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What was your first bass and why did you start playing?


damo200sx
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mine was a kay P.bass copy that i got on the way home from my last day of school. (27 years ago!) I used to and still do love hearing elvis 70's concerts, and i always loved the sound of the bass. Jerry Scheff and Ronnie Tutt (drums) puts down some fantastic grooves (and still does) very advanced for the time was the tcb band, full of power,speed, and guts. Their should be a few more like them!

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For me it was a white/maple no-name Pbass copy 20 years ago bought from a music shop in Colchester which was quite near the Castle (not Manns). The thick neck really put me off, as I have normal sized hands and couldnt find a comfortable way to play it. To quote above "[i]Ever since my mid-teens when I started listening to music, it was usually the bass-line that caught my attention[/i]" just about sums it up for me. I really liked what John Taylor was doing, and I really liked the mobility and simplicity of what Adam Clayton does. I defretted it, refretted it, changed the pickup for an EMG select, added a J pickup then gave up on it as a bad job. I never really seemed to progress on guitar and somehow knew it wasnt for me.
Some years later I then bought an Aria Magna active 5 string, which had a much thinner neck and restiored my faith a little. The string spacing was too much for playing at root, so that went. I now have a Vintage Stingray copy that my partner bnought me and a Fender CIJ 62 RI jazz which has the slim neck and narrow spacing that I needed.

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Mine was a Hondo 2 Rickenfaker that I saved up for over a year with paper round / milk delivery money. I'd learnt to play tuba in the school band and found the bottom end appealing and easy to understand. Then in '78 I heard Geddy Lee, on "A Farewell To Kings", which opened my eyes..

The bass itself was horrible, but I didn't know any better at 17. My older cousin helped me out with set up, new strings (new strings? you mean you actually change them?!) and some basic technique.

I cut my teeth with Rush / Yes / heavy metal clone bands (all crap) before upgrading to an Aria Pro 2, a big 'ol Peavey stack and hitting the proper gig circuit with a decent blues band.. ;)

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i started out playing guitar (sorry 'bout that) with my brother but found it too fiddley & ended up playing bass lines on it,so i though sod it i'll buy a bass.
unfortunately it was a Kay SG ripoff type thing in transluscent brown/red,plywood body an' all--what a piece of crap it was but it got me started off.

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My 1st bass was a Jap Squier P Bass in white with maple neck for £150 from Monkey Buisness Southend, because I wanted to BE Steve Harris ( still do.....) in 1986. Started bass cos the 2 other guys in my college music lessons played drums and gui*** , so I learned bass and we started a band. Played Metallicas Creeping Death on the stage with no voacals one lunch break,marvellous times....!!!!!! I eventually took the bass to bits and ended up chucking it away years later, what a pratt, it`s probably worth a mint now............we live and learn!!!! ;)

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Mine was a Tobacco Sunburst Craftsman Precision Bass which I bought at Macari's in Charing X Rd for £99 in 1985. I couldn't get on with playing the guitar & my mate said "it's only got 4 strings, should be easier to play....."

I started playing after reading "The Jam - A Beat Concerto" - I found it quite an inspiring read to say the least! I was working in a crummy job at the time for rubbish money & wanted out of it.

Those were the days...

Cheers,
iamthewalrus

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my first bass was a hohner rockbass (s**t) precision copy) heavy as hell, but got me playing and for £30 it was a bargain and it came with an 30watt practice amp, shortly after i bought a brand new RBX170 yamaha, for an entry level bass it was excellent, after that i fell in love with yamahas, a bb110s and my BB614 followed with a richwood jazz copy as a back up inbetween (now my sons bass) but now, im getting my squire fender classic vibes 60s this month as i want a non active bass

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Second hand Sattelite P Bass copy was the first. I decided on bass as although I had a guitar already, there were loads of guitarists at school but no bassists so I would always get a gig! I also told girls that it wasn't the size of your feet but the size of your guitar that was the clue to package size! Went for the P Bass because I wanted to be Steve Harris.

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[quote name='Krysbass' post='398869' date='Feb 3 2009, 01:10 PM']My first proper bass was a Westone Thunder 1A.[/quote]

Another one here !
Started playing bass in the music room cupboard (!) at school, they had a light, a DX7 keyboard, a carlsbro amp, and a and black and white P copy in there, I used to sneak in there and play for hours while there were classes going on outside.
That got me hooked and I used to borrow the bass to rehearse with my first ever band (with whom I played a reunion gig at christmas - 15 years since we'd played together the last time!), then a year or two later I found a Thunder 1A in a pawn shop and my parents bought it for me for my birthday, this was some 20 years ago now, and that bass is sat right behind me - still love it to bits and play it pretty much every day ;)

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First bass: A shafesbury Ric 3000 series copy, bought in Nov 1974 for £25.... I used a black bin bag as a gig bag for 2 years (I couldn't afford to buy a case that the bass fitted into).

Reason I started bass: I was playing g**tar at the time (a Zenta), me and a few mates decided to form a band and as we already had two other g**tarists, I went on to bass - probably for two main reasons, I was the tallest :P and if the truth be known the worst g**tarist out of the three! ;)

Happy days!

Mart

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a Jedson bass at 13.... it was sh*te!....looked like this:

...followed by an [b]Audition bass[/b] from Woolies!... it was 'shop soiled' (string missing & ding in scratchplate) so I managed to haggle with the shopkeep from £26 to a tenner!....was well chuffed! ... anyone have a pic of an Audition bass?

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A 1963 (I think) Vox Clubman II bass. I found it in a car boot sale in a terrible state in 1997 and got it for a fiver.
I'd been playing the guitar for 5 years and knew a bit about them - figured it must be worth a few quid one day. Never played it.

My first bass was an EB-0 Epiphone and I started playing to fill in in a band and just stayed.

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Just like Del Palmer, my first bass was a '64 Hofner Artist II -- I bought mine from my school metalwork teacher for £20. Still got it. It's pretty much unplayable now, but looks as :huh: as fck on the wall. Second bass was a Columbus Jazz copy, third bass was my treasured Wal.
Started playing because I'd always felt drawn to the bass, ever since I was everso young and at a concert with my folks, and had felt my tummy fluttering because of the low end. I distinctly remember telling my mum that I could [i]feel[/i] what that man with the 'guitar' was playing -- dim memory suggests that it was a sunburst Fender of some sort.
Initial influences were Tony Butler of Big Country and Dave Steele of The Beat, until one day I saw Mark King on the telly... ;) :P

[quote name='Born 2B Mild' post='397275' date='Feb 1 2009, 09:23 PM']I got a Kay 'SG'. Thin bodied, sunburst, and probably short scale. £20 new, from Norman Hackett's in Reading (where I believe Bryan Adams also got his first six string). Rode home to Woodley with it on my back, on my Raleigh Runabout moped, which was a bit naughty, as I was 15 and not yet legal on the road.[/quote]
Norman Hackett's! On the corner in Caversham, my god that takes me back. :) I used to live in Shinfield, so the Reading music shops were a regular haunt of mine. I bought my Wal from Hamer's on Oxford Road.

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[quote name='Rich' post='406304' date='Feb 11 2009, 02:04 PM']my first bass was a '64 Hofner Artist II

[/quote]
Me too, second hand mid-sixties Hofner Artist for £25 in 1974. That was about a week's wages if I recall correctly.

I had been doing FOH sound and fixing the back line when it broke down (regularly) for a local band but also had two fairly high quality reel-to-reel tape recorders and a quality cassette deck and mikes and mixer and I would go around to people's houses and record them playing while doing loads of overdubs etc. I imagined myself as the new Joe Meek.

I could play guitar a little and so on one session I played a bass line (on a guitar) while the two guys I was recording both played guitars to cut down on one extra overdub. Later, in the pub, they asked me if I would play bass for their band. Impetuously, I said yes and bought the Hofner Artist the next day. I wish I still had it.

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Well, mine is a funny story. My Dad was a bass player and we were never allowed to touch his gear. That was the law in case he turned up for a gig and we had not replaced something that we had played with.

As a kid I used to sneakily mess with his Epiphone Rivoli (spare bass) when I was alone in the house. I never took up playing though for some reason. Anyway, he died about 5 years ago and I kept his gear. One day I was driving along listening to the radio and a tune had a really good bass line so when i got home I thought, well, you can't bollock me now mate! (Hee hee!) I Got out his prized Gherson (Jazz bass) and sussed how to tune it and since that day I was hooked! I saw the light and have played every day, gig every week and have my own band. He also had an old Fender Jazz bass but he always played the Gherson. The Rivoli was his bass from the 60's. The first bass i bought was a Jap Jazz bass.

The best gift he could have given me (even though I was 35 before I started playing. The rest is history, thanks Dad!

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