Do you remember your first bass...

[Jimothey 1,302]

My Grandad bought me my first Bass it was either a Washburn XB100 or a XS-2 in bright red bought new in the mid 90’s I’ve been trying to remember over the last few years as I want to get one again for sentimental reasons...........😀

[mep 535]

Mine was an unnamed Gibson SG copy. I had it for a few years before selling it to a friend of my brother. I then bought a decent P Bass copy. Unfortunately I don't have either of them.

Edited April 11, 2020 by mep

[neepheid 59]

Epiphone EB-3.  Cherry red.  I sold it.  I don't miss it.  I didn't really know what I wanted from a bass at the time, I got it because it was kinda what Jack Bruce played.  Very kinda as it turns out.  Would be interesting to go back and see how it feels now that I know what's going on

On the plus side, it put me down the Gibson side of life rather than the Fender way and gave me a taste for crown inlays, flower pots and 2+2 headstock, so it wasn't all bad. 

Edited April 11, 2020 by neepheid

[Kiwi 1,276]

I had a Sierra Precision Bass - white with black pickguard.  Probably made in Japan but came with a plywood body.  I hated it.  This was a time when I lusted for anything with a bridge pickup.  I traded it for a Westone Spectrum II and hated that as well.  Then came back to the UK and worked my nads off for a Jaydee.

[pst62 176]

My first was a sunburst short scale Fender Mustang style thing by a company named Lynx. (tried to find a pic online, but no luck) it had a single classic chrome coated pickup and an action you could drive a bus under, any way I dropped it one day and two of the machine heads broke. It was then replaced by a Hondo II Precision (Fender head stock) from me mam's Grattan Catalogue. which had some extensive work done on it by then semi legendary luthier (creator of the flintlock Guitar) Jim Cairnes.

[ubit 2,251]

1 hour ago, pst62 said:

from me mam's Grattan Catalogue.

That's funny, I got my first bass, the Hondo 2 P bass from my mums Littlewoods catalogue

[la bam 850]

Mine was a Westone thunder.

I have a photo somewhere I could do with dragging it out to reminisce.

I also thought it said Thunder II on the headstock.

It was passive (not that I'd know any difference at the time) but I'm sure it had a cavity in the back for something?

I bought it from a local ish music shop. The owner was a character and when i took it to the til it had a tag on for £100. He explained he'd got stoned when pricing everything up and must have put the wrong label on as it should have been at least £200. But he just said 'ah well, you live and learn....' (which i dont think he did!) and sold it me for £100.

I quickly decided to get an amp as well. The worst thing ever. A Gorilla! I think it was the guitar version too! Oh, and a cable ..... the only type he had left - a bright fluorescent pink one!

The bass in retrospect was good, and easy to play and sounded good when recorded on the Tascam porta02 I had (remember those?!).

I traded the bass maybe 5 years later with a load of other stuff for next to nothing (probably £75) at a major music shop for a sunburst fender usa precision. In comparison the precision felt a hundred times wider and was really difficult to learn to play on. I did love it though. Played it for near 10 years, sold it for what I originally paid for it.

Edited April 11, 2020 by la bam

[gafbass02 256]

Mine was a metallic blue Kaman GTX 53 which I traded in for my 91, mij sonic blue 60s reissue jazz bass a few years later. I still have the fender, but the shop I traded with burnt down a few days later and that was that for the GTX  

not mine. But looked just like this. 

Edited April 12, 2020 by gafbass02

[Baxlin 900]

On 09/04/2020 at 23:09, Bilbo said:

Hondo II precision copy

 

That was my first bass, too, but in pearlised (?) white

[AndyTravis 6,680]

Kay Precision copy.

gift from my cousin’s fella who’d painted “Fender” on the headstock...

this was 1997

[Woodinblack 4,301]

Ibanez fireglow ric (bolt on) copy. Loved that bass, no idea what happened to it, I guess lost in moving somewhere, I really don't remember.

Would certainly have it back in a heartbeat.

[Aidan63 231]

On 09/08/2018 at 20:01, yorks5stringer said:

A Sunburst Gibson EB2 from 1962, acquired for £50 in 1976. Sold for £100 at one of the pre-cursers to cash converters in Leeds in the 80's, who always had some interesting basses in their packed  windows. Every lunchtime I'd walk around these shops and see what new stock they had.

Come to think of it got my JD Supernatural Roadie from one of them for £350 a few years later.

My first bass was also an EB2, a later one , iirc 1968, blonde, single neck pickup, heavy, high action, lousy intonation, shot electrics, an absolutely beautiful piece of furniture, but hard to play and so not the sound I was trying to make which was reggae played on a JB or PB; paid £150 for it ( roughly 7 weeks dole money back then), complete with similarly battered original case from a guy who worked with my mate at Windows in Newcastle in late 1985 and I swapped it three years later for an nice old cheap archtop guitar with a friend who really wanted it, when I left Newcastle. We lost touch about 15 years ago as I stopped going to London and he never leaves London except to go to see his family in Italy, I hope he still has it. The archtop got stood on by an idiot (me 🙄)

[la bam 850]

4 hours ago, la bam said:

Mine was a Westone thunder.

I have a photo somewhere I could do with dragging it out to reminisce.

I also thought it said Thunder II on the headstock.

It was passive (not that I'd know any difference at the time) but I'm sure it had a cavity in the back for something?

I bought it from a local ish music shop. The owner was a character and when i took it to the til it had a tag on for £100. He explained he'd got stoned when pricing everything up and must have put the wrong label on as it should have been at least £200. But he just said 'ah well, you live and learn....' (which i dont think he did!) and sold it me for £100.

I quickly decided to get an amp as well. The worst thing ever. A Gorilla! I think it was the guitar version too! Oh, and a cable ..... the only type he had left - a bright fluorescent pink one!

The bass in retrospect was good, and easy to play and sounded good when recorded on the Tascam porta02 I had (remember those?!).

I traded the bass maybe 5 years later with a load of other stuff for next to nothing (probably £75) at a major music shop for a sunburst fender usa precision. In comparison the precision felt a hundred times wider and was really difficult to learn to play on. I did love it though. Played it for near 10 years, sold it for what I originally paid for it.

Found a pic of it here.

It's a Thunder I. But it has 2 knobs and a switch? (I dont remember that?).

And the strap (which I didnt know) is the same I've had all these years. 1992 - 2020. I had no idea I'd kept it throughout!

 

[Stub Mandrel 8,918]

Hohner Jazz copy.

Gave it to my brother several years ago, he lent it to someone else, but it came home to him and I met up with it again last year.

It's actually very lovely to play, although I always found the natural wood body too beige.

[Normski 53]

6 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

Kay Precision copy.

gift from my cousin’s fella who’d painted “Fender” on the headstock...

this was 1997

You haven’t changed much Andy 😉🤣

[AndyTravis 6,680]

1 minute ago, Normski said:

You haven’t changed much Andy 😉🤣

haha. Er.

[Normski 53]

There’s some choice basses on this thread! Hell let me think...err it was a long time ago. I was lent a Vox & then a Burns but don’t ask me the model name. The first bass I actually owned was a early 70s Fender Mustang. It was beautiful. I wish I still had that bass! However etc etc. 🙄

[Normski 53]

6 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

haha. Er.

Haha 😂 like I said 😉

[PaulWarning 1,360]

mine was a Hondo too, I could flip it to a lefty without it being too obvious, could be a Matsumoto, still got it, a bit battered but I only paid £40 for it, I still reckon I can get nearer to the JJ Burnell sound than with my 'proper' precision.

[aguacollas 45]

Washburn xb400 Bantam, made in Korea. (Not the one in the pics)

Great bass, the pickups and electronics are a bit meh, but woods, construction, playability, and action are great. 
Bought in 1998 to play with my first band, covers of Faith no More, Led Zeppelin, Zappa... big fun though the guitar player had to tell me where to put my fingers 😄

I hadn’t  played it for years, I bought a Warwick Corvette in 2004 and put the Washburn in its bag and forget about it until last year a sax player friend of mine wanted to learn to play bass and borrowed it. I put new strings on it and played it a couple of hours and, now that I know what to expect from a bass and can compare it to Warwicks, Lakland, Ibanez, Precisions... it really surprised me how good it is. 
 

I’m saving to buy a MM pickup and a preamp, and probably a pickguard to cover the pickups routings and turn this bass into my Sterling/Stingray. I’m sure it will sound great. Maybe fretless, but I already have two, so probably just change the pickups and electronics and see what happens. 
 

(Pics are from Reverb, my actual bass looks just like this one)
 

[Reggaebass 4,154]

18 minutes ago, aguacollas said:

Washburn xb400 Bantam

What a great bass, imo Washburn are well underrated,  many years ago I bought a Washburn force 4 , the neck is superb and it has a fairly flat fretboard and a really low action, and in all these years I’ve never had to adjust it,  it’s also active and sounds great , I bought a jazz not long after and it went in it’s case for years, but I still have it 🙂

[aguacollas 45]

1 hour ago, Reggaebass said:

Wow, nice one. That fretboard looks amazing. 
The flat fretboard spoiled me a little. I feel really uncomfortable with low radius basses, which means I don’t have to worry about GAS with old Zenders. Also, it’s great to have 24 frets to start with. I was looking for the modern approach to the bass from the beginning, better ergonomics, no dead spots, great action, no hum...

4 or 5 years ago I had a “return to the origins” phase, and bought two passive basses, one P and a PJ eighties basses, japanese and both great (as you would expect from Matsumoko and Fujigen factories). But playing those basses, as well as many other classic ones made me realise how much these modern basses improved the original designs in many ways. Tone apart, of course. Tone is a personal quest and I finally understood all the great things about passive pickups. 

Thanks to that I feel comfortable with active modern basses as well as with passive basses, and I like to have all those options and sounds at my disposal when I fancy. 
 

And it all began with a korean Washburn bass. Yeah, I really like those basses. 

[rasher80 87]

I was lucky in the sense that I'd played gu*tar for a few years before I switched to bass so I knew what brands and models would suit the sound I wanted.

I'd been noodling away merrily on a borrowed right-handed Tanglewood Warrior, until a call some time later from the borrowing friend that we were both auditioning for the role of guitarist and bassist in a new band the following week!

Not wanting to look rubbish, I rushed out to Dawson's in Manchester with everything crossed and managed to pick up a new Squier P Special for around £230.

It served me well throughout the first years of the band, and even when I upgraded to a CIJ P it dutifully remained as backup and my at-home bass.

Stupidly I got rid of it when the band folded for a G&L which I couldn't get on with and I severely regret it.  It had everything I wanted; P sound, J neck. The only thing I didn't love was the colour... Antique Burst 

If it had been black or white I'd have kept it.

 

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by rasher80

[Maude 5,192]

I'll add a little update to this thread. My first bass, as mentioned earlier, was a no name SG type affair, absolutely awful and ended life being set fire to. 

Fast forward thirty years to today and I've just finished restoring it's Les Paul shaped brother. In a moment of madness I bought a Kay KJP 1B and realised the SG I had was a Kay as well, identical  (terrible) build quality and features. 

So my first and last bass, at the moment, was/is a Kay. I worry for my sanity at times. 😄

[BlueMoon 235]

My first bass was a Columbus Jazz jap copy purchased new in 1971.......according to my Dad "to see if you get the hang of a  "plink-plonk" sounding instrument. I traded it in against a 1964 Burns Jazz a couple of years later, which I still have.