Kids today.... never had it so good!

[yorick]

Right handed plywood 1 string Rickenbacker copy for £1. Still only worth a pound!!!!!

[bass_ferret]

Somebody posted a page from International Musician dated late seventies with loads of prices for gear. An SM58 actually cost more then than it does now!

[Rich]

First bass was : Wal Pro IIE
From : 1986
It cost : £330
Which today is : £686.40

I got a bit of a bargain, I reckon.

Actually, my real first bass was my old Höfner Artist 2 which I got from my metalwork teacher for £20 in 1984. Or in other words, £48.60

[Prosebass]

[quote name='bass_ferret' post='378873' date='Jan 13 2009, 12:21 PM']Somebody posted a page from International Musician dated late seventies with loads of prices for gear. An SM58 actually cost more then than it does now![/quote]

Twas I, here it is again 1979 issue

[attachment=18621:IMG_2108.JPG]

[chris_b]

My first bass was a Framus Star Bass. I worked for 8 weeks, and my Dad also had to lend me £10, to get the £26 to pay for it. That's £363 in today's money.


I thought it was great but in reality it wasn't that good. A Squire Precision would have been 10 times better for less! A Fender Precision was £126 guineas or £1760 and way out of my league at the time.

[Stingray5]

When I first started playing bass, I borrowed a friends 'Top Twenty' for a while until I could sort out my own instrument. I think he actually bought it from Woolworths (c.1969-ish) but I have no idea what he paid for it. Probably around 'nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and eleven pence' (£19/19/11) or something like that?
For the post-decimal among you, that's one old penny short of £20! (Jeez - talk about showing your age!!! )

Anyway, so strictly speaking my first bass was this:

First bass was : Hayman 4040
From : 1971
It cost : £155
Which today is : £1653.85

Just out of interest:

Second bass was : Rickenbacker 4001
From : 1974
It cost : £325
Which today is : £2707.25

[skankdelvar]

Commodore "Im-Precision" S/H 1976

Then: £50

Now: £289

[silverfoxnik]

[quote name='The Admiral' post='378587' date='Jan 13 2009, 07:21 AM']In the midst of some BC surfing the other day, I came across a forum member offering an old Jap bass for sale - which was the exact model I first bought for £118 in 1982 from Russell Acott's in Oxford - a Satellite through neck precision copy.

Mine had a factory sticker on it, which pointed out the pick ups were DiMarzio's, and looked lovely when it was polished up, and I wish I'd kept it, as it sounded nice too. Bloody heavy though. This made me think about how the price of instruments has changed over time - so I had a look for a UK inflation calculator, to work out what £118 would be worth today - and the answer : £311.52.

If you want to do the same - here is the calculator link : [url="http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/historic-inflation-calculator"]http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/historic-inflation-calculator[/url]

If I then think about the quality of the instruments available today as beginners basses - Yamaha RBX 170 for instance @ £120 on the internet - there is just no comparison, they are so much better and easier to play.

Also, not only are the basses better, but the breadth and availability of teaching aids is astounding now : MP3 bass trainers, internet video lessons and even school music grades on rock instruments (unheard of in the 80s) etc. Yet a friend who teaches guitar and bass, regularly moans about the inability of his students to stick at the instrument through the basic 'pain' stage of scales and building up their hand strength, and their attention span seems so short too. He gets paid irrepective of course, but his main beef is that so many of them don't do any work between lessons, the progress is painful for both he and the kids, and they seem to want to be Jaco, without doing any work!

He also finds plenty of kids, guitar players particularly, who can't pick up anything by listening, and have no idea where to start unless it's Tab, and whilst they can play any amount of widdly widdly solos, have no idea how to play chords and the rhythm guitar parts.

That said, if I was 15 now - I would probably be pretty much the same - so it's not a serious rant about the youth of today, and perhaps it would be more interesting to build a thread on 'first bass, what was it, where from, and how much in today's terms?'

Anyone fancy filling in the gaps here?

First bass was :
From :
It cost :
Which today is :

Cheers

A[/quote]

Great thread!

Mine would be:

First bass was : Kay short-scale
From : Woolworths in 1975
It cost : £22
Which today is : £0

Sad but true....

[Russ]

First bass was : An awful "Axe" P-bass copy, in 1991
From : An ad in Loot... had to trek up to Ealing to pick it up. And it came in a tacky transparent gig bag!
It cost : £80
Which today is : Last time I saw it, was hanging up on the wall at Rockbottom in Croydon. Back in the day, I customised it a bit in an attempt to make it a bit less crap - added a Seymour Duncan J pickup, sanded all the paint off the neck and headstock, and made my own headstock decal using black paint and Letraset. I had to pick it up and try it since I hadn't seen it in 15 years since I sold it to a schoolgirl who wanted to learn bass, and it was just as awful as it was when I first had it. Neck like a banana, tinny tone, neck dive... I was tempted to buy it back - sentimental value and all that - but they wanted £150 for it! Using that inflation calculator, it works out to be worth £124.80 now...

Edited January 13, 2009 by Russ

[tauzero]

First bass was : Rosetti 7 semi-acoustic piece of crap
From : someone at school
It cost : £7
Which today is : £79-45


First real bass was : Hayman 40/40 self-assembled
From : Fender Soundhouse (which still smelt of smoke)
It cost : £72
Which today is : £416-16

[gafbass02]

Hah hah I remember axe guitars in the transparent bags can't believe they were asking that.
I realized that although the gtx was my 1st actual bass, as far as I was concerned my 1st bass was really a kay sg copy only four strings plugged into an old wooden Sony 'portable' music centre with the record head jammed in on the tape player! Which makes me sound much older than I am!

[BigRedX]

Here's my first bass (which I still own)



It's a Burns Sonic Bass
Bought second hand from Groops in Loughborough in 1981
Cost £55 including the OHSC and a free Fender strap
In today's money that's £162.25

Before I bought this bass the band I was in made do without bass on a lot of our songs and when we really needed one borrowed one of two from people in our year at school, either a nasty medium-scale Kay with a Mosrite-ish shape or a vaguely P-bass shaped this that it's owner had made in Woodwork class with very narrow string spacing and a humbucker pickup mounted at an angle so the pole-pieces lined up with the strings...

[Bay Splayer]

1st bass, short scale satellite....1st full scale, kay precision copy, heavy and [i]naff[/i] sounding

[EssentialTension]

My first three basses were:

1972 second hand [u]Hofner Artist[/u] £25 - now £243.75


1974 new [u]Hayman 4040[/u] £150 - now £1249.50


1975 new [u]Fender Precision[/u] £315 - now £2261.70

[noirpunk]

Speaking as one of the younger members off BC I can safely say I'm grateful that I play guitar/bass these days based on the sheer amount of good quality gear available for decent money. I learnt my craft myself, with a lot of time spent listening to musicians and trying to emulate. I find it sad to hear about these kids who lack any effort, I put enough in and I still can't play fast crazy guitar solos haha. I can however copy by ear

Edited January 17, 2009 by noirpunk

[boo]

First bass was : Profile Silhouette ('80s Japanese P-bass)
From : Friday-Ad - A guys house in Littlehampton - 1988
It cost : £150
Which today is : £289.50

[bumnote]

As an ex guitar player I tried a jazz and a precision and couldnt get on with the long scale so i bought

a new Gibson EBO for 183gns in 1969
From Minns Music in southampton
Now £2535

It was awfull, went back for a refret after 3 months and i swapped it for an old precision which i still have

[4000]

New Rickenbacker 4001, s/n TC915, bought in 1980 for £295 IIRC. Stolen in Hendon in 1986.....

[stingrayfan]

Westone Thunder 1A (1985)
Bought: £150
Would cost now: £331.50

You could buy a new Fender for that!

[acidbass]

First Bass - Encore 3/4 Length Precision Copy
Cost - £100
Today - £114

WHAT? That's cheaper than most chainsaws (which is what it sounded like)

[thisnameistaken]

First bass was : 'Satellite' terrible JapCrap plywood Jazz copy
From : McGrane's in Leeds, they shut down shortly after Carlsboro Sound opened on York Road. I developed my lust for Warwick Thumbs in Carlsboro Sound.
It cost : £50 (used I think)
Which today is : £85.50

It was really awful. I remember I broke one of the machineheads on that bass, and it turned out the tuners were molded plastic! Not surprised it snapped so easily.

My next bass was a Yamaha RBX-550M which I think I paid £150 for and was a brilliant bass. A year or so later I sold it back to the shop I bought it from for the same money, having set it up better myself than they had.

Edited January 14, 2009 by thisnameistaken

[Toadonroll]

[quote name='The Admiral' post='378587' date='Jan 13 2009, 07:21 AM']Yet a friend who teaches guitar and bass, regularly moans about the inability of his students to stick at the instrument through the basic 'pain' stage of scales and building up their hand strength, and their attention span seems so short too. He gets paid irrepective of course, but his main beef is that so many of them don't do any work between lessons, the progress is painful for both he and the kids, and they seem to want to be Jaco, without doing any work!

He also finds plenty of kids, guitar players particularly, who can't pick up anything by listening, and have no idea where to start unless it's Tab, and whilst they can play any amount of widdly widdly solos, have no idea how to play chords and the rhythm guitar parts.[/quote]

Yep. Does my head in trying to teach kids who:
a) can't sit up straight to play properly
b ) don't know a major scale
c) can't play in time

and still ask you to teach them some ridiculous slap line at 40,000 bpm.

[Bassassin]

First bass - Grant medium scale plywood Jazz-ish horror, like this:
[attachment=18654:grantsmall.jpg]
Which was bought new in 1978 from Unisound In Chatham High Street, cost £59.

Which would now be £252.52!!

Pedant note: Satellites were Korean, not JapCrap.

Jon.

[Shaggy]

First bass was : Kalamazoo KB (2nd hand, from late '60's)
From : private ad in 1977
It cost : £25
Which today is : £125

Still miss 'er!

[Leowasright]

Gibson are now rip offs!

The Gibson SG (£399) I bought in 1988 should now be £772; they are now over £1000.

The Les Paul Standard (£640) I bought in 1989 should now be about £1200. They've shot up to £1600-1700.....