What happened to your first bass?

[2020Jazz]

20 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

Hmm. Shameful this.

Japanese Yamaha BB300, in red.

Don’t know why, but I did something to it.

Eventually I sold it on. A mate still has it.

About 3 years ago, I got a beautiful Taiwanese version, which made me realise I’d done a bad thing…

And then I sold that one too 😩

Man, you should make the left pic your profile pic! That is awesome.

 

 

[TransistorBassMan]

I bought my first bass in December 1988, a white Japanese Squier Precision. I didn't get on with it tonally and feel-wise, so I traded it in a couple of months later, and got a Tokai Jazz Sound (which I still play)

[P-Belly Evans]

Bought mine in Manchester. Was on offer and I was so excited. A not so lovely black and white Encore P bass. I had it for a few years til the late eighties. Eventually traded it with (or as I like to put it, stole from) Musical Exchanges in brum for a version 3 Thunder II. Wow we're my eyes opened as to how stinky poo that Encore was. Still got and play the Westone. Class bass. Heavy as feck though. 

Edited July 20, 2021 by P-Belly Evans

[Witch Hazel]

my first bass was pretty boring - an Ibanez GSR200 of some sort in cherry red and an Ashdown Perfect 10 practice combo.  but now i think about it, i actually have no idea what happened to either of them.  i think they might be at my dad's house somewhere, in which case i hope he's enjoying them!  sadly i don't have a story about how bad they were because the bass and amp were both actually pretty decent.

[PaulThePlug]

On 16/07/2021 at 07:34, Lfalex v1.1 said:

My Westone Raider 1 is still in my loft.  The electrics are dead. Maybe I'll resurrect it one day...

Sounds like a great project, if its just the pots, worthy of a £20 odd Kiogon PBass Loom, fret n fretboard clean, strings Winner!...

[Skin Lewis]

Mine (in 1968) was homemade in a shed by a friend's grandad. It was left handed, and sort of resembled a Precision. I was told it sounded like a dying cow. It had a spectacularly bowed neck, which departed from the body one day. It ended up on the fire. I used to have a pic of me playing it aged 15, but my second wife stole it when we split up.

[Saul Panzer]

she's sat in my rack about 3ft away, I noticed the other day that the frets have started turning from shiny silver to a dirty bronze colour...half and half on whether to try cleaning them or see how vintage looking they get.

[MichaelDean]

My brother wanted to learn guitar, so decided I should play bass. He got a Marshall starter kit, but I decided that I hated the shape of p basses at 13, so didn't want to get a Squier affinity starter kit. Some of my friends had them and some real issues with the necks. So, I bought mine from Noteworthy Music in Chippenham a good 20 years ago. It was an Aslin Dane jazz bass copy (sold with a really crappy starter amp, but that's another thread). Solid ash body, Canadian maple neck with a phenolic fretboard. With the hubris of youth, I decided that it wasn't a very good bass and I wanted to move on to something else quickly. I played it so much when I first got it though. The pots died after a while and then it sat unused for about 18 years until I finally rescued it this year. I replaced the pots and changed the strings for the first time since I bought it (gross I know...) and did a little setup. I took it to a jam earlier this year and it played well, but it was as heavy as remembered and didn't sit where I wanted it to in the mix, so I sold it in March this year to someone who will hopefully feel inspired by it. 

[joeystrange]

I had an early-mid ‘80s Vox 3002 Custom that my dad bought from the guitarist in his band.

Learned to play on it then got my first Precision and didn’t touch it for years. Then, about ten years ago, I sold it here to fund an Ampeg SVT.

Sounded decent, from what I remember. Weighed a ton though!

[NancyJohnson]

My first bass was a white/cream Arbiter SG thing, £30 loan from my late father.  I sold it for a small profit to this hippie bloke and moved on to a Columbus Jazz Bass copy.

I honestly no idea where it came from.

[paul_c2]

I still have it, for sentimental reasons. I have no idea how much its actually worth. I tried to value it but the thread got pulled as a "for sale" thread.

[Chienmortbb]

1 hour ago, joeystrange said:

I had an early-mid ‘80s Vox 3002 Custom that my dad bought from the guitarist in his band.

Learned to play on it then got my first Precision and didn’t touch it for years. Then, about ten years ago, I sold it here to fund an Ampeg SVT.

Sounded decent, from what I remember. Weighed a ton though!

I am sure that is by the Matsumoku company in japan, better known for Westone and the early Aria's. The shape is the Westone thunder shape and both the pickups and the brass bridge look like those fitted to the Westone/Aria basses.

[joeystrange]

Matsumoku was what I found when doing a bit of research when I was selling it too.

I believe the pickups were DiMarzio, no idea if that’s what comes with the other basses.

The strangest thing (to me, at least) was the pickup selector. There’s a standard 3-way toggle switch for bridge/both/neck but there’s also a smaller toggle switch which just controls the P pickup and toggles between bass coil/both coils/treble coil. Do you know if that’s common for the Westones or Arias?

[Chienmortbb]

7 minutes ago, joeystrange said:

Matsumoku was what I found when doing a bit of research when I was selling it too.

I believe the pickups were DiMarzio, no idea if that’s what comes with the other basses.

The strangest thing (to me, at least) was the pickup selector. There’s a standard 3-way toggle switch for bridge/both/neck but there’s also a smaller toggle switch which just controls the P pickup and toggles between bass coil/both coils/treble coil. Do you know if that’s common for the Westones or Arias?

I don't know about the switching. The pickups may have been stock as Matsumoku pickups  were very similar to DiMarzio aesthetically.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Chienmortbb

[Munurmunuh]

The neckplate on my Westone said it came from Matsumoku:

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Chienmortbb said:

The shape is the Westone thunder shape and both the pickups and the brass bridge look like those fitted to the Westone/Aria basses.

A strong family resemblance, but the Westone shape is more compressed top to bottom. Note how the centre section is wider than the bridge on the Vox, and the horns are longer. But same sequence of thick and thin laminations. A good way to make use of  offcuts of quality wood while making the end result look up market.

Snap!

Edited July 21, 2021 by Stub Mandrel

[joeystrange]

30 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

I don't know about the switching. The pickups may have been stock as Matsumoku pickups  were very similar to DiMarzio aesthetically.

That would make sense. I was told they were DiMarzio but never actually verified.

10 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

The neckplate on my Westone said it came from Matsumoku:

The Vox was neck thru so it didn’t have a neckplate that I could check.

It does look very similar though.

[Baxlin]

My first bass was a pearl white Hondo P-bass.   I was however recruited into the house band for an amateur musical, playing guitar, but the only guitar I owned was a 12-string acoustic, which admittedly had a pickup and controls, but wasn’t suitable for this gig.  As I had another bass by this time, the Hondo went to a ‘Cash Converters’ type shop, in a straight swap for an Encore (these were hard times!) Strat copy.

I still have the 12-string, and the Encore, the latter having, for me at least, an ideal action.

[Munurmunuh]

47 minutes ago, joeystrange said:

That would make sense. I was told they were DiMarzio but never actually verified.

The Vox was neck thru so it didn’t have a neckplate that I could check.

It does look very similar though.

Searching Bassassin Matsumoku Vox seemed worthwhile  and found me this post

 

 

[neilp]

A Satellite Jazz bass copy bought new in 1979, which I still have! I didn't realise it was still around, I assumed it had been "borrowed" at some stage after I bought my SB1000, but I was clearing out a cupboard for my mother the other week, and there it was!!! I must have chucked it in there when a pickup died and it just sat there. Now has new pickups and is back in the herd... Photos later

[Bassassin]

2 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

I am sure that is by the Matsumoku company in japan, better known for Westone and the early Aria's. The shape is the Westone thunder shape and both the pickups and the brass bridge look like those fitted to the Westone/Aria basses.

Therse are thought to have probably been Matsumoku - there's a Vox Standard guitar which is near-identical to the Matsumoku-built Westbury Standard, so that provides a link. Pickups were definitely DiMarzios:

I should say there's a tendency for people to assume all late 70s/early 80s through-neck or laminated body stripey guitars were Matsumoku, so it's good to remember that was a period in time when everyone was ripping off Alembic!

[baa]

My first (Hondo P) was stolen

My second (Vantage VP-710B) was also stolen.

I loved that Vantage so much, so I had to get another. And backups for it.

 

 

 

[uk_lefty]

I had a Tanglewood Nevada, a sunburst P bass copy. It was left handed, though I thought it wasn't logical to have the deepest note at the top and was toying with getting a right hander. I'm glad I didn't. I learned on that bass slowly out of two books, one of which had the play along cd until I started playing with a band. I was 17, the guitarist 20 and the drummer 25. They were both experienced gigging musos. The guitarist was a bit of a legend from his early teens and had played gigs all over the country with his previous band which split in two, the bassist and singer going one way and he and the drummer going the other and recruiting me. I took along my Tanglewood and played with them for a year, eventually on my 18th persuading my parents to chip in 1/3 each and 1/3 from me to get my fretless 5 string Kramer. Massively ambitious at the time but that again helped take my playing up a notch. I traded in the Tanglewood as it was just sat doing nothing. I think I traded it against either a Zoom BFX 708 or a Marshall Bass State 150. I can't remember which exactly. The Kramer is still with me and still gets the occasional gig. The Tanglewood wouldn't have stood a chance. It was OK to learn on but light years behind the Kramer, which in itself isn't the best quality bass. 

The only photos of the Tanglewood are at my Mums house, so here's the Kramer almost 20 years ago, and again around 3 or 4 years ago... 

[joeystrange]

Just curious, why did you think the E string shouldn’t be at the top of the fretboard?

[uk_lefty]

3 minutes ago, joeystrange said:

Just curious, why did you think the E string shouldn’t be at the top of the fretboard?

I'd not played an instrument since the recorder at primary school. Unless you count being given a knackered electronic keyboard and some sheet music and being told "learn that in two weeks" as my music "lessons" at senior school. I basically had no clue and was trying to work it out from myself by getting learn guitar books out from my local library and trying to play my friends' electric guitars upside down. Luckily the shop had a few lefty basses in.