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Your First bass and how it mattered...

#21
Hmmm...

I started out playing guitar. I had a cheap, beat up green Fender Squier. I was fairly decent on guitar, but my teacher showed our class a Motley Crue music video, and I decided I wanted to play bass. I kept bugging an older school mate to trade his bass for my guitar. He declined. I finally bought a $16 dollar bass at a thrift store. But after a week, the pickup died.

At a garage sale, someone asked if I had any music gear for sale. I told him I had a "Broken bass". Yadda, yadda, yadda, he said he'd buy it for $40. I agreed. I used the money to buy knew knobs, and an old pickguard for my Fender Squier. It looked somewhat cool. Cheap, but cool. I carried it everywhere, practicing Misfits songs between classes. The older school mate I mentioned earlier, thought my squire was the coolest thing. He was really into Jimi Hendrix, and agreed to the trade. :bassist:

The next day, he brought the bass. A Fender Duff Mckagan Sig. I fell in love with it. I took it home, plugged into my combo amp, did my best to keep a beat with "Suffragette City". Although not my first bass guitar, I consider it to be.
 
#22
I pined during those mid 70s years for basses like an Ampeg Stud or the Rick 4001 just based on looks alone. That old school (literally) Fender Precision haunted me too as it was a taste of how a true bass sounds and plays. The jr.high also had a Guild Thunderbass amp and Gibson Thor combo with 2-10s that I had used. Great amps & Bass, Where are they now I wonder?
Yes the Teisco did hinder my playing and my parents budget being tight couldn't afford to get a "Real" bass til later that decade !
But the drive and passion only grew until that moment. Then it was a lot of practice etc. When it's in you, it'll never die.
 
#23
My first bass was a Sears/Silvertone J copy around 1969. In retrospect , it had terrible action and intonation and I didn't even know it ; but, it was big and cool- looking and learning to play it built my self-esteem. Soon after I got it , I was asked to play for different groups . That's what got me on my way to a life-time of enjoying music.
 
#24
My first bass was a miracle find. I bought the Squier Precision for $70. They sold it for so cheap because it was broken, but the only thing wrong with it was the input jack. I played that bass for a year before getting a new one. I then decided to mod it to make it sound better. I switched the neck and the electronics, and completely ruined it. It plays awfully now, and sounds like a overdriven sub woofer.

My dad's first bass was a sunburst Teisco. It originally got him interested in music (he's a drummer now) and it was what he played in the Gaping Onion Bags. He spray painted it green and called it the Green Frog. He said the action was super high and the strings were horribly sharp. He would've given it to me as an artifact of his youth, but he unfortunately can't locate it. Sometimes he'll play one of my basses for old times sake.
 
#25
I'm 46 years old. I started playing bass in the school orchestra when I was 10 years old. Although she has long since passed, I still remember my music teacher, Mrs. McManus, as though we spoke yesterday! She was so kind and loving. She made it easy to lug that upright back and forth from school to home to practice. A couple years later, my parents, apparently impressed by my dedication, bought me a Lyle bass and some no-name amplifier for my B-day. I played the crap out of that thing! Everyday. And man, was I cool. Probably the coolest kid in school. Mrs. McManus encouraged me to play my Lyle, instead of the upright with the orchestra and I did! I remember our first concert with me playing my Lyle, in front of the whole school! I got to do a little solo in "Baby Elephant Walk". Geez! What a thrill! The whole school stood and applauded! I was hooked, there was no going back. Now 36 years later, I just finished a one off last night at a local pub and rocked just as hard as I did for "Baby Elephant Walk" all those years ago. The love and support of my parents and my music teacher made me who I am. And that Lyle bass, started a case of GAS that has lasted all my life so far and seems to have no end!
 
#26
I also started with a sunburst Teisco, in 1973. Terrible bass, but I didn't know anything about setting up a bass back then, and had I known, I could have made it easier to play. The action was way high, but it didn't turn me off from playing bass. Got a part-time job, worked long enough to afford a new Gibson Ripper, and joined my first gigging band. Kinda wish I had kept the Teisco, if only for sentimental reasons.
 
#27
1978 or so I bought a no-name violin bass at a pawn shop. It looked good, and I knew it was the same one Paul Mcartney had. (I didn't know nuffin', I was in Jr High.)

It was impossible to play, mile high action, the strings hurt my fingers. It sounded horrible, fret buzz, pickup hum, muffled weak tone. The neck was heavier than the body so you had to constantly be supporting the neck with your fretting hand while trying to play.

How it mattered? It is the primary reason I was a GUITAR player for the last 30 years! Bass was awful. I had a Univox badazz electric guitar at the same time. It was easy to play, the sounds it made were pleasing, and the neck stayed up. The bass was sold, and I had a negative image of bass for years.

I think modern cheap basses are vastly superior to the raw garbage beginner basses of the '60s and '70s. Kids today have it pretty good.
 
#28
my first bass was a metal flake red bc rich platinum warlock. i was looking for a warlock guitar after only playing guitar for a year. the store i was at only had the warlock bass and my friend sugested i try it as there werent any bass players at the time in our area. i picked it up and fell in love with bass like it was ment to be. if it wasnt for it being a warlock (i like odd angular shapes) i would have probebly never picked a bass up.
 
#29
My B-day is on Christmas day. So,my whole life growing up,I would get the ol' "b-day/Christmas present combo." Which was cool with me,because I would always have a kick-ass Christmas growing up. For my 12th birthday (back in 1977,mind you),my mom & dad copped me a used,late 60's-early 70's sunburst P-Bass. No Gorilla combo amps for me! They also bought me an Acoustic 370,along with an Ampeg 4x12 cab,with JBL's (The cab was EXACTLY like an SVT cab,except for the 4x12's).
For one thing,I was fortunate enough to have an uncle that was a famous gospel singer with many,many songs on the gospel charts,for years. That was who my parents bought all the gear from. So,I was fortunate to have a pro-type setup from get go.
I remember hooking everything up in my bedroom that morning. Man,I drove my mom and dad c-r-a-z- with that rig,rattling pictures of the walls,practicing every day until I moved out at 19 years old. Probably the best day of my dad's life!
The only thing I have left is the Cadillac gold-colored,curly cord,with big brass plugs. And it still works perfect!!!
 
#30
I got my first bass for Christmas when I was fifteen. It was a Cortez from around 1964 or '65, and it was finished in red and black sunburst with a chrome pick guard. This particular model came in both short scale and long scale versions. I had the short scale, and I never saw another one just like it. However, I saw James Brown once when he had two bass players. One on them played the long scale version of my bass. I traded the Cortez to my brother for his 1962 Fender Jazz bass, which I still have. Apparently, he was having a good big brother day. He later sold the Cortez, after buying a seventy-something Fender Jazz bass. I lost track of the Cortez after that, but would buy it back, if I could find it. My brother refinished the Cortez in a color very similar to LPB. If you've seen this bass, let me know.

It was important because without it, I would never have started playing bass.
 
#31
My first two basses where gibsons. Was good choice to get pro bass rather then some cheap starter bass. Not only did they play and sound better, they better inspired me for learning and developing playing skills to include creating original stuff. Did later find brands I liked better for sound and balance. But still retained attitude of get something a pro might play rather then cheap junk stuff.
 
#33
My first bass was an 80's-era G&L-2000 that I bought for $300 in 1989. I had no idea what I had and I regret selling it to this day. At the time I was trying to get a Rickenbacker growl out of it, and eventually I sold it for the first in a long string of ricks.

Looking back I can see how lucky I was to get such a high-quality instrument to learn on at such a low price. How I wish I had it back.

Tom
 
#35
My first bass was a Framus Star bass that I bought from a Dutch exchange student on my bus for $40. It would be worth a lot more if my hooligan friends and I hadn't performed experiments on it over the years- a lot of hacking and sawing, trying out different pickups on it that didn't fit, etc.

It really had a great boomy tone and a very round, but narrow neck- perfect for a 13 year old transitioning from baseball to bass! I didn't even play it at first. We had a friend who owned a real telecaster that he didn't play, so we figured if we got him a bass I could use his tele and he could be in the band without doing much damage.It was my job to teach him the notes on the first two strings.
 

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#36
My first bass, sort-of, was a Kay Rickenbacker copy. Awful. I say sort of because it started as a rental. My parents tried the $15 a month plan that didn't include an amp - so I had to plug it into an old stereo receiver which had no speakers attached, just a horn torn out of some old '60's era audio science project.

My first owned and kept bass was an Ibanez Blazer, natural wood color and more or less P-bass style. I rocked my 8th grade Jazz band, complete with black polymer covered flatties and custom replacement heavy chrome tone and volume knobs.
 
#37
my first bass was a knockoff of a Fender P bass i picked up for $50 when i traded in some gear. i'm told it was an old japanese made bass. it had no identifiable markings, weighed a ton, had a neck like a warped tree trunk, the pickup was falling apart & it did not like to stay in tune. i got a few years of noodling out of it & passed it on to my sisters kids a few years back. i don't miss it at all.

from a distance people thought it was one of these & were very impressed: :eek:
300px-Fender_Precision_Bass.jpg


then they got closer & were inevitably dissapointed. :scowl:
got to be a form of entertainment to watch people's expectations rise & then nose dive.
 
#39
My first was a late 70s Memphis P Bass. I was 15 and thought I knew everything so I gutted it, stripped it, and repainted it (body, neck, and fret board) using nothing but quality Krylon spray paint. The body and neck we're gloss black and the fret board was gray. It was awful. Needless to say Humpty Dumpty was never put back together again. You would think I learned a lesson from this, but I did the same thing to a Hondo All-Star (fender bullet knock-off) the next year. Poor instruments.
 
#40
Mid '80s MIJ Fender Precision with a really thin gloss rosewood Jazz neck. Routed with a '70s spaced Jazz pickup wired V/V/T with a 3-way toggle. The body was a black-red-yellow burst with a black pick guard, with a big chrome BadAss II.

It was really comfortable and played oh-so-well compared to a lot of starter basses at the time. It made playing easy, and so I kept playing.
 

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