What was your very first bass?

[Scott Marlowe]

My first bass was a cheap chinese copy of a Fender JBass made in the 1970s. After that I proved I could play my step-dad took me shopping and I got the real thing. Still very much a JBass kind of guy to this day, though I've enjoyed playing other basses here and there. Current bass is a MiM fretless JBass.

[eggs]

Bumpity Bump... Let's talk about Thump

[ksdaddy]

In 1976 I stayed over at a friend's house. Upstairs in a corner was a 1956 Harmony archtop with grossly distorted top, and a bass with a snapped off headstock. I bought them both for $10 each. The bass turned out to be a walnut Gibson EB-2, probably around a '69. I'm pretty sure it had an orange oval label. The headstock was nowhere to be found. It hung around under my bed for a couple years, then I took the pickup out and tossed the body in the trash. Stupid, I know.

 

Next bass didn't happen until 1984. I wanted a bass so bad... I had been listening to ZZ Top's "Thug" and wanted that sound. I found a Kent P-Bass copy with 30" scale and loud 3 color sunburst at a pawn shop for $100. I traded an old Kay archtop, a silver ring, and (I think) $20 for it. It actually wasn't bad.

 

A few weeks after that, I was at a friend's house and discovered a 1973 Musicmaster bass in very light blue (turned green). It belonged to a friend of a friend who left it there a year ago or more. $70 later it was mine.

 

Thought I had the world by the nads, then one day I played a brand new MIJ Squier P-Bass in 34" scale. It was like going from Schroeder's toy piano to a grand. I didn't buy it but it fueled BAS for sure.

 

I could go on.

[MrNylon]

I was borrowing a no name bass from a friend in 1968. My first bass that I owned, was an EKO Viola in 1969. I played that for about six months until I saw a brand new 1969-1970 Gibson EB0 on the wall at a store I liked back then.

[BDuke]

Weeeellll I'm not sure this counts but in 1976 I was at a friend's house and there was a late 60s EB-2 leaning in the corner with NO headstock. I bought it for ten bucks.

 

Wish I had it now. I think I stripped the parts off and sold them over the years.

 

But after that I didn't get another bass until '84 when I got a $100 Kent POS, then a '73 Musicmaster for $70, then that began a long line of them. One of note was a Hofner Beatle Bass formerly owned by Marshall Crenshaw. My only current basses are a 1983 P-Bass and a 1940 Kay M-1 upright.

 

Squire VM Jazz bass. loved it but I'm a guitar player, it was too big. sold it and now i have a Squire VM Jaguar short scale.

[Jeffytune]

Well....I dug through all my family pictures, took me a while but here you go....

 

 

Big old large mouth.

[Grog]

I had a Kent or a Tiesco that I had paid $7.00 for, Then I bought a '67 EB-2 used in 1974. I still have it 44 years later............

 

[Marko Montana]

Good morning!

My first bass was a no name EB-0 copy, short scale, crappy pick ups, and dirt cheap.

Second was a blonde Pbass. Stolen after six months!

After a multi decade absence, bought an 05 Les Paul Special bass in flame red!

Gotta say, well worth the wait!

[Gaolee]

Bumpity Bump... Let's talk about Thump

OK! We can do that!

 

My first bass was a Vantage something or another. It was like dealing with a broomstick with a bowling ball tied to the wrong end. It was 100% awful to deal with. That didn't stop me from playing it for a year or so. Then I got a Danelectro/Coral Wasp that looked a bit like a Fender Jaguar, only with a mother of toilet seat pickguard and a row of switches that did nothing much. It was free with the purchase of a bass amp that I eventually sold for the same price. It sounded awful, but reshimming the neck with $0.08 of change made it sound pretty good. So, the Vantage was surplus and went to my brother. I didn't miss it a bit. I don't know what he did with it in the end. He was in hardcore punk bands, so I like to think it got broken into a zillion pieces on stage somewhere. That would be a good end for that piece of dead weight. The Dano eventually went to NYC with me, where some guy in a shop on St. Mark's place waved $300 under my nose for it. It was 1983 and that bass looked about as punk rock as you can get. St. Mark's was about as punk rock a place as you could get, so there was that. I had never seen that much money in one place, so I took it. Then I realized I had no bass. That was a sinking feeling. Some small amount of time later, I wandered into a shop in the west village and found an EB-2 for $350. I had $300. They argued with me a bit, and I went to walk away without it, which was apparently the right negotiating tactic. I got it for $300 including tax, no case, no garbage bag, nothing except my hot hands to protect it on the way uptown on the subway. So, I just carried it around for a number of years, then got it a gig bag. It lived in that for a couple decades until I figured out that it might be getting vintage, then I got it a case. I still have it. It was my first Gibson anything, and I'll be keeping it forever. Unlike the Vantage, which was bad enough that it should have convinced me to take up theremin or something.

[steve42]

My first bass was a used Dean Edge 1 4-string in Transparent Red. I played it for a little while but it began developing some neck twist. Around that time, I got a really low price on a used Epiphone EB-0 in Cherry. I played it while I decided what to do with the Dean neck, and a local guitar shop owner told me he would look at it. He was able to work it out with a series of adjustments. When I got the Dean back, it became my regular player and I took him the EB-0 to see if he could overcome the intonation issues that have plagued the Epiphone EB-0 models. Eventually, he got that set up as well, but I was never really able to adapt to the short scale, so it became wall art until my youngest son decided he wanted to use it to play Rocksmith. He's 13, so it's a good fit for him.

 

Recently, I had the opportunity to pick up an Epiphone Toby Deluxe-V in Vintage Sunburst. It's been a bit of a challenge adding the 5th string to my skill set, since I am still a novice player with not much time to practice, but it's a beautiful guitar and I love having that bottom end so it makes it fun to play. I also successfully set it up on my own and when the guitar shop owner looked at it, he made a slight intonation adjustment on one string and told me not to leave it because I had done everything else right.