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Your first bass vs. what you play now

#161
My first bass was a Korean Fernendes P bass knockoff from the 90s. It sounded unfocused and boomy, or honky. Terrible, generally speaking. The action was off the wall and it wasn't until years later that I learned to do setups and made it at least play decently. Still sounded terrible though.

It has influenced me to stay away from P-basses and find clear, deep sounding basses. I can't afford Modulii or Zons yet, but I imagine I will gravitate to those eventually. What 35" scale basses I've played so far have been really good experiences, so those will likely be next.
 
#168
My first bass was an Italian hollowbody from the mid sixties, Crucianelli Cougar type, 30,5 inch scale, heavily worn & kinda damaged
when I got it in '83. My first serious instrument was a synthesizer, I got the bass through the guitarist, he didn't really like keyboards.
That band ended when the bass got killed by the guitarist.:mad:

I was asked for another school band and got a loan on a Tokai Jazz bass for it.
Then I moved on to a fretless PJ, with a Jazzbass near most of the time.
Nowadays I play a Rok Axe 34,5 scale fretless, a Hofner Cavern and an Ibanez EB0
modified with the leftovers from the first hollowbody, still have a Jazzbass on the side.
 
#169
My very first bass was a P.O.S. no-name, white Fender knock-off (I don't even know if it was a P- or J-copy, since I knew next to nothing about instruments at that time). Bought it along with an even worse cheap amp. It sounded horrible, and I really wanted a fretless, so I tried de-fretting it, but of course it still sounded terrible.

After that I just played on basses I borrowed, untill I could afford my first 'real' bass. I knew I wanted a fretless, and there were only two fretless basses for sale in the entire city (it's the second largest city in Denmark), so options were limited. (buying from the internet wasn't an option back then yet). The one I bought, I have since learned, was a Frankenbass put together by the musicshop's owner. An ESP rosewood fretless neck, cherry 2-piece body and Kent Armstrong pickups. It was a major revolution, compared to the cheap basses I had played up until that point, and I still think this bass has a nice tone. But it was a bad purchase, considering that it cost so much that I could have gotten a real Fender, and he didn't do that great of a job putting it together; bridge is slightly misplaced, so the strings don't pass exactly over the pickup poles, etc., and he apparently drilled the holes for the pickguard wrong the first time around and had to redrill all new holes next to those, lol. I later swapped the pickups out for Dimarzios, which improved tone, but, in hindsight, wasn't worth it on this bass.

I recently bought an Ibanez BTB675 5-string, which is superior to my previous bass in every way. Can't bear to sell the Frankenbass, though, cause we go way back, and I'm also not sure I could get a good price for it anyhow, seeing as how it has flaws.
 
#170
First bass was a used 1972 Fender jazz which for some dumb reason I sold a few years ago. I have bought and sold many different kinds basses over the years and I still always come back to Fender Jazz and P basses. I also have a Musicman Sterling.
 
#173
My first bass was a cheap Korean-made EB-0 copy with a boat oar neck. Today, I wouldn't give you $5.00 for it compared to the basses that I play now.

The one thing that it did do, however, was to help me learn how to do set-ups and work on my own stuff. Did a lot of experimenting and learning on that one after I got my second bass (Carvin) and third bass (1969 Fender P-Bass).

I've still got the P-Bass.....:hyper:




dcr
 
#174
The first instrument I ever played "bass" on was a '63 Fender Jaguar guitar with flats and the tone turned down. It looked a lot like the Bass VI then in production.

What followed were many, many production instruments, several boutiques, and quite a few DIYs but now I use a Mustang RI modded with an ultralight body and tuners.
 
#177
My first bass was a Squier Affinity P Bass.. my god that thing was horrible, i tried all i could to set it up and just never worked right. Then i bought a Washburn XB-102 and that was miles ahead of the Squier. Im still not sure what happened to the first one but im glad its gone.
then its went Epiphone EB-0, OLP Stingray, Squier Classic Vibe Jazz, Fender MIM Jazz.

My first taught me that i didnt like Squier till the classic vibe, and im not a huge P Bass fan.
 
#178
My first bass was a Harmony P copy. I got that in the 7th grade and I kept it until right before I graduated. In the end the neck was very bowed and you couldn,t even adjust the truss rod on it anymore. Somewhere in between 7th and 12th grade I got a Peavey Fury that I used when our High school Jazz bad actually performed. I kept the Peavey for several years until I switched to playing exclusively guitar for about 10 or so years.
I recently switched back to bass and now I have a squire CV Jazz and 60s P and two weeks ago I got a 2009 American Standard P bass (now my daughter is learning to play bass and she is using the CV Jazz). I think the reason I choose to play primarily a P bass now is a result of starting on a p bass copy.
 
#179
First bass: Fender P-Bass.

I picked that up used about 15 years ago or so. Didn't think much of it then, I was a guitarist and that bass was used only for recordings on my 4-track demos, had to sell it about 2 years later.

Recently, I realized I've always really wanted to play bass NOT guitar (guess I fell in love with the bass over the years - thanks Geddy (Lee), Chris (Squire), Andy (Metcalfe, Robyn Hitchock & Egyptians)!

So a few months ago I got a new Ibanez SR300 (excellent value) but then less than a month after took it back to GC and bought another Ibby from a fellow TBer.

Current bass: Ibanez SR400QM
 

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