lines of songs. I bought a used Karrera P bass copy and a Rogue practice amp. I think I got both for $150. I had seve cond thoughts about spending that kind of money on a "hobby." Well I'm glad (very glad) I spent that money. I play in a working band (4 years now), take lessons, play every day and have upgraded my equipment considerably. I study theory and technique and hope to be giving lessons in a few years.
 
#69
I started when I was 13 in '97. I was playing guitar at the time and my brothers had a band in which the bassist didn't want to play bass anymore? ? ? So after alot of convincing they got me to try it out. I instantly fell in love with the dark. . . I mean Low side. The old bass player sold me his gear for $60 total for an 80's peavey fury, and TNT100 with a black widow 15". I had that same bass and amp for like 5 years until I bought my beloved Cirrus 5 and got the dealer to throw in a SWR workingmans 12" combo for free :) since then the both got stollen out of storage by an ole land lord. broke my heart
 
#72
3 years ago at the end of my 9th grade year after seeing our school jazz ensemble play some tunes at our spring concert. My first bass was an Ibanez GAXB150 and I got a Fender Rumble 60 amp, both were gifts from dad. I tell everyone my first bass was the Squier Precision Special that I got 3 months later because the Ibanez was so... blegh :p. Because of that bass and many a-terrible Soundgears I'm on the road to recovery from my Ibanezophobia, lol. I'm actually considering one for my next bass.
 
#73
It'll be 4 years next weekend when I got my first bass. May long '05. I got a shortscale SG shaped Winston. I bought it from an ex who was selling it for a guy in a local metal band, it was only $60, so you can imagine the quality. It's probably around 40 years old too.

I still have it. It's torn to pieces though, needs ALOT of work (ex-girlfriend tripped over the cord a few times with the cord plugged into the bass).
 
#74
I started playing in 1975 when I was 14. I had an Epiphone ET-285 and a cheap practice amp. This picture is a year later with my first good bass amp, a Marshall solid state.

john76-2.png
 
#75
A 1959 or 60 custom-green Dano/Silvertone with dolphin headstock and on lipstick pickup. Got it in 1970 for $40 from a shop that just couldn't sell it because of the color. Lost the knobs and silvertone logo years ago (well, actually a friend did when I loaned it to him for a year or so) and....since I STILL play it pretty often....probably ned to do some searching for decent repros.

It has a tone unlike any of my other basses - big and woody sounding even though it's a short-scale.

It's cool in an uncool sorta way!
 
#76
Started playing bass after my first band formed. That's right, I didn't even have a bass yet. That Christmas I got a Peavey Milestone IV (P-bass copy). I was just shy of 13 at the time. I scraped together enough for a 30 watt squire amp a little later.I sounded horrible. I didn't really know what the tone knob did at the time, so it was always on minimim... I sounded like mud.

I still have both that bass and the amp, though the latter no longer works.
 
#77
Started playing Freshman year in High School (1987) on a violin bass I bought from my friends brother...then my parents bought me a Squire (Turquoise no less) P and a fender amp...stopped until 3rd year in college (1994), where I bought a used Peavey T-40 and a used amp of some sorts...refinished it, played for a little while, then sold it...fast forward to after marriage/pre children (1998), got an urge and bought myself another Squire P (black this time)...found out I didn't have any time to do anything with it...fast forward again to 2 years ago, I bought an SX LTD Jazz, fell in love with playing, played everyday, fell backwards into my band, and have since then gone through 3 SX's, an Ibanez SR300, an OLP to finally arrive at my Ibanez ATK and my TBC JT-400JJ.
 
#79
In the 7th grade (1976) I started in music on a tenor sax. A year later I joined the stage band as lead tenor sax and had a lot of fun until a much better tenor player showed up and knocked me out of the lead seat. As our bass player was moving to trombone, I got my dad to get me a Hofner Beatle bass with a Gibson Thor bass amp and I started teaching myself how to play and read bass clef.

After another year with much improvement, I was able to convince my dad that I was serious about the bass, so we went and purchased a brand new 1978 Gibson Grabber. Actually, I was almost set to buy a top-of-the-line Fender Jazz in Oly White, but because I was young and stupid, I changed my mind at the last minute because I thought that the Grabber looked "cooler." I still have that Grabber today, along with a couple other basses.
 
#80
1976, I was 15 and the biology teacher in H.S. started teaching me to play on his fretless Jazz. He offered to teach me to play if I stopped disrupting study hall. He got my mom to buy me a bass (a Magnum jazz copy) for my birthday later that year. He also sold me my 1st amp, a Heathkit with 150 watts and 2x15 that his dad had built for him. I had lots of good times with that rag-tag setup.

I have since learned to play some guitar, drums, and keyboard...(just enough to write song ideas) but I've never been interested in playing anything but bass in a live situation.
 

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