Do you remember your first bass...

[CameronJ]

A gloss black Yamaha RBX774 which I bought used on eBay for about £100. Only sold it fairly recently as it was sitting around unused and unloved for quite some time. Thing is, the tone was simply phenomenal and had a nice low action too (I had no idea how to setup a bass until about 3 months ago 😅) so for a first ever Bass I was pretty spoiled. The bar was set very high. 

[basscell]

A czech Jolana, bright red, short scale if I remember correctly. Nylon wound strings. That was back in the 80's. 

Something like this:curhss55goo3fcvhcsqe (1).webp

 

 

curhss55goo3fcvhcsqe.webp

Edited August 9, 2018 by basscell
Content

[Chiliwailer]

As a 14 year old metal head I was desperate not to get a fender copy. 

Luckily I found a Hohner Rockwood LX100B

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by Chiliwailer

[yorks5stringer]

A Sunburst Gibson EB2 from 1962, acquired for £50 in 1976. Sold for £100 at one of the pre-cursers to cash converters in Leeds in the 80's, who always had some interesting basses in their packed  windows. Every lunchtime I'd walk around these shops and see what new stock they had.

Come to think of it got my JD Supernatural Roadie from one of them for £350 a few years later.

[fleabag]

Peavey Rudy Sarzo sig 4 string

[AndyTravis]

Red Yamaha BB300 Japanese one.

I ended up putting an ebo pickup at the neck and had it re-Sprayed in Ford RS blue.

i sold it to a mate who’s a guitar tutor and he uses it for recording and teaching...

(here’s a picture off his website where it lives next to another ex of mine - a limited edition Epiphone acoustic which I never should’ve sold...)

Edited August 9, 2018 by AndyTravis

[Misowaki]

1 hour ago, basscell said:

A czech Jolana, bright red, short scale if I remember correctly. Nylon wound strings. That was back in the 80's. 

Something like this:curhss55goo3fcvhcsqe (1).webp

 

I was looking at one of those last night!  Well, what I think you might be talking about (links don't show anything, hollow body?).  Never heard of them til then!  Any good?

Also; unnamed walnutish P bass, maybe a Kay, definitely weighted more than the guilt I felt for selling it to a mate.  Probably did her a favour though because it made her stop being cheap and buy something a little more usable shortly after =D

Edited August 9, 2018 by Misowaki

[rogerstodge]

A Columbus P bass copy bought about 1980 for £125, I think, from Allan Billingtons in Welling, still have it stashed in the loft somewhere,

[Misowaki]

Man, all you weirdos that held on to your guitars and didn't sell them on to fund your GAS... what's wrong with you all?  How can you have so much self control and where can I get some?
And you'll never know the bittersweet pang of regret when you sell something and only realise what a fool you are years later.  Or sometimes an hour later.



Or sometimes as you're receiving the cash...

Edited August 9, 2018 by Misowaki

[paul_5]

Short scale Hohner bass with a P pickup and a chipboard body. 

I don’t miss it.

[SuperSeagull]

A Zenta EB copy bought in 1977 from Minns Music in Brighton. It was £35 and I saved up for it at a £1 a week from my paper round plus a bit of birthday money. Sold it to a teacher at my school a couple of years later when I got a Craftsman Jazz from Macaris. 

Edited August 9, 2018 by SuperSeagull

[bassbiscuits]

Mine was an awful short scale Satellite double cut thing vaguely like a Gibson Melody Maker. 

It was 1986 and I owned it for a year before trading it in for a white Westone St Spectrum which was a different league. 

It cost me £60 brand new, and another £60 for a 10-watt practice amp called a Badger Piccolo.

The Satellite resurfaced in the late 1990s at a secondhand shop near where I was living - I recognised the dings I'd put in it - and the shop guy insisted it was brand new blah blah blah etc. 

I was briefly tempted to buy it back for old times sake but then I realised how rubbish it was! 

Here's a pic I found elsewhere online of exactly the same model/colour bass, tho not mine. 

Edited August 11, 2018 by bassbiscuits

[Hobbayne]

A Satellite short scale bought in the summer of 1982. I stuck adhesive paper on the frets to mark out what the notes were.

It was terrible.

Progressed from there to a Westone Thunder 1 from my mates mum's Littlewoods catalogue, And from there to an original 1984 Squire 57 JV Precision.

[kodiakblair]

Don't have a picture but it was either a Commodore semi hollow or an Audition semi hollow. Looked like this but was olive coloured.

The tuning pegs were busted so pliers were needed. Pickup was nailed to the body with brads. A plywood scratchplate had been made to cover a hole where the pots were mounted. The hole was stuffed with newspaper and the plywood cover nailed in place.

 

Had 3 strings and cost me £1 😎

 

That POS was better than the Kay EB100 that followed it.

[Old Man Riva]

A second-hand Avon Jazz Bass copy in 1977.

The p/ups were steel bars rather than the snazzy plastic of the real thing.

By the real thing I mean the Antoria copies that we were all after.

Affording a ‘real’ Fender? No chance!! 

[Bassassin]

Mine was a horrid Jazz-ish shortscale, branded Grant, exactly like this:

Bought brand-new for £59 in June 1978, from Unisound Music in Chatham High Street. It was borderline unplayable, and sounded vile through my stereo hooked up to a home-made 1x12 cab. Didn't help that I didn't even know how to tune it, never mind set it up! Anyway, it ended up painted several different colours, defretted & generally abused horribly. Never sold it and I think it went missing several decades & house-moves ago. It's probably still in a loft somewhere.

Being an unplayable piece of sh!t meant that my first GAS attack was within 3 or 4 months of getting my first bass & I bought one of these off a mate for about £30:

Unbranded shortscale LP thing, these were also sold badged as Jedson & I think might have been made by Sakai Mokko, if you're interested in such things. Was a bit of a beater, in fact my first project (needed new tuners & knobs), and looked ancient when I got it, although it couldn't have been more than 8 years old. It was, however, light-years beyond the Grant, and played well enough for me to able to start seriously learning - mostly by playing along to The Stranglers.

Used this in my first proper gigging band for a couple of years until I could affords something more fancy - a Washburn B-20 Stage, which was very fancy indeed. Sold that in 1984 because you couldn't slap on it. Silly sod.

[Dad3353]

After using my Hofner President guitar as bass, I finally invested the princely sum of £20 for a Vox Clubman ...

Supposedly new, from a sort of pawn shop in Addlestone, Surrey. It had an odd socket, rather like a TV aerial socket, on the pick-guard, not the side as in the photo, which I had to change. It got little use, and was taken in part exchange for a Vox Continental organ that my good lady at the time was to learn to play. That, too, had a short life with us, being traded for a Hohner Pianet M. It mattered little to me at the time, as I was already playing drums by then. Do I regret that bass..? Not one bit. The Hofner President, yes. I was a fool to let that go (I've been looking since for another: Hofner President, two pick-up, single Florentine cut, violin burst...).

Edited August 9, 2018 by Dad3353

[jonpain]

Mine was a black Jim Deacon (I think Jazz Bass copy, but it was a very long time ago).  I had it for a year as I tried out the move to bass from guitar, and then traded up to a Warwick RockBass Streamer 5 string.

[LeftyP]

My first bass was an Applause semi-acoustic similar to the photo here (found on-line).  It belonged to my guitar teacher who sold it to me when I decided to switch to bass.  It was a nice little guitar but I found the body depth a bit of an arm full.  It had a rounded back that did not sit well against me and I ended up with my Tanglewood violin bass.

Edited August 9, 2018 by LeftyP

[Bridgehouse]

1 minute ago, LeftyP said:

My first bass was an Applause semi-acoustic similar to the photo here (found on-line).  It belonged to my guitar teacher who sold it to me when I decided to switch to bass.  It was a nice little guitar but I found the body depth a but of an arm full.  It had a rounded back that did not sit well against me and I ended up with my Tanglewood violin bass.

Did Ovation do a US shallow bowl version? 

[Silvia Bluejay]

Mine's just over 12 years old, an entry-level student bass, and still pristine. I will never get rid of it!

The headstock reads 'Cruiser by Crafter'.

[JBP]

I got my first bass when I was 13, it was one of those nasty AXE things with a crappy amp from an add in the back of a magazine ('Look In' or something) it was bloody terrible, but because I stuck at it I got a MIM Fender Jazz the following Christmas. 

[redbandit599]

White Encore PJ - it was bought for me by colleagues as a leaving present in late 80's/early 90's.

I said I'd like a book about learning to play and was going to buy the bass myself but they had a whip round and got enough for the bass. Which was awesome, apart from then having it thrust in my hands and being requested to 'give us a tune' in front of about 120 people - I had no idea at all at this point, complete beginner.

It did me well to learn and has been lent out to numerous other learners since - now residing in the loft, still sporting a yellowing address label with Steve Harris's signature stuck on it.

Edited August 9, 2018 by redbandit599

[BrunoBass]

Mine was a Squier Silver Series Precision, exactly like the one in the attached photo. I bought it in the autumn of 1991 from a shop in Bicester, which may or may not still exist. I remember I part exchanged a Squier Silver Series Strat plus the balance; I can’t remember how much now. 

I learnt on it, played it nearly every night, did my first gigs as a bass player with it, nearly got it smashed by an over zealous Australian rugby player who literally pulled it off me during a gig, clouted someone else round the back of the head with the headstock when he tried to snog my then girlfriend, whilst I was mid gig, all good fun...

I kept hold of it until 1994 when, with no bass / band prospects on the horizon I sold it and bought a Telecaster. 

Yes, I wish I’d kept it.

[chris_b]

My first bass was a Framus Star Bass 5/149. Cost £22 10/-. Good to learn on but not a well made instrument. This photo was after I'd been playing a year and the tuning pegs had already broken and been replaced. The pots went next! I ended up having to wire the pickup directly to the jack socket.

I worked for the summer holidays picking fruit to buy that bass and an amp. I played it acoustically for a year before I could earn the money for a cab.

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by chris_b