Reggaebass Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 I started playing blues on bass in 1978 aged 14 then joined a reggae band at 16 doing Bob Marley and Augustus pablo covers , my amp was a HH ic 100s with twin 15s and this was my bass , which I still have , and it still plays 😀 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el borracho Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 I started on an Ibanez Blazer bass identical to this one through a WEM Dominator. My amp sounded bad though, possibly why it was free! My current goto bitsa features the brass bridge & knobs from a Blazer. I never realised how good the bass was at the time - I "upgraded" to a Roadster - but looking back it was just a sideways move from a P to a PJ. It was black though which seemed to make a huge difference back then 😄 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebigyin Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 Unfortunately no pics but my first Bass was an Encore P for £50 in candy apple red I sanded it down to the bare wood 3 piece body surprisingly not ply and a Carlsbro 90w amp can't remember what I paid for the amp was ok in the house but went for my first band practice and it popped and farted had a hole in speaker lol. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grangur Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 (edited) @FinnDave £7! Wow! The owner of the Vox wanted it back after a while as he wanted to sell it. He wanted £40 this then! I was earning £2.65 a week doing a paper round. £40 was an astronomical sum to me. I'm not 100% sure if I had 1 or 2 pups, but they were pretty useless. Edited May 17, 2019 by Grangur Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NancyJohnson Posted May 17, 2019 Author Share Posted May 17, 2019 1 hour ago, Reggaebass said: I started playing blues on bass in 1978 aged 14 then joined a reggae band at 16 doing Bob Marley and Augustus pablo covers , my amp was a HH ic 100s with twin 15s and this was my bass , which I still have , and it still plays 😀 Jedson! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrBike Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 I started off playing 6 string electric in a "band" made up of all the lads who sat in the back row of the geography class at school! The photo is from 1982, shorlty before I took up bass, cos some time after this was taken I swapped my guitar and amp for with the bass player cos I "fancied playing a bit of bass". It's a Colombus P-Bass copy in very striking metallic flake silver, the amp I had (not in the photo) was an old Laney Keyboard combo. Note the obligatory can of Skol, even though we were not old enough to legally buy the stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrBike Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 1 hour ago, Grahambythesea said: I started with a Fenton Weill. I don't have a picture of the original but this is a similar one from the net. I modded mine by removing the hideous red pickguard and putting a metal bridge on it. My first amp was some weird thing where one speaker faced forward and the other back. This was soon replaced by a Selmer Treble and Bass 50 and a Marshall 2 x 12 cabinet. That looks staggeringly awful, are the strings closer together at the bridge than on the neck or is that just as illusion? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daz39 Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 I started aged 19 at Uni, in 1995, a year after getting a guitar (ssshhh). I bought a Yamaha RBX260 (or such) - P pickup, bright red, lovely neck. I bought a Trace Boxer err 25? combo as it was on offer at Sounds Live in Newcastle where I was at Uni. It sounded ace - just loud and noodly. I would also plug into the Zoom 4040 I had for the guitar and make all sorts of odd noises. Ah happy days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightsun Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 I actually learnt on one of these at school around 1987........ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_5 Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 I bought a Hohner Baron bass (short scale thing) for £70 at a local music shop (I think it was Reidy's in Blackburn) and picked up a Marshall combo from somewhere else (don't remember where) at roughly the same time. They sounded crap. I saved up for a Trace Elliot AH 130 as soon as I could! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knirirr Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 Encore E83 unlined fretless, c. 1994. I don't have any pictures from the time, but here's a similar one: https://www.adverts.ie/electric-basses/encore-e83-fretless-bass/10664187 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reggaebass Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 3 hours ago, NancyJohnson said: Jedson! Yeah, spot on , I got it out a few years ago after being stored in the loft for about 20 years , and it worked fine and it was almost still in tune 😄 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reggaebass Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 3 hours ago, nightsun said: I actually learnt on one of these at school around 1987........ Was that a marlin sidewinder 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightsun Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 It was indeed 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaggy Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 3 hours ago, DrBike said: That looks staggeringly awful, are the strings closer together at the bridge than on the neck or is that just as illusion? I really like it! (The Fenton Weil). I suspect it had the parallel stringing from nut to bridge that a lot of European instruments had at the time, which then converge at the tailpiece. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassbiscuits Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 (edited) I started in 1986, mainly to annoy my older brother who had decided to learn guitar. I wanted drums, didn't have the space or money, and bass was the compromise. Plus I fancied the Kay bass my best mate's brother had left behind when he went to uni. My dad stumped up HP payments on stuff for me and my brother, from Picton Music in Swansea. My bass was a £60 short scale, white, plywood Satellite bass (identical to the pic below I found online) and a 5-watt Badger Piccolo practice amp also for £60. We paid my dad back from our paper rounds. I also bought a book by Jim Gregory and Harvey Vinson called 'Bass Guitar' which had a floppy 7" single in the back, with tuning notes and a few 12-bar songs to play along with. Did the job tho. Both bits of kit long long gone tho. The bass was bad even at the time let alone nowadays. Edited May 17, 2019 by bassbiscuits Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visog Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 (edited) Egmond for me... followed my a major upgrade to an Ibanez Blazer like some previous posters. Pic is a similar bass to mine... **Edit: still got them both... Egmond in bits unfortunately. Blazer defretted and refretted. Edited May 17, 2019 by visog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmccombe7 Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 7 hours ago, FinnDave said: I remember lusting after Columbus Jazz basses in the local music shop (The Rhythm House, Stockport). They were a serious step up from the things I started on - and at nearly fifty quid, well out of reach! Jings i must have been a rich dude back then starting with a Columbas Jazz. Wonder what went wrong after that 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delberthot Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 (edited) I started accidentally in 1987 as me and my best mate at the time were going to enter a talent contest miming to The Springstein song Dancing in the Dark and another mate suggested that I borrow his acoustic to complete the look. I was really into Queen back then so tried to play bits just using open strings and found that I could pick up bits and pieces so for my 12th birthday was given a junior sized acoustic but realised that I loved the look of John Deacon's Red Precision that he used in the One Vision video. That Christmas I was given the choice of an electric guitar or bass. Everyone wanted me to get the guitar but me being incredibly stubborn decided to get the bass. Similar to one of the basses above, it was a Marlin Slammer, and for all intents and purposes was the double of said Precision used by John Deacon. £99 out of the Littlewoods catalogue. I had to get an amp so having completely no idea stumbled into my local music shop which would become my home for the next 10 years and my dad bought me a Squier 15w guitar amp with the finishing touch being a yellow curly cable like Brian May's This served me well until I saw the picture of John Deacon's maple fretless on the gatefold sleeve of Live Killers and took a large rough file to the fretboard. Needless to say the bass ended up in the skip a couple of months later to be replaced by a fantastic second hand Riverhead Jupiter for the princely sum of £199 in Sound Control in Glasgow Edited May 18, 2019 by Delberthot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeystrange Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 (edited) Summer 2001, I was 14. My dad borrowed a late ‘80s Vox Custom from the guitarist in his band then bought it from him for £100 a few months later when he realised I was serious about wanting to play. It was a natural finish, 24-fret through neck thing that weighed roughly the same as a double-decker bus. I eventually sold it here a few years ago. The amp I had at the same time was a Peavey guitar amp that my dad borrowed from one of his apprentices. I wasn’t allowed to turn it up past 2 in case anything blew up! After a while I got a real bass amp, a Peavey TNT 115 combo. After a year or so of playing I went to see my dad’s band and his bass player let me have a go on his Precision (early ‘70s, sunburst, tort, rosewood... beautiful bass!) and said “Once you play a Precision you’ll never want to play anything else.” He was right! Edited May 18, 2019 by joeystrange Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyTravis Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 Red Yamaha BB300, Trace Elliot Boxer 65. I sounded ace 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldslapper Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 My first wage packet at 16 I bought these: Vox foundation 1x18 and amp. I bought them at the same time as buying this bass off a lad who was at my school 2 years above me. He was very good at woodwork and ended up now making very expensive guitars and mandolins for people like Matt Bellamy. His name is Gary Nava and this was his first guitar build for A level. Prior to this I played bass lines on a jedson tele I borrowed off a mate, through a hifi amp. I exchanged the lot for a leather jacket....🤪 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobbayne Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 7 minutes ago, oldslapper said: My first wage packet at 16 I bought these: Vox foundation 1x18 and amp. I bought them at the same time as buying this bass off a lad who was at my school 2 years above me. He was very good at woodwork and ended up now making very expensive guitars and mandolins for people like Matt Bellamy. His name is Gary Nava and this was his first guitar build for A level. Prior to this I played bass lines on a jedson tele I borrowed off a mate, through a hifi amp. I exchanged the lot for a leather jacket....🤪 Good impersonation of Bruce Thomas there! 😁 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris2112 Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 It all started for me when I was 13 (I had just turned 13 in October). It was Christmas 2001 and my dad had been at work during the day, so he didn't come home until after six in the evening. By then, I thought I had all my presents. I had received a 'Hot Licks' VHS instruction tape earlier in the day with Stuart Hamm on it, as I had been talking about wanting to learn to play bass for a while. Later that evening, when my dad got home, I was summoned through to the dining room where I found my dad waiting with a Hartke B-15 amp and bass starter pack. I didn't really know what to do with it, but it was my first step to getting started and it was really the beginning of my second great love. With my dad's encouragement, and later some of my own pocket money and some cash from my grandmother, I bought my first serious instrument, an Ibanez BTB405QM, when I was 14. That was the instrument that took me from barely being able to get a few notes out to being able to play to a reasonable standard. That saw me through two good years of playing and the next bass I moved to was a 1989 Kubicki Ex Factor that I got when I was 16 for £650 through this very forum. I really should thank my dad more for the gift he gave me. My two greatest passions, computer gaming and listening to and making music, all came through him and his influence. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldslapper Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 17 minutes ago, Hobbayne said: Good impersonation of Bruce Thomas there! 😁 Well it was 1977 😊 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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