Do you still have your first bass?

[Afro_Man]

I was wondering how many people actually have their first bass, and if so why and if not why? just wondering.

[JulieCat]

I do. Why? I just got it this year.

 

I can tell you that I don't ever plan on letting it go. I've heard too many stories of regret and wistfulness of those who didn't keep their first bass.

[doc taz]

Yep, right on this page: http://www.geocities.com/i_love_tazzus/stuff.html It's the red one at the bottom... gotta redo the instrument pics sometime. Still rocks after 20+ years.

[SteveC]

Don't have mine. It wasn't that great. It was a Hondo II jazz copy.

 

If any you are curious, I have a list of past basses (to the best of my memory) on my web site.

[NickT]

Yup, I've only ever owned 2 basses. My first was a Japanese Squire J, soon to be the recipient of some new pickups.

[PETE_COMBS]

Yes, I still have my first bass and its still kickin today play it everydayand I've had it for 5 years ,been through some differrent paint jobs and it will get more when the time comes.And a second note that bass will have some very good upgrades coming to it,it will be a bad ass bass when its finshed.Also it sybolizes what I believe in and work for in life so its a keeper for sure.

[MattC]

My first bass is my project bass: custom paint, defretted, etc. It isn't easy to play but it does have a signature sound and looks cool.

[JBFLA]

Nope, and I've regretted it ever since.

 

A '67 sunburst P-bass that I bought for $125 in '73. Tried to buy it back several times, but no luck...

If I get a chance, I'll scan an old photo, and post it. It was a beaut!!

 

{DANG - All those years of therapy, reduced by a single post!!!}

 

JBFLA

[tim4003]

Why yes I do. It's a mid 70's Univox Hi-Flier. http://bassforum.pointbeing.com/users/tim4003/Evmp0467.jpg

[Mr. Phil]

yea i kinda do. What do I mean by Kinda? well everything is replaced on it except the neck, fretboard wood(i ripped out the frets) and the body (at least whats left of it). I still have all the original stuff that went to it though, including the frets. I was think of making a 1 string bass that Les Claypool uses (i saw it on the amusing bass galeria). Ill post pics if I ever make one.

[Mr. Phil]

Originally posted by JBFLA:

Nope, and I've regretted it ever since.

 

A '67 sunburst P-bass that I bought for $125 in '73. Tried to buy it back several times, but no luck...

If I get a chance, I'll scan an old photo, and post it. It was a beaut!!

 

{DANG - All those years of therapy, reduced by a single post!!!}

 

JBFLA

that sucks. yea, thats all i can say

[Travis Harms]

When you have a low budget like I do, you have to sell old gear to afford new gear. I don't really regret selling my first bass because it was a cheap, heavy, ugly, toneless hunk of wood. Even if I still had it I would never play it.

[Iceman Irwin]

Yes, here.

 

I had it for my graduation way back in high school. It's a trb 50. Was a cheapo but now definitely a collectors'.

It's my main bass still but heavily modded with emg cs pups and some hardware upgrades. I'm thinking of having it rebodied and have a professional artist make some art on the paint job. Well I might as well put a work of art on something that helps me make art.

[Afro_Man]

Its not really the point if your first bass was a chunk of wood with some fence wire, its the fact that it got you into this world of music that you now wouldn't even think of living without. I've still got mine as i also only own two basses and i don't plan to get rid of it. I wonder if any of the older people (no offence meant) still have their first bass?

[alexclaber]

I still have my first bass but it's a little different now. It was a 1990 Hohner Jack (headless full-bodied Steinberger copy) with passive P/J pickups and vvt controls, in gloss black (including the back of the neck - eeeww, sticky...). It was pretty nice to play, low action, nice string feel, stayed in tune (those Steinberger bridges are fantastic!) but the tone wasn't too great, rather lacking in the growly resonant low mids that make a bass record well and the thundering lows that come across well live.

 

When I bought my Warwick I defretted the Hohner and it transformed it - this bass was born to be fretless. It didn't have much of the mwahing growl of the Jaco sound but instead it had these huge deep lows, almost like an upright but with solidbody sustain. Had some fun playing it at gigs through the Acmes and rearranging the audience's internal organs.

 

Not long after that, I stripped all the paint - I started out just taking the paint off the neck to make it nicer to play, but that came off so easily I started on the body, and that didn't come off at all easily. As soon as I put the strings back on I couldn't believe the difference - getting rid of that thick gloss finish had removed the damping from the sound and now the wood could resonate freely. It growled low down and sang high up just like a good fretless should.

 

This unfortunately didn't come through too well with the crap pickups, so recently-ish I removed both pickups and put in a single Bartolini J pickup in the bridge position. I've yet to hear this plugged in because soon after I started wiring this together I had the bright idea of replacing the preamp in my Warwick and putting the old MEC2 into the Hohner - unfortunately I still haven't got around to this, but I will soon, and it will sound good.

 

Before I wire things up though, I really need to sort out the setup and sand the body off properly - it's fine from a distance but up close it looks such a mess and it's getting upset sitting next to my meticulously crafted Warwick.

 

I'm still amazed how good it sounds unplugged (and I'm pretty damn sure it'll sound great with the new electronics). It's like a new instrument.

 

Funny how things turn out - shortly before my Dad died he said to me "you won't ever sell that bass will you?" - maybe it really has got a new soul...

 

Alex

[bc_dup1]

Yes and no.......

 

The first bass I actually owned was a white Fender Precision. I was playing guitar in a soul band playing Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, that kind of stuff and the bass player left. Rather than replace him we decided that one of our two vocalists would play guitar and I'd play bass. I bought a bass, played it in this band for 6 months or so. I definitely did not regard myself as a bassist, I learned the lines off the records for the tunes we were playing, played 'em note for note with little or no variation, and they were practically the only bass parts I knew. As soon as a got a chance to return to guitar I grabbed it.

 

It was several years later that I decided I might be interested in actually playing bass. I put a "bass wanted" ad in our local press and ended up buying a Wal because I thought it would hold its value if I decided to sell. I still have it, although it hasn't been used for years - it's my third choice bass behind my Lakland and Yamaha Nathan East. I intend to put it on ebay soon.

[doc taz]

Wow, bc, you got a Wal? Those things are really hard to find! First heard about it when Jason Newsted was in Metallica, and he actually got to meet the late Ian Waller when he got his. I bet he's sold his though, he's a Sadowsky man now.

 

Then again, he was in Metallica, and owns a studio and record company , so he can get whatever he wants with little trouble.

[Addix Metzatricity]

Nope, I don't have my first one anymore... Which is ok, it sucked anyway. Really cheap Epiphone somethin'...

 

In fact, I don't have my 2nd or 3rd either. My Ibanez Soundgear 5-string and Yamaha fretless were stolen out of my car in '97 or '98.

 

So... I'm on my 4th and 5th now. Hopefully 6th soon.

[uber]

yes, still have it and still play it , well, i would if it wasnt in the shop getting a new nut fitted ,it split on the g string

[bc_dup1]

Yes, when I bought my Wal (which I think of as my first "real" bass, 'coz I didn't think of myself as a bassplayer when I briefly owned the Precision) I suspect they were out of fashion. It's a Mach 1 & in exceptional condition. I paid £350 and I've been advised I could get as much as £900 now. It will be sold to part-fund the rig I've just bought.

[40hertz]

i still have it!

it is a really cheap Academy 4 string bass.i don't know if they still make them.

i took it to a luthier two years ago-now it is a happy fretless with EMG pickups.it sounds ok!

[Phoney McRing Ring]

Sold it, last week for £40 to the bassist in my little brothers band. It was a Westfield P copy. Big, heavy but i lovd it damit

[Rik]

Its not really the point if your first bass was a chunk of wood with some fence wire, its the fact that it got you into this world of music

I was a musician long before I picked up the bass, so my first bass didn't have the kind of sentimental value you're talking about. *G*

 

My first bass was a $200, short-scale Hondo, complete with plywood (oops, I mean "laminate") body. Bright red body, white pickguard. It had a shape vaguely 'inspired by' a P-Bass, but smaller. It had a single, ugly, cream-colored P-style pickup, and a maple neck & fingerboard.

 

Sounded like crap, but I didn't know any better back then (1985 or '86). I mostly retired that bass when I bought a $400 Samick in '94. More recently, I've acquired much better basses, so I trashed the Hondo. Literally.

 

On that old Hondo, the strap pin screws were continually stripping out, so I had both ends of the strap nailed to the body. Having stepped on my cable one night, the plastic pickguard was broken on both sides of the jack, so I fixed it with duct tape. Actually, I used the duct tape after a fruitless attempt to melt the plastic back together with a soldering iron...

 

So anyway, I eventually got a Kramer neckthrough 5-string to go with my Samick 4-string, and I hadn't played that Hondo in years. I knew it had no resale value, so I took it out to the garden and, holding it like a jackhammer, I rammed it headstock-first into the freshly tilled soil. You could see that bright red bass from half a mile away on a sunny day! Propped up, the Hondo made a great beanpole

[_Sweet Willie_]

No, I no longer am the owner of my first bass. It was a 4-string Ibanez Roadstar II, purchased new in about 1985 for a little over $200: black finish on the body and headstock, black pickguard, P pickup, bolt-on jazz neck w/ rosewood 'board.

 

I gave it to a friend of mine a few years ago. He still has it. I visited with it recently. You can read about that visit:

Willie does a friend a favor and re-fingers his first bass.

 

I sometimes wish it were still mine. If it were, I'd consider dropping in a new pickup (probably one of those bladed DiMarzios), getting rid of the stickers I stuck all over it, refinishing it, and getting a new pickguard.

 

It's a great bass that I bought for cheap. What else can I say?!

 

Peace.

[fig]

Nah, it was a Fender of some sort bought by my dad when I was about 16 (I'm 46 now). I wrecked it by always keeping it leaning it against the wall with the strings facing outward. The string tension, added to the weight of the bass leaning backward, totally bent the neck. I'm pretty anal about putting it on stands now, or facing the strings inward when propping it against a wall. When I go in someones house with a guitar or bass leaning with strings out, I give 'em my sad story.

 

I'm a certified "Fender Bender" and I'll have to live with this shame forever

[Dave Martin]

I still have mine; it's a Japanese copy of a Hofner, made by a company called "Domino". I think the neck may be balsa wood (Based on the way it splintered in one spot), and it has one nylon wrapped string and three flat wound strings. It sounds pretty terrible, but when I was in junior high school, my mom and I did a decoupage thing to the case and that still looks cool.

[Basshappi]

No. I don't really miss it. You have to realize that back all those aeons ago (late 70's) there were Fenders, Gibsons and if all the planets were in the proper alignment a Rickenbacker in the stores and these basses were well out of my price range, everything else was CRAP. Not like now where even some of the cheapest instuments are quite playable even decent quality instruments.

 

So my first bass was a Kay I believe, at least it had a K on the headstock. It was shaped like a Gibson EB3 and had two chrome covered pick-ups.

There was a Timezone between the strings and the fretboard, I swear you could grate cheese with that sucker! All I had to do was look at it and my fingers would blister.

 

But, I played it endlessly (blisters were kind of the Red Badge of Courage among us players back then and it gave us kung fu callouses!)

 

I traded it as part of the deal for my first quality bass a Gibson RD Artist, a bass I wish I still had even though I had to play it upside down

[Jode]

No, I do not still have my first bass.

 

**Artie Fufkin voice on**

 

I want you to kick my ass. Come on, kick this ass. KICK MY ASS!!

 

**Artie Fufkin voice off**

 

A 1972 Gibson EB3. I felt like I needed a more 'modern' sound, so I traded it for a piece of shit Aria Pro II. I decided I had made a mistake, but only after it was too late and my bass was sold. I have regretted it every day since.

[Bass Devil]

I really wish i still had my first bass still for only one reason it was a vintage peavy t-140 but it needed alot of work i gave it to a budy for his birthday 4 years after playing cos i got a fender p then and he didn't have the money to buy one and really wanted to learn(wich I taught him too after givng him the bass ) as much as i wish i had that first bass I wouldnt trad my first fender p for it lol i got a USA 96 fender p real nice bass. i also own a BC rich warlock and a esp TA-500 now.

[coyote]

Nope.

 

My first was an Aria ProII "Thor Sound" which in its day (early 80s) was pretty good for $250. But its sound seemed to get worse as time went on. In the meantime, the past few years have yielded some excellent basses for less than $200 (and yes I mean excellent - they play well and sound great) so I traded it in for one of those.