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Regrets, I've had a few...


Pete Academy
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Mine, That I've had a bass since I was 18 and have only really started playing it in the last 3 years (I'm now 52).
Had I taken it seriously then then I would undoubtedly be a better player than I am, and would have done far more with it (not saying that I'd ever have made money out of it).

Having said that I have been playing melodeon for 35 years as well (again not pro), but it's certainly made life interseting.

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Completely forgot - sold my first ever bass which was a really nice little brand new '78 Fender Musicmaster in white in order to buy a bloody Sequential Circuits Pro-One synth in the early '80's so I could get that 'Human League' sound!

Not only did I lose a lovely little bass and the instrument I learned my first ever bass lines on but I also stopped playing bass completely for something crazy like 15 years - that has to be my biggest regret ever. . .

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My biggest regret is that Basschat wasn't around in the 70s. I might have got more focussed if it had been. Now on the wrong side of 50 I am finally taking bass playing and the gear more seriously.

Oh, and I regret selling all the bass guitars I had in the 70s, including a couple of 4001s and a few Fenders. :)

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[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='518903' date='Jun 19 2009, 10:10 PM']I flogged my akai deep impact for £80 :)[/quote]


Ouch.

I bought my Deep Impact for £75 brand new. I've learned never to sell anything as you'll regret it at some point.

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[quote name='Golchen' post='518910' date='Jun 19 2009, 10:18 PM']My big regret is that I have never played music with other people. I lack confidence in my abilities now and can't see me ever doing it.

Is this music only? cos I regret not having sex with more girls before I got married! I'm the faithful sort so it's too late now![/quote]

First point; get out there and do it. On a good night it's the most fun you can have with your clothes on....which leads me to the second point. I'm not married but am in a long term relationship and I agree wholeheartedly! I'm sure that's something most of us will regret when the tall bony guy comes knocking.

Amongst my biggest regrets gear-wise is getting rid of my Trace AH150 and early 4x10, which were my sound. I've never been right since. Also px-ing my lovely Pedulla MVP (one of my favourite basses) for a Wal Custom that I never got on with (although that bass now belongs to a mate who loves it to pieces so I guess that has a silver lining). Even dafter, selling the Wal for £550 in 1996 to my mate to buy (groan) a Marshall Dynamic Bass 200w head and 1x15 cab, which I also never got on with. Then there's selling my first Ric 4001CS for £800. Selling my buckeye Sei Flamboyant irks me too, I wish I hadn't, but I was after my 2nd CS (also now gone). The one that really hurts though is having to sell my custom built Alembic Triple Omega because of back problems. That will hurt til the day I die.

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Trading a stunning SQ series black precision with a 78 precision in Brighton back in about 2002. The 78 was cheap enough that I could have just bought it outright and had both. Still haunts me to this day. Also, swapping a lovely old Rick 4001 with a Jap Precision in Brighton in about 96. What a twat.

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Similar story to Count Bassy - bought my first bass back in 2003 and it was a pretty ornament until 2008. I too wish I had started sooner. Not until I was 32 did I have my first gig. Loving it now though, so I'm determined to get good and be the best bass player I can be (with the most surprisingly good gear :) )

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My regrets, all going back to the late '80s:
1.Not going up to London with my mate Keith after our band folded. He went to Drumtech and kept phoning me up begging me to come
with him and go to Basstech. I didn't. Stayed at home. I got a job in a boring humdrum office. He got a job touring the world with JTQ.
2.Not buying the pre-EB Stingray I saw advertised for 250 quid.
3.Not buying the Dodge Challenger I saw advertised for 850 quid.

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Probably selling my Jazz. It was an awful bass, but I did probably 300+ gigs on it, which it just couldn't cope with. I should've retired it instead of selling it - it would be nice to have it just as a reminder of what a lot of gigs can do to a bass.

And I regret not getting up earlier on the morning of the sale at the music store where, the day before, an assistant had advised me to buy the L2000 tomorrow when it would be half price. I know I'm no good at mornings, I should've just bought it there and then, it was cheap already.

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[quote name='BarnacleBob' post='519168' date='Jun 20 2009, 06:19 AM']Not going for an Audition with Simple Minds just after the 'Sparkle in the Rain' Album - wouldn't have got it but you die regretting the things you didnt do..... :)


BB[/quote]

Damn, that's a pretty good one. Mind if I ask why not?

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When I was 11, I saw a bass guitar in person for the first time, and I knew right then, even though I played other instruments at the time, that that was the instrument that I wanted to spend the rest of my life playing.

My only regret is, I p*ssed about for another 7 years before actually doing something about it. :)



Not really that bad in the scope of things though, I think.

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[quote name='GeeCee' post='519520' date='Jun 20 2009, 07:35 PM']Damn, that's a pretty good one. Mind if I ask why not?[/quote]


I bottled it, basically. The gig went to John Giblin (Peter Gabriels bass player in absence of Tony Levin ) so the bar was set rather high - wouldn't have had a sno'balls..........


BB

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[quote name='Pete Academy' post='518713' date='Jun 19 2009, 06:33 PM']A few years ago I was looking for a nice s/h Musicman Stingray 5. After a long time trawling the shops and ebay, I finally gave up. Then one day I happened to go into a local small shop and spotted the perfect one - 1997 vintage sunburst. maple board, played like a dream, absolute mint condition. I got a great deal on it. I couldn't believe it. Then about 12 months later, in a fit of total madness, I sold it to buy an orange Bongo 5, which I kept for 5 minutes.

I've regretted this ever since. Why do we do these stupid things?

Anyone else done this, or simply bought something because it looked a bit 'different'?[/quote]

no, but I was once on a promise that I turned down because I had a rehearsal. I regret that now :)

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biggest musical regrets: not going to music college with my best mate a couple of years ago and doing a-levels instead. :) and as a result turning down a tour supporting the lost prophets in order to focus on my studies. :rolleyes:

biggest sale specific regret would probably be my warwick corvette a couple of years ago - sold for a good sum of money, can't complain there - but I had a real connection with that bass, i breathed funk through it and have never gotten the same feel on any bass since.

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Several:

Not working hard at reading when at music college, if I'd got reading and charts down I'd have been set to get work as a jobbing bassist. (that one _really_ bugs me)

Starting and then stopping a Biology degree course straight from school, because it meant I then couldnt fund the pop. music and recording degree course I got onto at Salford. Then not going back and doing the jazz course at the college I left instead (which I could have wangled on the jam roll).

Then giving up bass in all but name for about 4 or 5 years. At one point my technique was really really good, and I could play all day long at full tilt and not be fatigued, currently the amount of practicing I'm doing means my hands are utterly knackered :/ .

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Guys....

In 1986 I walked into a ropey little music shop in SUnderland called "Symphony Sound and Lighting" looking for my first Bass with my dad. In there was a (badly) beat up sunburst Fender Jazz. I tried it out because it was the cheapest in the shop and my dad only had a hundred quid to spend !! We haggleg with the guy in the shop and got it to a hundred quid. We but pushed a little harder to get a set of strings thrown in. The guy took a phone call about a pa hire..... lost interest in selling the bass and we left bemoning the poor customer service we'd experienced !

Later that day we took a train ride to Newcastle where we visited "Grott Guitars" and I became the proud owner of a Jedson Fretless, my first Bass guitar !!!

Only later did I realise that we'd turned down an early 60's (most likely pre CBS Jazz) for a hundred Quid !!

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Regrets.

Never ever having a lesson. Not that I've have paid attention.

Buying a mint, lightweight, 68 sunburst precision for £250 in 79. Sawing off all but the control bit of the torty scratchplate, spraying it unipart black.and then selling it for £200 in 83.

Giving up playing for 20 years!

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Started playing about six years ago.

I gave up in a strop in 1985 after being in gigging bands from the age of 15 to the age 22!

I had a pretty serious bike accident in 1996 and have a metal bar in my left forearm and a right wrist like a bag of gravel. Somebody suggested taking up the bass again would help me get more strength and movement back which it has in spades.
I'm now gigging regularly again in an originals band of born again musicians (not in the god sense) that I've been in for three years now. I'm enjoying it more now than ever. I've even had to sign an autograph or two :)

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